28
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Walker
Patting a towel to my forehead, I toss it in the hamper before unlacing my skates. Being a college hockey player was hard. Really, really fucking hard. But playing in the pros? It’s a whole other level of hard. But I welcome it because the team I’m on is a great one. And I’m proud to be here, wearing their colors.
Maine has this deep sense of community. Something Poppy and I have really enjoyed doing since we got here is going around to schools, recreational centers, and even homeless shelters. We take boxes and boxes of food and even sometimes clothing and sports gear, and we listen to people’s stories. We talk to kids about their dreams. We sit with a homeless man who tells us about his life’s best and worst days. It’s not all happy. A lot of times, we go home feeling like we’re not doing enough. But somehow, when I step onto the ice here in Maine and the crowd cheers so loud that it fills the entire arena, waving their signs…it reminds me how fortunate I am that I get to do what I love for a living.
It could have easily been either of us in the homeless shelters we’ve visited. And the kids we’ve seen in the schools with the long, dirty, shaggy hair and the worn-out clothes? We were those kids. We walked in those footsteps.
They aren’t easy footsteps to trudge along in. And only the strongest will make it. And I guess we just want to do what we can to help more of them make it. To be like Poppy, who’s chasing her dreams and attending a dance program and running a nonprofit to fight to get the number of yearly overdoses down. Or to be like me. Even though I sometimes still feel like that kid playing hockey on Sunset Drive, I’m now getting asked for autographs, and people pay to see me play.
Tossing my skates in my bag, I look up to find Logan in a deep conversation with our coach. Logan’s face is pale, and he rests his back on the wall and stares off into the distance. After a moment or two, the coach pats his shoulder, and Logan heads toward me, sitting down on the end of the bench.
“You good, man?” I ask, not wanting to push too hard for information, but just letting him know I’m here.
He’s quiet for a few seconds, focusing solely on the ground before him.
“No,” he whispers. “Coach just got a call from someone.” He pauses, his hands shaking. “A girl I hooked up with a while back just died in a car accident.”
“Oh shit, man,” I say quickly. “I’m sorry.”
“No, that isn’t all.” He finally looks at me, and I can see the fear in his eyes. I can’t predict what’s going to come out of his mouth. “She was pregnant. And they were able to get the baby out safely somehow.” He swallows. “Her parents…they are saying the baby is mine.”
I stare at him in complete shock, not knowing what to say or how to say it because I can’t imagine the thoughts going through this man’s head.
He drags his hand over his head and squeezes his eyes shut. “I could be a dad, James. To a kid whose mother I can hardly remember sleeping with.”
Holy. Fuck. Logan Sterns is about to be a single father.
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The End