Chapter Seventeen
The Guilty One
Ariana
Three knocks on the window next to our table made us scream.
I was out to dinner with my boss and two of my coworkers, celebrating a successful holiday fundraiser event for the family services nonprofit I’d been working with for a little over a year.
I had childcare for Georgie for the evening, a rare occurrence, and was excited to have a glass of wine and eat as much pasta as I could without feeling sick.
But one glance at the man outside the window, and it was a futile hope.
I was sick instantly.
Shane McCabe stood on the other side of that glass, snow falling down around him and sticking to the brown beanie and dark green parka he wore over his hoodie.
The six years that had passed since I’d last seen him were evident in his every feature, from the scruff lining his square jaw to the angular shape of his face.
Gone was the softness of the young Shane I’d fallen in love with.
He was all sharp angles now, from his jaw to the bones over his eyes.
Those eyes were somehow the same and so different I hardly recognized them. They were still that sharp blue-gray, as striking as ever — but they were haunted now, adding to the eerie image of him standing in front of me after all this time.
He truly was like a ghost, so much so that I blinked several times to be sure it wasn’t my brain playing tricks on me.
His mouth was slightly open, his brows raised in surprise, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing, either.
Once my own shock settled, I realized he was slumped, that tiredness in his eyes evident in the lines of his face and the sad way in which he carried himself.
And that’s when I saw what I hadn’t before.
He was on crutches.
“Do you know this man?” my boss asked, one hand pressed to her chest like she was steadying her pulse. She was smiling a little now that we all knew there was no evident threat, but a strange man staring at us wasn’t exactly comforting, either.
“I did once,” I answered.
I apologized, excusing myself from the table and asking the hostess for my coat before I shrugged it on along with my hat and scarf. Then, I braved the winter cold.
The snow was falling harder now, softening the noise of the city. Shane stood against the brick, away from the window, the glow from Christmas lights painting a serene image for what felt like an impending car crash in my mind.
I stopped a few feet away from him, hands buried in the pockets of my coat.
For a long moment, we just stared at one another. The disbelief had passed, but neither of us knew what to say.
My body’s natural impulse was to break down.
I felt it in the sting of my nose, the prickling behind my eyes.
I wanted to cry. I wanted to run to him.
I wanted to hug him and be held and kiss him stupid and thank the universe for bringing us together again.
I wanted to hit him and scream and look him right in the eyes when I said he’s dead to me and has been for years, that I never want to see him again, that I’m better without him.
I stood frozen to the spot, instead.
“I can’t believe I found you,” he finally whispered, the words puffing out in a white cloud as his eyes searched the entire length of me like I was a mirage.
“Because I’m sure you looked so hard,” I deadpanned.
Atta girl.
Be cold. Ice him out. He left you. He doesn’t get your smiles and “so great to see you” now.
Shane frowned, wincing a little as he pushed off the wall and hobbled closer to me on his crutches. “I did. I—”
“Why are you here?” I asked, cutting him off. Again, I found a mixture of pride and sickness swirling in my gut for my ability to act so unaffected by him.
“By chance,” he answered in a puff of a laugh. “I was just needing some fresh air and then I looked in the window and saw—”
“I mean in Boston,” I rephrased. “Long way to be from Jacksonville in the middle of the season, isn’t it?”
He swallowed, his jaw hardening. “Not exactly in playing shape, am I?”
My gaze flicked down to the bulky, square outline beneath his joggers — a knee brace, I guessed.
“What happened?” I tried to aim for apathetic again, but the words came out breathless.
“Shattered my hip. Tore my ACL. Ended my career.”
The last three words had my eyes snapping to his.
I’d followed him for the first two years of his professional career.
Even when it hurt, I couldn’t help myself.
I watched every game, every interview. I tracked his stats.
It wasn’t until a night that I drank myself into oblivion crying over him that I realized I was only torturing myself.
I stopped cold turkey. I hadn’t watched a game since.
I’d done everything I could to avoid anything hockey related, in fact, which had been easy enough to do with my own career aspirations.
So I had no idea he’d been hurt.
I felt sick again.
Shane just shrugged, as if it didn’t bother him, as if that wouldn’t be the worst possible thing that could ever happen to him — to lose hockey forever.
