Chapter Twenty-Six
Carter
The problem with watching Maren Ellis skate in an empty rink is that it ruins every definition of beautiful I have ever used.
Beautiful used to be easy.
A clean goal.A perfect pass.A crowd losing its mind.A girl laughing at my joke before she realized she should not.
Now beautiful is Maren crossing center ice on old white skates with a blue ribbon tied to one hook, shoulders loose, face lifted, not because anyone is clapping.
Because she is still here.
Because she came back.
Because the ice did not get the final word.
I am standing by the boards in sneakers because apparently I have chosen humiliation as a love language.
My left foot slides again.
I grab the wall.
Maren glides past me with one eyebrow raised.
“Champion athlete.”
“I am out of season.”
“You won forty-eight hours ago.”
“Retirement is aggressive.”
She laughs.
The sound hits the empty rink and comes back brighter.
No audience.
No team.
No need.
Just her laugh because it wanted out.
I would lose balance for that again.
Possibly dramatically.
She circles once more, then slows in front of me.
Her cheeks are pink from the cold.
A few strands of hair have escaped her ponytail.
She looks younger and stronger and exactly like herself.
“Good?” I ask.
She breathes out.
“Good yes.”
My chest does the thing.
The big one.
The no-joke-available one.
“Good.”
She looks at my hands gripping the boards.
“You can sit, you know.”
“I am providing rink-side emotional support.”
“You are clinging to architecture.”
“Support comes in many forms.”
Her mouth curves.
Then she reaches one gloved hand toward me.
I look at it.
Then at my shoes.
Then at her.
“This seems unwise.”
“It is.”
“Good.”
I take her hand.
She does not pull me out.
She just holds on while I step one tragic sneaker farther onto the ice.
Both feet slide.
Not far.
Enough to remind me that hockey skates are one thing and shoes on ice are a lawsuit with laces.
Maren’s grip tightens.
Steady.
Warm through gloves.
“Bend your knees,” she says.
“I know how ice works.”
“Do you?”
“Emotionally.”
“Physically, questionable.”
I bend my knees.
Immediately feel ridiculous.
She smiles.
Not at me.
Okay, slightly at me.
Safe laugh.
Good laugh.
Mine to give her.
“You are enjoying this,” I say.
“Deeply.”
“I have given you a lot of power.”
“Yes.”
“I regret everything.”
“No, you don’t.”
No.
I do not.
She glides backward slowly, still holding my hand, while I shuffle in sneakers like a newborn deer with a scholarship.
This is not dignified.
This is perfect.
Halfway to the faceoff circle, I wobble.
Maren’s eyes widen.
“Carter—”
I overcorrect.
She catches my arm.
I catch the air.
The air is unhelpful.
Somehow, I do not fall.
Barely.
She is laughing now.
Really laughing.
One hand over her mouth, skates steady beneath her, eyes bright.
I point at her with great authority.
“Cruel.”
“You looked so offended by gravity.”
“Gravity and I have history.”
“I heard.”
The laugh fades into a smile.
Soft.
Old and new at once.
She looks down at our hands.
Still holding.
The rink goes quiet around us.
Not empty quiet.
Full quiet.
I squeeze once.
Then let go.
She notices.
Of course.
“Thank you,” she says.
“For almost dying?”
“For letting me be steady.”
That lands.
Harder than expected.
I look at her skates.
The blue ribbon.
The blade marks behind her.
“You were always steady,” I say.
Her face changes.
I correct before the words become too easy.
“No. That is not right.”
She waits.
Good.
I breathe.
“You were always strong. Not always steady. And I was one of the reasons you stopped feeling like you could trust the ice.”
Her eyes stay on mine.
The rink does too.
“I am glad I got to watch you trust it again,” I say. “But I know that is yours.”
Her throat moves.
“Yes.”
I nod.
“Good.”
She smiles a little.
“You are getting annoyingly precise.”
“I have been edited.”
“By me?”
“Professionally and personally.”
“Good.”
There it is.
A word that used to be simple.
Now it holds a whole season.
She skates backward again, hands free this time, slow and graceful.
I shuffle back to the boards with what remains of my dignity.
Not much.
Enough.
When she finishes, we sit on the bench with coffee between us.
Her skates stay on.
My sneakers stay damp.
I do not complain.
Much.
She leans back against the boards.
“I think I want to keep doing this.”
“Skating?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“Not like before.”
“Okay.”
“Not competing.”
“Okay.”
“Just ice. Mornings. Maybe helping with the junior media program if they restart it.”
My chest warms.
“That sounds like good yes.”
“It does.”
She looks at the rink.
Then at me.
“And the job. I think it can be good yes too.”
“Can be?”
“Will be scary.”
“Yes.”
“Busy.”
“Yes.”
“Complicated.”
“Probably.”
