Chapter 2. Chris #3
“Okay, the first goal was on me,” Mads says.
“Fine. But the second? Puck goes behind the net. I call reverse, but you still try to move it up the wall with Goode already closing. It dies on the boards, they keep it in before we’re reset, and now I’m trying to find the puck through three pairs of skates.
It hits Baadsvik, changes direction, and goes in. ”
My vision blurs. The compartment walls press closer.
“The third,” he continues, his voice rising now, taking on that edge it gets when he’s pissed.
“Larsen comes down your side. You’ve got him angled, but you don’t take him, and you don’t take the pass away either.
You just sit in the middle and give me nothing.
I’m waiting for one fucking sign—shot or pass—and by the time I commit, he’s already released it. Low blocker. Goal.”
I press the heel of my palm against my sternum, as if I can physically shove the panic down through my ribs. The pressure only makes it worse.
“And the fourth?” Mads says. “Same problem behind the net. I call reverse, you look over your shoulder, so I know you hear me. Then you freeze with the puck on your stick long enough for Fisker to get on top of you. The puck kicks out front, and I’m not set when the shot comes. Rebound, back door. Open net.”
He lets out a short, humorless laugh.
“So no, I’m not saying every goal was your fault,” he says, the words tight with anger.
“I’m saying you keep making me look away from the fucking puck because I’m trying to figure out what the hell you’re doing.
That’s insane, Chris. I’m the goalie. I don’t get to waste time reading my own defenseman, and tonight I did it over and over until we both looked like shit. ”
My lungs are burning, and the dizzy, buzzing lightness behind my eyes has spread through my skull. I’m going to pass out. I’m actually going to pass out in this stupid fucking train compartment, in front of Mads Holm, and he’s going to think I’m faking it to avoid his questions.
“Are you even listening to me?” he asks, his voice cutting through the buzzing.
I try to say something—but all that comes out is a thin, ragged breath. I let go of the bunk, turn on my side, and slump against the wall. It’s cool against my skin, the only cold thing in this entire room, and I press my forehead to it, gasping.
My fingers scrape against the metal, searching for something to hold onto as the bunk tilts beneath me.
“Chris.” Mads’s voice changes, the anger dropping out of it all at once. “Hey, are you okay?”
I try to nod, but I’m not sure my body follows. “I’m fine,” I force out, strangled and useless.
“Jesus,” Mads says, crossing the compartment in one stride and crouching in front of me. His hands find my shoulders, and the contact is so sudden, so warm against my bare skin, that I flinch. “You don’t look okay. Are you passing out?”
My vision tunnels. The overhead light narrows to a single bright point, and everything else goes gray at the edges.
Mads’s hands leave my shoulders. He cups my face and taps my cheek, not hard, but enough to make my eyes focus on him for a second. “Chris. Talk to me.”
I can’t. My jaw is locked, my throat closed, and all I can do is keep gasping against the wall while the room tilts around me.
Then he lets go.
I hear his footsteps cross the compartment. A hard thud follows, distant through the blood rushing in my ears. Then another. I turn my head just enough to see him by the window, one boot in his hand, slamming the heel against the tiny vent at the top of the pane.
“Stop—” I manage, but the word comes out barely above a whisper.
He hits it again, harder. The frame groans, then cracks so loudly it cuts through the whole compartment. The small rectangle of glass—barely bigger than both my hands—breaks loose, mostly in one piece, and drops out into the night.
For one second, nothing happens.
Then the cold hits.
It comes through the gap like a physical force, Norwegian winter air pouring into the overheated compartment so fast my skin prickles. It sweeps over my face, my chest, my legs, and it feels so fucking good I could cry.
I drag in a breath. Deep. Cold all the way down. For the first time since this started, my lungs actually fill.
I gasp, then suck in another breath, and another, feeling the panic loosen with each one. The buzzing in my skull pulls back. My vision clears. The walls stop pressing in.
I blink, and the compartment comes back into focus.
Mads stands by the window, boot still in his hand, but he’s not looking at the hole he just put in the train.
He’s looking at me.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
Cold air gusts through the empty frame, lifting the damp hair off Mads’s forehead, and the overhead light catches the worry on his face.
“Jesus,” I say, my voice rough. “What did you do?”
He looks at the broken vent, then back at me. “You couldn’t breathe.”
The words hang between us, suddenly too big for this tiny space. Mads Holm, who has spent three months looking at me like I’m something he stepped in, just broke a train window because he thought I was dying.
