15. Callahan Eli
Callahan Eli
I wake to silence.
It’s not the good, peaceful, earned quiet that follows a long night of celebration or a hard-fought win. This is the hollow kind of silence—the sort that presses in on your eardrums until you start to notice the absence of noise, until it feels like something vital is missing from the room.
Then my phone dings on the nightstand.
7:02 AM
Cash: hope you’re well, Callie.
Cash: text me if you want me to make up an excuse why you’re not in today.
Cash: or come in and I won’t mention it.
I stare at Cash’s messages longer than I should.
He is the only one who remembers the date besides me, mostly because he was the only one there.
Today is the eighth anniversary of my mother’s death.
It’s a number that sounds like a lifetime, yet somehow my body still remembers every detail my mind tries to dull.
I can still feel the sterile bite of hospital disinfectant that never quite washed off my skin, no matter how hard I scrubbed. I can hear the constant, rhythmic beeping of machines measuring things no one could fix.
Most of all, I remember the way her fingers felt thinner every time I held them, as if she were slowly slipping out of the world, piece by piece, until there was nothing left but the memory of her.
Finn had been sitting in the plastic chair next to me in that room for eighteen hours straight. He hadn’t said a word, hadn’t tried to fill the space with his usual nonsense. He’d just sat there, anchored to the floor, holding a cup of lukewarm coffee he never drank.
When the long, flat tone finally sounded on the monitor, he was the one who caught me before my knees hit the linoleum.
He didn’t ask what I needed; he just knew.
That is the thing about a best friend—they don’t just witness your life, they help you carry the weight of the parts that are too heavy to hold alone.
Grief is a phantom ache.
Doctors will tell you that the body doesn’t store memories, but they’re wrong.
My lungs feel heavier today, as if the air in Boston has been replaced by the stagnant, recycled oxygen of the oncology ward.
My mom was a woman of music and noise; she always had a radio playing or a wooden spoon banging against a pot in the kitchen. Seeing her reduced to a series of silent, rhythmic blips on a monitor was a theft I still haven’t forgiven the universe for.
I go through the motions of my morning—the shower, the shave, the coffee—but I’m watching myself from a distance.
I’m a ghost in my own kitchen.
I look at the picture on the mantel: her at my high school graduation, looking so healthy it feels like a lie. I touch the frame, the glass cool against my fingertips, and for a second, I’m seventeen again, and the world is still whole.
I call my aunt. Like I always do.
She picks up on the second ring. She doesn’t ask how I’m doing or try to brighten her voice to cheer me up.
She lets the silence sit between us until my breathing evens out.
She reminds me to eat something, even if it’s just toast. She tells me grief doesn’t follow rules or timelines—it shows up whenever it wants and doesn’t ask for permission.
She says my mom would’ve liked the man I’ve become, even if I don’t always like him myself.
When we hang up, I sit on the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees, staring at the floor.
I think about my dad, or rather, the absence of him.
A man who left before he ever learned how to stay.
He is a ghost I rarely think about at all, mostly because my mom made sure his absence didn’t leave a hole. She filled every corner of our lives so completely that it never felt like anyone was missing.
I consider staying home. I could let the day pass quietly and let the grief take up space without witnesses.
Then I picture the rink. I think of the ice, the routine, and the sound of blades carving into something solid.
I need motion instead of memory.
I need noise instead of silence.
For a moment, Iveline flashes into my mind—the way she laughed last night, the red dress, the way she looked at me like she wasn’t afraid of what she saw.
I shove the thought away before it can take root. Wanting her right now feels like stealing focus from a grief that still deserves my full attention.
***
The arena feels different when I walk in.
Voices stay low. Jokes land softer. Even Brick doesn’t slam his gear like he usually does. Someone even turns the music down in the locker room without a single complaint.
They know.
Or maybe they just feel it, like they do every year.
In a locker room, there are no secrets.
We spend more time together than we do with our own families. We know each other’s cycles, moods, and scars.
They know that on this day, I don’t initiate the chirping. I don’t lead the stretches with my usual intensity. Even the coaching staff seems to give me a wider berth. It’s a strange, heavy kind of grace.
But then there’s Finn. He knows that if he treats me with kid gloves, I’ll spiral. He knows I need the friction to stay grounded in the present.
“Morning, sunshine,” he says brightly, skating backward in front of me as we take the ice. “You look like a man who needs a miracle—or, at minimum, a dozen donuts.”
I glare at him, the expression hard and flat.
He grins wider. “Okay. Hostile. Noted. We’ll work on that.”
Ten minutes later, he tries again.
He chirps during a drill, deliberately botching a pass just to get a rise out of me. I snap at him, my voice echoing off the rafters. He laughs like that was his goal all along.
