49
Nate
Practice is supposed to be the one place where the world stops grinding against you.
That’s the unspoken contract of the rink.
You step onto the ice, the temperature drops, and the only thing that matters is the friction of your blades and the weight of the puck.
It’s supposed to be a vacuum. All the noise in your head, the girl currently living under your ribs, the persistent, nagging ache of wanting to text her and knowing you’re the one who drew the line—all of it is supposed to shut up.
Hockey is a game of simple physics. Puck. Stick. Net. Body. Ice. Move your feet, make the pass, finish the play. Do your job.
That’s what I tell myself as I skate a lap around the Northwood crest during Monday afternoon’s practice.
The air is sharp and tastes like ozone, and the rhythmic *shick-shick* of my skates is the only thing I want to hear.
But then Carter taps his stick against my shin pad, giving me a look that suggests he can hear my brain rattling around inside my helmet like a loose bolt.
“You good, Wilder?” he asks, coasting beside me.
I don't look at him. “Fine.”
“Wow. Truly terrible.”
“What?”
“That was the least believable ‘fine’ I’ve heard in twenty years of knowing you. I keep a ranked list, Nate. That one’s top five.”
“Practice, Carter,” I growl, pushing off to pick up speed.
“That’s what I’m trying to do,” he says, effortless as he keeps pace. “But I’m also trying to emotionally audit you before we start drills. It’s for the good of the team.”
“You text her?” he drops his voice, the teasing edge vanishing.
No. That’s the problem. I didn’t text Hannah.
Not last night after she left my apartment looking shattered.
Not this morning when I woke up and reached for my phone before I was even fully conscious.
Not after breakfast, or before class, or after class.
And especially not when I saw her on campus an hour ago, walking with Ethan, his hand wrapped around hers like he owned the sidewalk.
I’d given her a nod. A polite, controlled, "we go to the same school" nod. It was the responsible thing. It was exactly what I’d promised her—space. And it felt like swallowing a handful of rusted nails.
“No,” I say, my jaw tight enough to crack.
Carter watches me, his eyes searching. “She looked hurt, Nate.”
I know. I saw it. For one devastating second when our eyes met, Hannah’s face did this thing—a tiny flicker of a crack in that careful, ‘I’m-doing-great’ expression she wears.
I’d looked away first because if I hadn't, I would’ve stopped.
And if I’d stopped, I would have become exactly what I told her I couldn't be: the guy standing in the doorway, hoping Ethan fails just so I can feel less wrong for wanting her.
“She’s fine,” I snap.
Carter’s brows lift. “I know,” I growl before he can say it. “Bad word.”
Coach’s whistle cuts through the rink like a blade. “Lines! Let’s move!”
We line up for rush drills. Usually, this is where I excel—the speed, the read, the execution. I take a crisp pass from Brooks and cut through the neutral zone, carrying wide along the boards. I see the lane open up. I see Carter cutting middle. It’s a simple feed.
I wait half a second too long. The lane vanishes. The puck gets poked off my stick, and the play dies in a mess of tangled skates.
Coach’s whistle blasts. “Again!”
I circle back, my heart hammering against my ribs for all the wrong reasons. I grab another puck and go. I move faster this time—too fast. I beat the first defender but overskate the puck on the turn, leaving it dead in the slot for Mason to chase into the corner.
“Wilder!” Coach’s voice cracks across the ice, echoing off the rafters.
I ignore the heat crawling up my neck and skate back to the line. Carter glides beside me. “Hey. Stop saying you’re good. Your head is in a blender.”
The next rep is worse. I force a shot I should have passed, hitting the goalie square in the chest. An easy save. Coach doesn't yell that time. He just stands by the boards, arms crossed, watching me with a flat, clinical expression that makes my stomach turn.
We shift into battle drills. I love the physical stuff—the grind, the puck protection, the leverage.
But today, I’m half a second late to everything.
Half a second late with my stick, half a second late with my hips.
In hockey, half a second is the difference between a play and a turnover.
Mason actually pins me against the boards, digging the puck out from under my skate.
Mason. I let Mason win a wall battle against me. He looks as shocked as I feel. “Uh... thanks, Nate?”
“Shut up,” I mutter, shoving away.
Then the whistle screams again. But it’s not a drill whistle. It’s a wrath whistle. The rink goes dead quiet.
“Wilder,” Coach calls, his voice dangerously low.
I skate toward him, feeling every eye in the building on my back. Coach stands near the blue line, his jaw set in a hard, unforgiving line. “What the hell is this, Nate?”
“Bad rep, sir.”
“Bad practice. I told you—no more shit.”
The words hit like a cross-check to the throat. He’s right. After last season, Coach made it clear: no distractions, no sloppy hockey, no letting my personal life bleed onto his ice. And here I am, bleeding everywhere.
“You think I don’t see it?” Coach steps closer. “You think because you aren't running your mouth, I can’t tell you aren't here? Where the hell are you?”
*Hannah’s room. My apartment. The quad.*
“I’m here,” I lie.
Coach’s laugh is sharp and joyless. “You’re late on reads. You lost a wall battle to Monroe. You want to play like this Friday?”
“No, sir.”
“Good. Because you won’t. Figure out whatever you need to figure out, Wilder. But until you do, when you're on this ice, be here. Or don’t bother coming out of the tunnel.”
I skate toward the locker room after the final whistle, my gear feeling like it weighs a thousand pounds. The silence of the locker room is a physical pressure. Everyone is trying not to look at me as they yank off their skates.
Carter sits beside me at my stall. He doesn't say anything at first, which is how I know the situation is catastrophic.
“Go ahead,” I say, pulling at my laces. “Say it.”
“You had a Hannah practice,” he says, his voice quiet. “You saw her with Cross, and you did your polite nod of emotional self-immolation.”
“I was giving her space.”
“You were acting like a stranger, Nate. That’s not space. That’s punishment.”
I look at him, my vision blurring with frustration. “I’m not punishing her. I’m trying to stay out of the way. She came to me after freezing with him, Carter. She wanted me to tell her what it meant. And I can’t... I can’t keep being the emergency exit.”
Carter nods slowly. “That part makes sense. But vanishing in public doesn't. You don’t have to chase her, but you also don’t have to act like you don’t know her name.”
I drop my head into my hands, my hair damp and cold. “I was trying to make it easier. If I acted distant enough, maybe the wanting would have nowhere to go.”
“It didn't work, did it?”
“No. It hurt worse.”
Carter claps my shoulder once, firm. “Text her. Not the ‘I miss you’ variety. Just... normal. Stop acting like silence is the only ethical way to speak.”
I sit in my truck in the parking lot for ten minutes after my shower, the heater blowing against my face. I open her thread. I want to tell her I hated seeing him hold her hand. I want to tell her I’m sorry I was a coward in the quad.
Finally, I type: *Sorry if I made things weird on campus today. I’m trying to give you space, not make you feel like a stranger.*
I send it before I can talk myself out of it. It buzzes two minutes later.
**Hannah:** *Thank you for saying that. It did feel weird.*
**Nate:** *I know. I’m sorry.*
**Hannah:** *I know why you did it.*
**Nate:** *Doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt.*
**Hannah:** *Yeah. It did.*
**Hannah:** *I don't want us to be strangers.*
My chest pulls tight, a localized ache that makes it hard to breathe.
**Nate:** *We’re not.*
I sit there until the screen of my phone dims. Nothing is fixed. She’s still with Ethan. I still want her so much it’s starting to rot my game. But for the first time since that nod, the distance between us doesn't feel like a wall. It feels like a door that’s closed, but not locked.
I can live with a door. I just can’t live with the silence.