Chapter 22 Let It Happen
Let It Happen
Liam
The phone buzzed on the counter just as I finished rinsing my mug. Megan.
Hey—I’m in town. Sorry for the last-minute text.
I stared at the screen, thumb hovering, jaw tight. Didn’t reply.
The three dots pulsed like she was standing across the room, waiting for me to say something.
Can you do late lunch? Early dinner? Just had something cancel.
I leaned back against the counter, arms folded. There’d been months, years, when I told myself the timing was bad. Too close to playoffs, too much noise in my head, too much risk of prying open doors I’d nailed shut.
The dots came back.
I know it’s a long shot with such short notice.
Oh, and the fact you always seem busy when I’m in town…
I could almost hear her saying it, the smile in her voice, the not-entirely-joking sting.
I pictured her in that booth at Café Bellini, the same one she and Nora always claimed on Sundays. Two mugs between them, heads tilted together over some private joke, both of them turning on me with identical smirks if I tried to interrupt.
Megan wasn’t just Nora’s best friend. She’d been her echo, her partner in crime. The thought of sitting across from her was… well. It wasn’t nothing.
I stared at the message, then closed my eyes briefly.
She wasn’t wrong. I did always make excuses.
Today… I didn’t want to. Before I could talk myself out of it, I typed,
Four works.
and hit send.
The wind was colder than I’d expected when I stepped out of the café two hours later. It hit me head-on, sharp enough to keep me from sinking too deep into what we’d just talked about.
My ears were burning and my cheeks were stinging. I welcomed the sting. I shoved my hands deep into my coat pockets, head down, letting the walk back stretch long enough to sort the mess in my chest.
Lunch, dinner—whatever we’d just had hadn’t been heavy, at first. Megan asked about hockey, about my apartment, about the bakery down the block with the line out the door, even in the cold.
But then it came. The subject I’d been avoiding for a decade, though if I was honest, something in me had been waiting for it.
She’d looked straight at me and said, “You know she’d want you to be happy, right? Not… half-alive.”
I’d felt it in my sternum. Not a blow, more like someone pressing a thumb to a bruise that had never really faded.
Half-alive. Maybe she was right.
I know she's right.
I paused at the crosswalk, the red hand blinking. A couple brushed past me, her arm looped through his. Megan had been careful, gentle, but she still managed to say what no one else had since the funeral. That it was okay to stop living like every step forward was a betrayal.
The light changed. I crossed slow, shoulders hunched against the wind, replaying the way she’d reached across the table and covered my hand with hers. Not romantic. “You just have to let it happen,” she said.
It’s been so easy with Claire.
Easier than I expected. I caught the thought and shoved it aside. By the time I reached my building, I could still feel the ghost of Megan’s hand.
Inside, I let my coat slide off my shoulders, hung on the hook by the door, and sank onto the couch. Elbows on my knees, head tipped forward. The apartment was quiet, the kind of quiet that usually slowed the noise in my head.
Not tonight. Tonight, it pressed in, the way empty seats do in an arena after everyone’s gone home.
She’d meant well, she always did. But her words shifted a piece I’d wedged into place a decade ago. And now all I could see was the space where Nora’s life should’ve kept going, and mine, dimmed to half-volume to honor her.
Maybe Megan was right. Maybe that wasn’t what she’d want for me.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
Half-volume’s all I know. Do I even know how to turn up the volume?
I dropped my head into my hands, palms pressing into my temples, fingers hooked over the top like they could hold everything in place.
I knew what to do. Same thing I’d done a thousand nights before a game.
Sit. Breathe. Reset.
On the couch, I planted both feet flat, spine against the cushions. Inhale four, hold, exhale six. Inhale four, hold, exhale six. Again. My pulse slowed, matching the rhythm.
Picture the crease.
White ice. Red posts. No fans, no noise. Just me and the puck. Track it, see it, hold steady.
The pressure in my chest eased some. The noise in my head thinned to a low hum.
No voices, no words that weren’t mine. Just the ice. Just me.
Just maybe, sleep would come.
The first breath outside sliced through the fog I’d woken up with. By the time I hit the sidewalk, heading towards practice, I’d shoved last night as far back as it would go, letting the cold and the rhythm of my steps pull me back into hockey mode.
I pushed through the arena doors, the hum of the compressors in the rink pulling me the rest of the way awake. The air inside carried the smell of ice and rubber, the scrape of a skate somewhere out of sight.
Through the glass, the rink stretched out in clean, perfect lines, waiting. A few guys were already out there, sticks tapping, voices carrying in bursts of chirping and laughter.
These guys blocked lanes, cleared rebounds, took hits. Every guy earned his ice, even the ones who made me crazy.
I caught Chappy at the boards and gave a quick fist bump through the glass. Already on the ice, he was backup in title only. Some guys wait for their shot, he chased it every morning.
