24. Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Four
Tate
The bus smells like stale coffee and sweat.
Someone’s blasting music in the back. Someone else is arguing about ice time. It’s loud. Normal.
And I feel like I’m underwater.
I haven’t stopped replaying it.
I can’t do this anymore.
Her voice wasn’t angry.
That’s what keeps getting me.
If she had yelled, I could’ve fought her.
If she had accused me of something, I could’ve defended myself.
But she didn’t.
She sounded… resolved.
Like she’d already grieved it.
Like I was the last one to know.
I rest my head against the cool glass of the bus window and watch the city of Boston slowly disappear behind us.
The familiar rows of old brick buildings blur together as we pull farther away, their red and brown edges melting into the dull gray of the winter sky.
Traffic lights glow faintly through the drizzle, and pedestrians hurry along the sidewalks with their collars pulled up against the wind.
It’s a city that usually feels loud and alive, but from the bus window, it looks distant, muted, like I’m already halfway somewhere else.
I shift in my seat and press my phone against my thigh, feeling the solid weight of it through my sweats. My thumb hovers over the screen before I even realize what I’m doing.
No text.
Not that I expected one.
But still.
My chest tightens with that quiet kind of disappointment that sneaks up on you when you know better, but hope anyway. I flip the phone over so the screen faces down on my leg, like maybe that’ll stop me from checking it again in two minutes.
By the time we get to the arena, the air inside feels colder than usual. The kind of cold that seeps into your bones before you even step onto the ice. Or maybe it’s just me. Maybe everything feels sharper tonight: the lights, the noise, the pressure sitting heavy in my chest.
The smell of sharpened steel and fresh ice hits as soon as I walk into the locker room. Guys are already moving around, tape ripping, sticks clattering against the floor. Normally, the routine settles me.
Tonight, it just feels louder.
Coach passes behind me and claps a heavy hand on my shoulder pad.
“Need you sharp tonight.”
I nod automatically, forcing my mouth into something that resembles confidence.
Sharp.
Right.
I sit down at my stall and start lacing up my skates, taking my time threading the laces through each eyelet.
My hands are steady— steady enough that no one would notice anything off, but inside my chest, everything feels tangled and tight.
Like my heart hasn’t quite figured out what pace it’s supposed to beat at.
When we skate out for warmups, the arena lights feel blinding for a second. The ice glows under them, smooth and perfect, and the crowd is already filtering into their seats with the familiar hum of pregame chatter.
And without meaning to, without even thinking about it I look for her.
My eyes drift to the same spot they always do.
Even at an away game.
Section 112.
Third row.
The habit is so automatic that it almost makes me laugh. We’re at an away game, but somewhere in my head, I still think she and little man will be there.
For months now, she’s been there, bundled up in whatever oversized sweatshirt she stole from me, leaning forward over the railing, like she’s trying to will the puck into the net herself.
My chest tightens when the seat comes into focus.
Empty.
Of course it is.
Stupid.
She knew I’d be gone this weekend.
Still, the sight of the empty rows makes something hollow settle in my stomach. I shove the feeling down and push off harder, skating a tight loop around center ice.
I step onto the ice for the game and let the cold swallow me whole.
That’s the thing about hockey.
It demands everything from you.
Your focus. Your body. Every split-second decision.
There’s no room for heartbreak when a two-hundred-pound defenseman is barreling toward you at full speed.
So I skate.
I drive my edges into the ice and chase the puck like it’s the only thing in the world that matters.
I hit.
Shoulder into chest. Boards rattling. The sharp crack of contact echoing through the arena.
I score.
The play happens fast, tape-to-tape pass, a quick pull to the left, the goalie shifting just a little too slow. I snap the puck off my stick and watch it rocket into the top corner of the net.
The red light flashes.
The crowd erupts, the roar crashing over the ice like a wave.
My teammates slam into me against the boards, helmets knocking into mine as they shout and laugh. Gloves pound against my shoulders and back.
For a second, I let myself grin.
Then my head lifts automatically, eyes searching the stands before I can stop myself.
Section 112.
Third row.
Empty.
The hollowness creeps back in immediately, quiet and unwelcome.
The rest of the game blurs together after that with shifts, whistles, and the constant scrape of blades carving into the ice.
We win.
The guys are loud in the locker room afterward, music blasting now, someone popping open a bottle of something cheap they definitely shouldn’t have brought on the road trip. Laughter bounces off the tiled walls as jerseys get tossed into laundry bins.
