Page 97 of The Pact
“That’s it, buddy!” he shouts, then turns to look at me with a wide smile on his face.
The clock is running down. It’s in the third period with one minute thirty-four seconds left on the clock. Then Remy scores. Barely. It trickles into the net like it wasn’t sure if it wanted to be there or not. But the buzzer goes off, and it counts.
The look on Remy’s face … he looks like he might just explode; he’s so excited, and his teammates tackle him to the ground with the force of their excitement too.
I’m on my feet, cheering, and Saint jumps up like Remy just won a championship.
“Slay the enemy, Rem!” Rhyan screams.
“Sway the ememy, Wemmy!” Sera screams louder.
I look at Alie over their heads and we just laugh.
“I can’t believe he did it!” Saint says, a smile splitting his face.
He looks so happy, and for a second, everything seems normal.
We watch as Remy’s teammates all skate to the goalie and tap his helmet. I love that tradition in hockey, and I love that it’s starting young.
“Should we go get something to eat?” Liam says.
“Yeah, I’m sure he’ll be hungry,” Saint says, then looks at Rhyan. “You want to eat Ry?”
She nods enthusiastically. “I’m starving! I haven’t eaten in forever!”
“Me too, Mommy,” Sera turns to Alie.
“Okay,” I chime in, pulling Rhyan into me. “Rhyan, you ate breakfast before we came. And you also ate a soft pretzel an hour ago.”
She wraps her arms around my waist. “Well, it feels like a really long time.”
“Okay, I’ll go see if he needs any help in the locker room, then we’ll head out.” Saint reaches for my hand, and I take Rhyan’s, and we make our way down the bleachers to the waiting area.
About fifteen minutes later, Saint and Remy walk out with some of his teammates. We cheer when we see him, and the other parents around us join in. I can’t express enough how happy I am that Remy seems to be adjusting to the team. It absolutely helps that Saint encouraged him to keep playing as soon as we got back. I think the physicality of the sport is also helping him work through some of his emotions. Like he has an outlet that maybe he needs outside of Saint or me.
Not that it was much of a fight to get him playing again. Remy is obsessed with hockey, and I think he wanted to feel some kind of normalcy to his routine.
“Here he is!” Saint yells, his hands up in the air. “MVP!”
Remy blushes and smiles so wide we can see every tooth in his mouth. He runs up to me and wraps his arms around my waist, and looks up.
“Did you see my goal?” Remy asks.
“Did I see it?! You mean you didn’t hear me screaming from the stands?” I laugh.
Remy giggles. “No, I couldn’t hear anything, and I couldn’t see anything under the pile of my team.”
I ruffle Remy’s hair. “Well, you were amazing out there today, Rem! I’m so proud of you. That goal was amazing! You won the game for your team.”
“I did!” He lifts his brows and nods. “It was close.”
A little boy walks by us and stops.
“Remy, are you coming to get pizza with us?”
Remy looks at Saint, then me. “Um, I don’t know. Can we?” he asks, hopeful.
Saint glances at me first, then at our group. “What do you think, everyone?”
