Chapter Twenty-One #2
Also no.
Patty screamed in my headset.
“Tell me you got that.”
“I got it.”
“Professional tears?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
Maybe.
The third period started tied.
Championship tied.
Season tied.
Everything tied.
The kind of period where every mistake had teeth.
Eastbridge pushed.
Lakeview bent.
Did not break.
With eight minutes left, Green made a freshman mistake.
Bad turnover.
Eastbridge nearly scored.
He came to the bench white-faced.
Carter sat beside him.
I zoomed in from the platform.
No audio.
But I knew the shape of it.
Breathe.
Ugly safe.
Pretty alive.
Something stupid.
Something true.
Green nodded.
Next shift, he played better.
That was leadership.
Not loud.
Not useful as hiding.
Useful as gift.
With three minutes left, still tied, Eastbridge broke in two-on-one.
Rhett backchecking.
Jace trailing.
Shot.
Rebound.
Chaos.
The puck slid loose in the crease.
Carter dove.
Again.
His stick knocked it wide.
The crowd roared like he had scored.
He stayed down half a second too long.
My heart stopped.
He got up.
Slowly.
But up.
The bench yelled.
Coach Adler yelled.
I exhaled so hard my camera dipped.
“Stable,” Patty said into my headset.
“I am stable.”
“You are not.”
No.
I was not.
Final minute.
Still tied.
Overtime loomed.
The arena stood.
Every sound sharpened.
Rhett carried through the neutral zone.
Mason cut left.
Nolan drove the far post.
Carter trailed.
Eastbridge collapsed on Rhett.
He passed to Carter.
There it was.
The shot.
The ending.
The story offering him everything.
Senior year.
Championship.
Last game.
Last rule.
A chance to be the hero with the whole room watching.
Carter pulled back.
I knew his shot.
I knew the shape of his body before release.
Eastbridge knew it too.
Their defender dropped.
Their goalie shifted.
Carter did not shoot.
He passed across the grain.
To Green.
Freshman.
Again.
No.
Not Green.
The puck slipped past Green’s stick by an inch.
For one horrible second, it looked like the story had punished him for choosing trust.
Then Green recovered.
Barely.
Poked it behind the net.
Nolan got there first.
Fed Mason in front.
Shot.
Save.
Rebound.
Carter.
Open net.
This time, no pass.
No better option.
Right choice.
He scored.
The arena became impossible.
I screamed again.
No shame.
None.
Lakeview led 2–1 with thirty-two seconds left.
Thirty-two seconds is a lifetime when a championship is breathing down your neck.
Eastbridge pulled the goalie.
Six attackers.
Every player looked twice as fast.
Shot.
Block.
Clear.
No clear.
Another shot.
Rhett won the corner.
Mason tied up two men.
Jace dropped in front of a lane like he had made peace with pain years ago.
Carter fought the puck along the wall with twelve seconds left.
Eastbridge pinned him.
He could not clear.
Green came in low.
Carter kicked it loose.
Green chipped.
The puck slid.
Slow.
Not far enough.
Nolan, somehow, threw himself across the blue line and poked it out.
Five seconds.
Four.
Three.
Eastbridge regrouped too late.
Two.
One.
Buzzer.
Lakeview won the championship.
For a moment, I could not move.
The building exploded around me.
Players over the boards.
Gloves in the air.
Sticks thrown.
Carter disappeared under his team.
Lakeview State Wolves.
Champions.
The last rule breaking open under the loudest sound I had ever heard.
I filmed.
I cried.
I laughed.
Probably all at once.
The trophy presentation was a blur of lights and noise and hands and metal.
Rhett lifted it first.
Then the seniors.
Then Carter.
When he raised it, he looked toward the stands first.
Not for me.
For where his mother would have been.
Then up toward the camera platform.
Not long.
Just enough.
I touched two fingers to my headset.
Like he could feel it.
Maybe he could.
Afterward, the hallway was chaos beyond language.
Nolan sobbed into Green’s shoulder.
Green kept saying, “We won?” like someone needed to confirm it legally.
Mason kissed Eden in the middle of the corridor and nobody dared comment.
Rhett held Tessa like the room could wait.
Jace and Sloane stood forehead to forehead near the equipment carts.
Hazel and Grady watched from the side with the proudest expressions I had ever seen.
Every rule.
Every couple.
Every ending.
Here.
I looked for Carter.
Could not find him.
Then I knew.
The capstone wall.
I went there.
He was standing in front of it.
Trophy not with him.
Gear half off.
Championship hat backward on his head.
Face wet.
No hiding it.
He was looking at the photo of him and his mother.
I stopped beside him.
For once, I did not ask if he was okay.
Some moments were bigger than okay.
He spoke first.
“I wanted her here.”
“I know.”
“I understood she was there.”
“Yes.”
“Both hurt.”
“Yes.”
He breathed in.
Then out.
“I didn’t have to earn her.”
“No.”
He turned to me.
Eyes bright.
Smile trembling.
“I still really wanted to win.”
I laughed through tears.
“You did.”
“We did.”
“Yes.”
His gaze dropped to my mouth.
Then lifted.
Not asking yet.
Not assuming.
Even now.
Even after winning everything.
That was what made me step closer.
“I am very proud of you,” I said.
His face broke.
Not badly.
Openly.
The last rule, gone.
He reached for me.
Stopped.
I closed the distance.
His arms came around me.
The whole arena loud behind us.
The wall beside us.
His quote over us.
My getting-up clip nearby.
All the stories watching.
He kissed me like someone who had finally learned that joy did not need to be hidden or earned or turned into a joke before it could hurt him.
I kissed him back like someone who had gotten up, finished, and chosen the next glide herself.
The crowd noise surged.
Someone yelled his name.
He smiled against my mouth.
“Medium?”
I laughed.
“Huge.”
His eyes widened.
“Externally?”
“Do not push it.”
“Right.”
Then he kissed me again.
Still careful.
Still Carter.
Still mine in no official way and every meaningful one.
For tonight, the ending belonged to everyone.
The championship.
The team.
The room.
The boys who became men under bad lighting and loud crowds.
And this beginning, standing in front of the last rule, belonged to us.