I should feel something.
Pride. Relief. Adrenaline.
Instead, I sit at my stall with my elbows on my knees, staring down at my phone resting in my palm.
The screen lights up when I tap it.
One missed call from my mom.
A text from Parker:
You good?
He’s sitting four people down from me, and as if he can feel my stare, he looks up, and I just shake my head no.
Instead, I scroll through my contacts until I find her name.
Celeste.
The letters sit there on the screen like they weigh something. Like pressing them means more than it should.
My thumb hovers over the button, hesitating.
She told me to focus on my future.
Her voice echoes in my head, steady and calm, the way she said it, like she was trying to convince herself as much as me.
Fine.
But she didn’t tell me to disappear.
The thought settles in my chest, stubborn and quiet. Before I can overthink it, I tap the screen.
FaceTime.
The phone rings once.
Twice.
Three times.
Longer than usual. Long enough that I start to think maybe she saw my name pop up and decided not to answer. Long enough that my stomach twists with the familiar sting of regret.
The screen shifts.
Rowen’s face fills the camera.
“TATE!”
His voice explodes through the speaker like pure sunshine, and he leans so close to the phone that all I can see is his crooked grin and the freckles on the bridge of his nose.
I notice right away that something’s different.
His grin is missing a tooth now.
The gap makes his smile look even bigger, and I realize with a small pang that I notice things like that. Tiny changes. The kind you only pick up when someone matters to you.
“Hey, little man,” I say, forcing a smile that hopefully looks more convincing than it feels. “You watch the game?”
“You scored!” he shouts immediately, bouncing a little, like he physically can’t contain the excitement.
“Yeah?” I lean back against the bench, trying to play it cool. “You see that?”
“Mommy yelled really loud.”
My chest tightens.
So she watched.
Even if she didn’t text.
Even if she didn’t call.
She watched.
“Good,” I say softly, the word coming out quieter than I meant it to.
Rowen squints at the screen, studying me in that intense way kids do when they’re trying to solve a puzzle.
“Why you look sad?”
I huff out a breath.
Kids are brutal.
“I’m not sad,” I tell him.
He tilts his head to the side, the gap in his smile showing again as he frowns thoughtfully.
“You are.”
Behind him, I catch a glimpse of Celeste’s kitchen. The familiar pale cabinets. The fridge covered in magnets and drawings Rowen probably made. A dish towel thrown over the oven handle.
But she doesn’t step into frame.
“She’s making mac and cheese,” Rowen announces loudly, like he’s giving a full house update.
I raise an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
“She burned it.”
The image hits me instantly, Celeste standing over the stove, distracted, probably stirring the noodles too late because she’s thinking about a hundred other things.
I almost laugh.
Almost.
“You gonna come over tomorrow?” Rowen asks suddenly.
And there it is.
The question I don’t know how to answer.
The simple, hopeful question that carries way more weight than he understands.
“I’ve got practice,” I say carefully, choosing every word like it matters. “But I’ll call again.”
He nods slowly, accepting that answer in the easy way kids do, even if it’s not exactly what they wanted.
“Mommy’s sad too.”
The words hit harder than any check I took on the ice tonight.
My stomach drops.
“What do you mean?” I ask, my voice quieter now.
“She cried in her room.”
For a second, everything in my chest locks up.
I close my eyes briefly.
Don’t.
Don’t picture that.
Don’t imagine her sitting on the edge of her bed with her shoulders shaking, wiping tears off her cheeks when she thinks no one’s looking.
“She’s okay,” I say quietly after a moment, forcing my voice to stay steady. “Sometimes grown-ups just… feel stuff.”
Rowen considers that, like it’s a complicated piece of information that he’s filing away.
Then he looks back at the screen.
“You still my best friend?”
My throat closes so fast it almost hurts.
“Always,” I manage.
And I mean that.
No matter what Celeste thinks she’s protecting him from. No matter what distance she tries to put between us.
“I gotta go,” he says suddenly, like he just remembered something important. “Mommy says bedtime.”
The screen shifts as he moves the phone, the camera tilting toward the kitchen.
For a second…
Just a second…
I see her.
Celeste stands near the counter, one hand resting against the edge, like she’s bracing herself. Her hair is pulled back in a messy bun, a few loose strands falling around her face.
She looks tired.
Her eyes are red.
Rowen wasn’t exaggerating.
She sees me on the screen at the same moment I see her.
Neither of us says anything.
The silence stretches between us, thick and fragile.
Then the call ends.