“You may leave for camp or training or whatever your next hockey thing is.”
There it is.
The part we have not been naming too loudly.
After.
Not the romantic after.
The real after.
Distance.
Options.
My future being less clean than a championship photo.
I look down at my coffee.
“I have the summer development camp invite.”
“I know.”
“Two weeks.”
“Where?”
“Michigan.”
“Good.”
I glance at her.
She smiles faintly.
“Good yes?”
“I think so.”
“And after?”
“I do not know.”
She nods.
No panic.
No demand.
No turning herself into an anchor.
I love her.
The thought arrives quietly.
Not like a goal horn.
Not like a crash.
Like a puck sliding cleanly onto my stick.
There.
Obvious once it reaches me.
I do not say it.
Not because it is untrue.
Because true things deserve the right room.
And maybe the right time.
And maybe I am still learning the difference between sharing and handing someone weight.
Maren studies me.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Her eyes narrow.
“Vance.”
I smile.
A small one.
“Thinking.”
“Dangerous.”
“Deeply.”
She lets it go.
That might be love too.
No.
Stop.
Not yet.
At ten, facilities turns the lights higher, and our private rink bubble ends.
Maren unlaced her skates slowly.
Not sadly.
Carefully.
Like putting them away no longer meant losing them.
I carry her camera bag because I am allowed to be useful in practical ways.
She carries her skates.
At the doors, she pauses and looks back once.
Not like goodbye.
Like see you later.
Then we step into the concourse.
The capstone wall is still there, but half the lights are off now.
In daylight, with no crowd, it looks more temporary.
More honest.
Things can matter and still come down.
I am trying to learn that.
Maren follows my gaze.
“Friday,” she says.
“They take it down?”
“Move pieces.”
“Right.”
“You okay with that?”
“No.”
She nods.
“Me neither.”
I look at her.
“But?”
“But it means the record is moving somewhere permanent.”
Permanent.
That word feels dangerous too.
I nod toward her archive panel.
“Yours deserves that.”
“So does yours.”
I almost joke.
I do not.
“Maybe.”
Her expression softens.
“Definitely.”
We stand there until Patty appears at the end of the hall holding a stack of folders and wearing a look that says tenderness is about to be interrupted by logistics.
“Good,” she says. “You’re both here.”
Maren mutters, “Dangerous opening.”
Patty smiles.
“I need one final capstone interview clip before the wall moves.”
I take a step back.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I am retired.”
“From hockey. Not from being available for institutional storytelling.”
“That sounds illegal.”
“It is employment adjacent.”
Maren hides a smile behind her coffee.
Betrayal.
Patty points at both of us.
“Not long. One question each.”
“Each?” Maren says.
Patty’s smile turns wicked.
“Yes.”
“No,” Maren and I say together.
Patty beams.
“Excellent chemistry. Ten minutes.”
She leaves.
I look at Maren.
Maren looks at me.
“We could run,” I say.
“I work here now.”
“Walk briskly?”
“No.”
“Emotionally flee?”
“Already happening.”
Ten minutes later, we are seated in front of the capstone wall.
Side by side.
Not touching.
Very aware of not touching.
Patty stands behind the camera with the expression of a woman who knows exactly what she is doing.
Maren looks deeply unhappy about being on the wrong side of the lens.
I lean closer.
“Breathe.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
Her eyes cut to mine.
No.
She does not.
The thought flashes between us and leaves both of us quiet.
Patty clears her throat.
“Lovely. That tension is unusable but fascinating.”
“Patty,” Maren warns.
“Fine. First question. Carter, what does this wall mean now that the season is over?”
The old answer would be funny.
Something about how the wall gave my face real estate.
Something about villain arcs and capes.
I look at the panels.
The five rules.
The team.
Maren’s getting-up sequence.
My mother’s photo.
The championship strip.
“It means the room was bigger than I thought,” I say.
Patty stays silent.
Good interviewer.
Terrible person.
I continue.
“I thought the story was hockey. Then I thought maybe it was winning. Then I thought maybe it was me learning not to hide behind noise.” I glance at Maren’s panel.
“But I think it is bigger than that. It is people leaving proof for each other. That you can fall and finish. That you can be loud and still be known. That endings do not erase what happened in the room.”
Maren goes very still beside me.
I look back at Patty.
“The wall comes down, but the proof stays.”
Patty does not speak for a second.
Then she says, “Great. Maren, same question.”
Maren inhales.
I can feel how much she wants notes.
A script.
A way to control the frame.
She has none.
She looks at the wall.
Then the camera.
“I thought coming back meant proving the worst thing did not matter anymore,” she says.
My chest tightens.
Her hands fold in her lap.
“I was wrong. It mattered. It still matters. But it was not the only thing here. This wall helped me see the record differently. Not cleaner. Fuller.”
She looks at her panel.