Chapter 42
MAYA
June in Hartford means summer training and off-season recovery, the kind of quiet intensity that comes after the chaos of playoffs you didn't make.
Jackson's at the arena most mornings, working with the strength coach on conditioning and trying not to think about how close they came.
The Wolves didn't make the playoffs, lost the last two games and missed by three points, but he's already planning for next season, channeling disappointment into determination.
I've been working steady shifts at Hartford General, finding my rhythm again in a way that feels natural now instead of forced.
The nightmares are rare now, maybe once every few weeks instead of every night.
Dr. Mills and I have moved to biweekly sessions.
I'm healing in ways that feel real, sustainable, and permanent.
Today I'm off shift, and Jackson texted me an hour ago: Come to the arena after practice?
I arrive around noon, parking in the nearly empty lot. Most of the team's already gone home, leaving just Jackson's truck and a few staff vehicles scattered across the asphalt. Inside, the arena's quiet.
Jackson's waiting in the lobby, showered and changed into jeans and a button-down, looking nervous.
"Hey," I say, searching his face for clues. "Everything okay?"
"Yeah. Great. Just..." He takes my hand, palm sweaty. "Come with me."
He leads me through the corridors, past the locker rooms that smell like ice and sweat and rubber, toward the rink.
"Why are we here?" I ask.
"You'll see."
He pulls open the door to the rink, and the cold air hits me immediately.
The stands are empty except—wait—Emma's in the first row, holding Sofia, who's bundled in a pink blanket. Chase is beside her with Ethan, the toddler bouncing excitedly on his lap, both of them grinning. They wave.
"What's going on?" I turn to Jackson, my heart starting to race.
"Trust me?"
"Always."
He grabs skates from somewhere behind the door. My size, somehow, which means he planned this. He helps me lace them up with fingers that shake. His nervousness is contagious, and I can feel my own hands trembling.
"Jackson, seriously. What's happening?"
"You'll see. Come on."
He leads me onto the ice, and I'm immediately unstable, grabbing onto his arm for support. I haven't been skating since that night in Emma's backyard, and I was terrible then, too.
"I'm going to fall."
"I've got you."
We move toward center ice slowly, Jackson holding me steady with one arm around my waist. The arena is silent except for the scrape of our blades against fresh ice, the echo of Emma shushing Ethan in the stands when he tries to yell something.
At center ice, Jackson stops and lets go of me for just a second. I flail, nearly fall, and grab his shoulder. Then he drops to one knee.
On the ice.
Which makes him wobble dangerously.
I start laughing despite the tears already forming. "You're going to fall."
"Probably." He's grinning, balancing carefully on his bent knee, pulling a small box from his pocket. "But I'm doing this anyway."
My heart stops. Completely stops, time freezing around us.
"Maya Rivera." His voice carries in the empty arena, bouncing off the high ceiling. "You're my Stardust. My light. The person who makes me believe in things I thought I'd lost forever."
I'm crying, the tears streaming down my face while I try to stay upright on the ice.
"You survived hell and came out stronger.
You faced your trauma and won. You went back to nursing and saved lives.
You loved me when I was too stupid to admit I loved you back.
" He opens the box with hands that shake.
Inside is a ring. Simple, elegant, a single diamond on a silver band that catches the light.
"I want forever with you. Every morning, every night, every moment in between. Will you marry me?"
"Yes." The word comes out choked, barely more than a whisper. "Yes. A thousand times, yes."
He tries to stand, knees unsteady on the ice, and nearly falls. I'm laughing and crying at the same time, trying to stay upright while he slides the ring onto my finger with shaking hands that can't quite steady themselves.
Then we're kissing, and I'm definitely falling, and he catches me, but his balance is already gone, and we go down together onto the ice in a tangle of limbs and laughter and complete ridiculousness.
"Yay!" Ethan's voice echoes through the arena. "Uncle Jack and Auntie Maya on the ground!"
From the stands, Emma's crying while Sofia sleeps obliviously in her arms. Chase is grinning wide enough to split his face, phone out and recording the whole thing.
Jackson and I are sprawled on the ice, both laughing too hard to get up, the cold seeping through our clothes, but neither of us caring.
"You planned this," I say between gasps.
"I did."
"Emma knew?"
"Everyone knew. Chase helped me pick the ring. Emma insisted on being here with the kids. Mom wanted to fly back, but I told her we'd video call later so she could see your face."
"You're ridiculous."
"You love it."
"I really do."
He kisses me again, slower this time, despite our awkward position on the ice, and I taste the future in it. Marriage. Forever. Building a life that's messy and beautiful and ours.