He’s annoying as hell, but he’s effective. He’s keeping me here, even when my heart is eight years in the past.
And then I notice her.
Iveline stands by the boards, her tablet tucked under her arm. She’s even quieter than usual. Observing, precise, sharp. And yet, her eyes pause on me more than once.
She knows something is off. For a second, that knowledge cuts through the fog of my morning.
I remember the almost kiss from last night. The way she moved and laughed without her armor.
Then reality snaps back. I focus back on the puck and keep skating.
Practice ends, and the guys file off the ice, their chatter slowly returning like a tide coming back in. I head for the tunnel, intent on disappearing before the weight of the day catches up to me again.
“I know you’re avoiding me.”
My body freezes before my mind can formulate a response, my breath hitching as if I’ve been caught doing something I didn’t realize was visible. Her footfalls quicken until she’s standing just behind me.
“But you’re doing a very bad job of it,” she adds.
I turn around.
She stands a few feet away, her hair pulled back and her expression careful. Concern sits there openly on her face, like she’s decided not to hide it for once.
“Look, nothing happened last night,” she starts, her professional instinct kicking in to smooth over the tension. “So you don’t have to—”
“It’s not that,” I cut in.
She studies me, her eyes searching mine, and then she takes a step closer. “Are you okay?”
I let out a breath that sounds more like a dry laugh. “Define okay.”
“You’re quieter,” she says gently. “Angrier. And Cash tried to make you smile twice, which tells me it’s serious.”
I snort despite myself.
“It’s the anniversary,” I say finally. The words feel heavy, like stones I’m finally setting down. “My mom.”
Her face softens instantly. There is no pity there, which I appreciate, and no shock. Just understanding.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“Cancer,” I add, because for some reason, I need her to know the specifics. “Eight years ago today.”
She nods once, her gaze steady. “My mom passed away, too.”
The words land heavier than I expect.
“How?”
She hesitates—just long enough that my chest starts to tighten.
“Car crash,” she says evenly. “I was fifteen. She was on her way home from work.”
The shock hits me hard, followed by a sharp bloom of empathy that makes my chest ache.
I remember that day four years ago with terrifying clarity now.
I remember her car. I remember my own adrenaline and the blind, stupid anger that spilled over because I didn’t know where else to put it. I remember the look on her face back then—shocked, hurt, and then instantly closed off.
“Oh my God,” I mutter, closing my eyes as a wave of genuine shame washes over me.
“I’m not trying to make you feel bad,” she says, and I open my eyes when I feel the weight of her hand settle gently on my shoulder.
“I blamed you,” I say, my voice hoarse. “And I shouldn’t have. I had no right.”
Silence stretches between us in the tunnel.
“I was wrong,” I continue. “I never apologized for it, and I should’ve. I’d had a terrible day before that crash, and I don’t even remember why anymore. I was just angry at the world, and I took it all out on you because you were there. I’m… I’m so sorry, Ivy.”
For four years, I’ve carried that anger as a shield. It was easier to be mad at the “rich girl in the fancy car” than it was to admit I was being an absolute asshole to a stranger.
Seeing her now I realize how much I must have scared her back then. I was a towering, sweating, screaming mess of a man, and she was just a girl trying to get home.
I had turned her into a villain just so I could be the victim.
I look down at her hand on my shoulder. Her skin is pale against the dark purple fabric of my practice jersey, and her touch is the first thing that’s made me feel warm all day.
“I thought about that day every time it rained,” I admit, my voice cracking slightly. “Every time I got into a car or got ready for a game. I told myself you were the problem. But it was me. It was always me.”
I wonder if I’ve said too much, or if I’ve said it far too late. Iveline’s eyes dart between mine, her hand still holding onto my shoulder, anchoring me.
“Thank you,” she says finally. “For saying it now.”
“I should’ve done it sooner.”
“Maybe,” she agrees. Then, softer, “But you still did it, so thank you.”
Something eases in my chest.
The grief isn’t gone, but it feels lighter, as if she’s taken a part of the weight for herself.
“I’m glad you came in today,” she says, as if she knows I almost stayed in bed.
“So am I.”
She gives me a small, genuine smile—the kind that reaches her eyes and stays there. She doesn’t pull her hand away immediately. For a few heartbeats, we just exist in the quiet of the tunnel.
We are two people shaped by the ones we’ve lost.
She knows the weight of an empty chair at the dinner table. She knows how a specific date on the calendar can feel like a minefield.
As I eventually turn to walk toward the locker room, I don’t feel that hollow silence anymore. I feel the ghost of her touch on my shoulder.
For the first time in eight years, this anniversary doesn’t feel like a death sentence.
It feels like a beginning.