“The team sent me here for my second and third surgeries. There’s a surgeon here, Doctor Rovelli, who specializes in catastrophic hip reconstructions and has worked with a lot of Olympians and players from the NHL.
” He shrugged again. “Not that I’ll play again.
But I guess the team doesn’t want me crippled for life, so that’s nice. ”
I didn’t want to show him any amount of sympathy, but it was impossible not to. My heart broke for him, for the boy I once knew and the man I knew nothing of now.
“I’m sorry,” I said simply. I didn’t trust myself to say more.
He nodded, his Adam’s apple bobbing hard in his throat. “It’s me who’s the sorry one, Ari.”
I let my gaze fall to the snow covering the sidewalk between us.
People walked by, muttering excuse me or so caught up in their conversation and laughter that they didn’t notice us at all.
Sometimes they brushed our shoulders or stepped over Shane’s crutch at the last moment.
All of them were oblivious to the two strangers they passed, how our world had halted to a stop on this cold December night.
“You look good,” Shane said. “Happy.”
“I’m trying to be.”
He nodded again. “I want to ask you so many things.”
“Why?” I snapped. “Because we’re such good friends? Are we supposed to just hug and catch up like I wasn’t hysterically crying and begging you not to leave me the last time we were together?”
His nostrils flared, eyes glossing. “I didn’t want to leave.”
“Could have fooled me.”
“I thought I was doing the right thing.”
I scoffed. Because him standing here now — injured, sidelined, his future suddenly uncertain — it was impossible not to notice the timing. Hockey had been taken from him, and only then had he come looking for me.
And maybe that wasn’t fair of me. Maybe grief was warping everything.
But I couldn’t shake the truth burning in my chest: if hockey were still an option, he wouldn’t be standing here.
“You were choosing hockey over me,” I corrected him. “You still would be, if you had the chance.”
“That’s not—”
“Fair?” I laughed, releasing a puff of white breath into the night. “Yeah, well, if I’ve learned anything in my life, it’s that nothing is fair.” I pulled my scarf up against the wind. “I should get back inside to my friends.”
I turned to the sound of crutches scraping the sidewalk, and then a hand found my elbow, pulling me to a stop.
“Wait.”
I didn’t shrug him off, afraid I might cause him to fall. And maybe for a moment, I wanted to let myself feel him again — his warmth, his scent, the safety and comfort I once found in him.
My eyes trailed up from where he gripped my arm to where his eyes were watching me.
“I don’t deserve it, Ariana, but I’m going to ask for it, anyway.
Please, forgive me.” His voice broke a little, and he sniffed, straightening as much as he could.
“I was young. I was fucking stupid. I thought I was protecting you. I thought…” One of his crutches slipped an inch on the wet sidewalk, and he caught himself with a wince before he continued.
“I know none of it matters now. I know we’re in the past and you’re happy and you’ve moved on, and I want that.
I do. I want your happiness. But I also need your forgiveness.
” He swallowed. “Please. Please, Ari, forgive me.”
I didn’t realize I was crying until the first tear slid down my cheek. It was so cold it stuck to my jaw, never falling to the ground, but instead marring my face like a tattoo.
“I forgive you for leaving,” I said, my voice stronger than I felt. “But I’ll never forgive you for staying gone.”
The impact was immediate.
His shoulders slumped, like I’d knocked the last bit of air from his lungs.
His grip loosened, his hand falling away from my arm as if he’d forgotten it was there.
For a second, he just stood there, glassy-eyed and stunned, staring at me like he’d finally understood it was too late to fix what happened between us, too late to right his wrongs.
I left him standing there in the snow, retreating back into the restaurant and pretending I was fine when I rejoined my colleagues. I drank my wine. I ate my pasta. I convinced myself I was proud of my response.
But I cried until I couldn’t breathe that night, curled into a ball and clutching my pillow like it was Shane.
I knew I’d never see him again, that those would be the final words between us.
I had been strong. I had defended my heart. I had denied the man who hurt me the privilege of forgiveness.
But alone in my bed, I only wished I’d been weak. I wished he were here with me now, holding me, kissing me, telling me he’d never leave again.
I’d lost him for a second time.
And I was the guilty one now.