“I was having a panic attack,” I say.
His expression doesn’t change, but something shifts behind his eyes. He sets the boot down, reaches into his duffel, and pulls out a bottle of water. Then he hands it to me without a word.
I take it, suddenly aware of how dry my mouth is.
The cold air swirls around us, already turning the compartment from a torture chamber into something almost bearable.
Mads sits on his bunk across from me. “Are you going to be okay?” he asks. His voice is quiet now. Serious.
I drink half the bottle before I answer. “Yeah. I think so.”
I hand it back to him and take another breath.
The cold air fills my lungs, and for the first time since this started, my head feels clear enough to understand how insane this is.
I’m sitting half-naked on a train bunk, shaking from a panic attack, across from a shirtless Mads Holm, who just smashed a window because I forgot how to breathe.
The whole thing is so fucking absurd I can’t help it.
The sound escapes before I can stop it, a choked half-laugh that keeps going until my shoulders start shaking.
I press a hand to my forehead, trying to get myself under control, but it’s no use.
The laughter keeps coming, shaky and breathless, while Mads watches me with confusion and something dangerously close to a smile.
“What’s so funny?” he asks.
“Everything,” I say between breaths. “You. Me. This stupid compartment. You breaking a window because I’m having a meltdown. The fact that we’re probably going to get fined for train vandalism by morning. Everything.”
Mads doesn’t laugh, but the corner of his mouth twitches. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
That gets another laugh out of me, smaller this time.
“I’m sorry,” I say, sobering a little even though I’m still smiling. “Thank you.”
He nods once. “No problem.”
“No, seriously. I might have passed out if you hadn’t done that.”
His face softens, just for a second. “Yeah. I noticed.”
The panic is gone, washed out of me by cold air and the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. My skin cools. My breathing evens out. The sweat on my chest dries in the draft, and I’m suddenly aware of how little I’m wearing.
I reach for my pants and pull them back on, then grab my damp T-shirt. The second it touches my skin, I regret every choice that brought me here, but I still feel too weak to dig through my duffel for a clean one, so I just sit there, shivering.
Mads notices.
He reaches into his duffel, pulls out a hoodie, and tosses it across to me without a word.
I catch it. I could point out that my jacket is right there. I could pretend I don’t understand what this is. But I do.
It’s a peace offering.
So I say, “Thanks,” and pull it on.
The fabric is soft and warm from his bag, and it smells like him—clean and faintly citrusy, the particular scent of Mads Holm I’ve spent three months trying not to notice. It’s a little too big, the sleeves falling past my wrists, the hem sitting loose over the waistband of my pants.
It should just be a hoodie. Something warm to stop me from shaking.
Instead, I’m breathing him in like an idiot.
We sit in silence for a minute, listening to the train and the rush of cold air through the broken vent.
The compartment feels different now. It’s still the same small metal box, but my panic has receded enough that the walls are just walls again.
The ceiling is just a ceiling. The locked door is still a problem, but not the kind that makes my throat close.
Mads leans back against the wall, one knee drawn up, and watches the night stream past the window. In the yellow overhead light, his profile is all angles and that permanent half-scowl, but softer now. Less guarded.
He catches me looking, and I turn toward the window, suddenly feeling stupid for staring.
Only then do I notice the snow.
Tiny flakes blow in through the hole in the glass, dusting the table and the floor.
“You could’ve told me,” Mads says after a moment.
I blink, turning to look back at him. “Told you what?”
“About the panic attack. Instead of letting me stand here yelling at you like a moron.”
I shrug. “I don’t like talking about it. I thought maybe it would pass. I haven’t had an episode like that in years.”
Mads looks at me. “Claustrophobia?”
I nod. “How did you know?”
He smirks. “We’re locked in a box the size of a hot tub, Rodriguez. It’s not rocket science.”
I laugh again, suddenly feeling like an idiot. “Okay, fair.”
The silence after that is easier. Still awkward, because it’s us, but not unbearable.
“Does it happen a lot?” Mads asks after a minute.
“This is my second time, actually,” I say. “So not a lot. But it’s kind of rough.”
He nods slowly, like he’s filing the information away.
The pause stretches again, but he’s still watching me, this time less intensely.
“Aren’t you cold?” I ask, nodding at his bare chest, mostly to fill the pause.
“Nope,” Mads says. “Still a little overheated.”