Eventually, we manage to stand, wobbling and holding onto each other. We skate back to the edge, me clinging to Jackson the entire way, convinced I'm going to fall again, and Emma's here waiting.
"Let me see the ring," she demands, practically bouncing with excitement.
I hold out my hand, fingers trembling. The diamond catches the arena lights, throwing tiny rainbows across the ice.
"It's perfect," Emma says, voice thick with emotion. "You're perfect. Both of you."
Chase pulls Jackson into a hug, clapping him on the back hard enough to make him stumble. "Congrats, man. You actually pulled it off."
Ethan wants to see the ring, too, so I crouch down to his level. He touches it with one careful finger, eyes wide.
"Pretty," he says.
"Very pretty," I agree.
"You marry Uncle Jack?"
"I'm going to marry Uncle Jack."
"Okay." He accepts this with the easy adaptability of a toddler, already distracted by something else across the rink.
We head to the family room. The Wolves have one for players' families during games, comfortable couches, and a big TV. Emma's brought champagne and cupcakes from the bakery down the street, the fancy kind with buttercream flowers.
"I can’t believe you planned this whole thing," I tell Jackson, settling onto the couch beside him.
"I had to do it right."
"On the ice. Where I can't skate and nearly died multiple times."
"Seemed poetic. Where I taught you, where we had that moment before everything went to hell." He pulls me close, arm around my shoulders. "Full circle, you know?"
Emma raises her glass, standing despite Sofia sleeping in her other arm. "To Maya and Jackson. Who are stubborn and stupid and perfect for each other."
"Hear, hear," Chase adds, raising his own glass.
We toast, the sound of glass clinking filling the small room.
Ethan tries to steal a cupcake before we've finished toasting, and Chase has to wrangle him.
Sofia wakes up crying, and Emma begins to feed her.
It's chaotic and loud and everything I never knew I wanted, this family that chose me when I had nothing left.
Later, after Emma and Chase take the kids home with promises to celebrate properly this weekend, Jackson and I sit in the empty arena.
"I can't believe you proposed on the ice," I say, leaning against him in the stands.
"Well, it's where everything started."
"Everything started in Emma's kitchen when I arrived broken and ready to die."
"No, we’re both wrong. Everything started eight years ago, when I realized I was in love with my sister's best friend." He touches my face, thumb tracing my cheekbone. "Took me all these years to do something about it."
"Worth the wait?"
"Every second."
I look at the ring on my finger, simple and elegant, and exactly what I would've chosen if he'd asked. The pendant rests against my chest. His father's wolf, now mine. Soon I'll have his last name too.
Maya Anderson.
It sounds right.
"When do you want to get married?" Jackson asks, playing with my fingers.
"I don't know. Maybe next year? Give us time to plan, figure out what we want?"
"Or we could elope. Vegas, courthouse, whatever you want."
"Your mom would kill us both and hide the bodies where no one would find them."
"Valid point." He grins, pulling out his phone. "Next year, then. Big wedding, whole family, Emma crying through the entire ceremony."
"She's going to be insufferable about this."
"Absolutely. She's already texting me ideas. Look." He shows me his phone, and Emma's sent fourteen messages in the last ten minutes, all about venues and themes and whether Sofia's old enough to be a flower girl by then, complete with links to Pinterest boards she's apparently already created.
"We created a monster," I say, scrolling through the messages.
"We did."
But I'm smiling because this is my family now.
Emma, Chase, and the kids. Diane calling from Calgary with congratulations I know are coming.
Jackson's teammates, who've become friends, welcomed me without question.
The messy, complicated, beautiful chaos of people who love each other through good and bad.
When I arrived at Emma's house with nothing—no job, no hope, no will to live. I was drowning in trauma, ready to let go, convinced there was nothing left worth fighting for.
Now I'm here. Engaged to the man I've loved since I was too young to understand what that meant.
Working as a nurse again, saving lives, making a difference.
Living in an apartment with Jackson, where we can be as loud as we want.
Planning a future that includes marriage and maybe kids and growing old together, doing crossword puzzles and arguing about whose turn it is to do dishes.
"What are you thinking?" Jackson asks, studying my face.
"That I'm happy. That not long ago I wanted to die, and now I want to live forever with you. Want to see what the next fifty years bring."
His eyes are wet, tears threatening to spill. "You're going to make me cry."
"Good. Payback for the ice proposal that nearly killed me."
He laughs and pulls me against him with both arms wrapped tight. We sit here in the quiet arena, the ice gleaming under the lights, and I let myself believe in forever, in happiness that lasts, in love that survives everything thrown at it.
Because I'm Maya Rivera, soon to be Maya Anderson. Survivor, nurse, fiancée, and finally, after everything—alive in all the ways that matter.