Coach was already parked at center ice, resting his gloves on the top of his stick, wearing the kind of grin that meant trouble. “Hope you got your beauty sleep, Callahan. You’re gonna need it."
From the bench, Ryder called, “We’re under strict orders to make your life miserable today. Nothing personal.”
“Yeah, right,” I muttered, tugging my gloves on, but the corner of my mouth pulled up anyway.
“Coach wants us firing wrist shots like Dekker,” Mac added, tapping the blade of his stick against the ice. “Quick release, no tell. You know, your favorite.”
Dekker’s wrist shot was lethal, quick release, no tell. Worse, his line were pros at screening. Double threat.
“Guess I should’ve carb-loaded,” I said, stepping into the crease.
“Don’t worry, we’ll go easy,” Ryder shot back. Then he smirked, “For about thirty seconds.”
The puck dropped into play, and the first shot whistled past my ear before I’d even set my feet.
I regrouped, dropped into my stance, knees loose, stick flat, trying to settle into the crease. But the next few pucks felt like they had magnets for the wrong side of my pads. Shots I should’ve eaten for breakfast skipped off me, rebounds clattering into the slot.
Read through the fog.
“Callahan, wake up back there,” one of the guys barked, as he chased down the loose puck.
I flexed my glove, rolled my shoulders, forced a deep breath. I was having as much trouble clearing the static from my head as I was clearing the puck from the crease.
Another shot came in low, stick-side. I dropped early, kicked it out too far. Swore under my breath.
“Rough night, Callahan?” someone chirped. Laughter rippled, not cruel, just boys being boys.
I gave them the lazy glove wave, like yeah, yeah, get your laughs in.
Just let it happen.
Mac lined up at the blue line, eyes cutting to me like he smelled blood. “Let’s test him, boys.”
I tracked it, body snapping to the right, glove flashing out. Caught clean. Felt good. Solid.
“Better,” Coach called.
Yeah. Better. The noise was still there. Not a distraction. A signal?
I slammed my stick against each post. Enough screwing around.
“Stay locked in,” I muttered into my mask.
Next rush, I was there before the shot left the stick. Pads sealed, rebound kicked wide. A couple more stops came fast. My edges dug deeper, body snapping into saves.
The guys hooted, Ryder thumping me on the helmet as he skated past.
Next rep, I tracked the puck clean through traffic, glove snapping it out of the air. Mac’s chirp died halfway out of his mouth. I tossed him the puck. “Here, try again. Maybe aim for the net this time, not my glove.”
A couple guys tapped their sticks. “Atta boy, Cal.”
The rhythm snapped back into place. Feet silent, eyes locked in, every rebound mine. The chaos in my head gave way to the order of the crease. Whatever had been rattling around up there had helped me turn up my focus.
I came in from practice still carrying the weight of the early drills. The start had been rough, sloppy reads, too many rebounds, but it had sharpened as the skate went on. Better footing, cleaner angles. Not good enough, though. Never good enough.
I had time before dinner to look at the practice film. I went into the office and hooked my laptop into the screen, settled on the couch, and let the footage roll.
There I was, blown up in brutal detail. Every move, every twitch of hesitation, the camera didn’t let anything slide. I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, remote in hand. Rewound. Watched again. A glove save that should’ve been smoother. A rebound I chased too late.
The glow of the screen lit the room harsh and white, and I kept replaying the same thirty seconds, jaw tight, shoulders locked. Practice had ended hours ago, but I was still in it, frame by frame.
I clicked the screen dark and leaned back, letting the silence swallow the room. Still picturing the drills in my head and what I needed to work on.
That’s when I saw something in the printer tray on the side table. I almost ignored it, but something in the way the paper sat half-askew made me push up from the couch.
I tugged it free. Not junk.
A list. Apartment addresses, square footage, rent, everything color coded.
My throat went dry.
She hadn’t said a word. Not about looking. Not about leaving.
The pages blurred for a second before I tightened my grip, forced the words into focus. Midtown. Upper West. One even near the arena. She wasn’t just browsing. She had options, plans.
My stomach dropped, the floor tilting under me.
It was too familiar. The suddenness. The blindsiding. One day, Nora had been here. And then she wasn’t. A car, a call, a funeral. No warning. Just gone.
My breath hitched, sharp and shallow.
This isn’t the same.
Why can’t I convince my body it’s not the same? My chest seized like it had a decade ago.
I pressed the heel of my hand against my sternum, but it did nothing. The paper crinkled in my other fist, edges cutting into my skin.
She was already halfway out the door. I hadn’t even seen it coming.
I shoved the page back into the tray like it burned, backed away a step, then two. My jaw locked tight, the air in the room heavy and thin all at once.
Dinner didn’t matter anymore. Neither did film.
I needed distance. Walls. Anything between me and the possibility of watching another person walk away without warning.