48. Jamie
Jamie
This is it.
My last game as a Knight.
Crouching down, I come face to face with Kingston, like I have countless times before. Only this time, he doesn’t have a smartass comment to make.
These thirty seconds might be the tensest of my life as I hold his stare and wait for the puck to drop. Neither of us blinks, but I don’t let him rattle me.
He might think he’s a badass, the hardest player on the ice, but I’ve dealt with worse demons than a punk like him could ever imagine.
That’s what gets me through every game. Through every puck drop. That survival instinct and quick reaction time can’t be taught, and it’s why I never lose a face off.
I learned to keep my cool, keep my head, a long fucking time ago, and I sure as hell am not going to lose it now.
Out of the corner of my eye, the ref drops the puck, and I do what I’ve done a thousand times before: I watch my opponent. I watch for a flicker of movement, for a twitch of the eye, and I move before he’s even finished registering that the puck is on the ground.
I slap the puck to Colt who takes off down the ice like a bolt of lightning.
Let the game fucking begin.
In the locker room after the second period, while everyone’s catching their breath and chugging water, Coach calls out the plays he wants executed going into the final stretch of the game.
We’re up 2–1, and playing like a well oiled machine. Every line change is smooth, every pass crisp. All we have to do is keep Maryland from getting the puck for twenty more minutes.
When we hit the ice for the last time, I win another face off against Kingston, and I hear him curse from behind me. I can tell I’ve gotten under his skin, and I smile despite how much pressure I should be under. Sometimes I forget how fun it is to have some good old fashioned competition.
Colt slaps the puck to Simmons who cuts around a Maryland D-man and passes it back to me. I see Kingston coming at me from the left, and I hit the brakes, turning in a back spin as he breezes by.
Colt is swapped out for Drew, who hits the ice and speeds into play on my right. I pass him the puck ducking around behind the net, coming around the other side. Drew passes it back to me, and I slap a shot into the bottom left corner before the goalie even knows I’m behind him.
The buzzer sounds, signaling another point on the board, and the Saint Augustine student section cheers loud enough to rattle the moon.
Coach waves me over for a line change, and sends Colt back in for the next face off, giving me a breather.
“Nice work out there, Cap,” Tom praises, patting me on the back. I nod in acknowledgment, too winded to speak as I tear off my helmet and get a drink.
I watch from the bench as Colt wins the face off against Drake, who looks even more pissed every time he doesn’t get the puck. Unfortunately, Drew goes to pass the puck off to Will Fischer—who was subbed in for Simmons—and Kingston swoops in and steals it.
Beau rushes, trying to steal the puck back, and slams Kingston into the boards.
Both players lose their footing and go down, the puck lost in the tangle of limbs. Beau appears to say something to Drake, taunting him in that way only Beau seems to be able to do, and the other player all but looses his mind.
Drake grabs Beau by the front of his jersey and picks him up from the ice like he’s about to beat the living daylights out of him. Whistles blow and all the refs skate over to break up the fight before it can even begin.
Drake is awarded a five minute penalty for fighting, and St. A’s gets another goal by Drew while he’s out of play.
The clock ticks down with three minutes left in the game, and we’re up 4–2. Maryland fights for their lives, trying every dirty trick in the book to prolong the game or get the puck back.
I skate down the ice parallel with Colt, the two of us passing back and forth and weaving between defenders, running down the clock. I send a pass to Simmons, who takes the puck around the back of the net and sends it back to Colt.
With ten seconds left on the clock, Colt passes the puck to me one last time, and I spin around the Maryland player who makes a last ditch effort to take the puck.
I pick up the puck in the curve of my stick and sling it toward the goal, where it rattles off the post and falls into the net right as the buzzer sounds.
Lights flash, confetti falls, and my teammates storm the ice as I breath in the bittersweet feeling of scoring my last goal with this team.
Bodies crowd around me, and I join in the celebration, taking off my helmet and gloves and hugging my teammates.
Coach meets us at center ice, and the referees bring out the NCAA championship trophy, passing it over to him with a handshake.
Tom takes the trophy with a wide smile, and turns, holding it out to me with the proudest look I’ve ever seen plastered to his face.
With a grin of my own, I take the trophy in both hands and hoist it over my head, earning a cacophony of cheers and a smothering dog pile hug from the boys.
I barely remember the trip back home Saturday. Hungover and exhausted from celebrating, I—along with the rest of my team—slept the entire flight back.
Maya comes over immediately after we land, spending the rest of the night and Sunday morning with me before I have to turn around and get on another flight to California, since Spring break starts on Monday.
My looming trip to Ross’s overshadows our championship win. The closer we get to my flight, the more anxious I get. Maya offers to come with me—thinking that her presence will stave off Ross’s anger when I inevitably show up without her—but I adamantly refuse to let her step foot in that house.
I know what he wants and what he’ll try to do. He’ll try to put something in her drink and he’ll try to use her to hurt me. He’d threaten me with jail some more, and Maya would give in, to protect me, and Ross would force me to watch whatever he decided to do next.
The same horrific scenario plays on repeat in my head—has since the moment he realized who she was—and I would rather die than let him get his hands on her.
Somehow, to all of my friends’ utter despair, we still don’t have a way to get the video from him.
We’ve been brainstorming and spit-balling ideas for months, but every single one of them is flawed and wouldn’t keep me from getting arrested alongside him.
Everything comes back to the damn video and how we have no way to stop him from releasing it.
Sunday night, in the airport drop off line, I kiss Maya goodbye in the backseat of Drew’s jeep—which he finally got back after months of body work, and looks brand new with the fresh blue paint.
Drew and Dani sit up front, her having come along for moral support. Maya gives me one last, lingering peck on the lips. “I hate this,” she whispers.
“I know,” I reply, stomach in knots. “It’ll be okay.”
Drew huffs out a scoff, but doesn’t comment. We all know I’m lying, and that I’m flying straight into a war zone with no way of stopping.
Instead of lingering on the thought any longer, I hop out of the Jeep, grab my bag from the trunk, and accept my fate, like I have a million times before.