Page 1 of Puck Me Back to Life

1

Kai

Istand on the edge of my apartment building and try to decide whether tomorrow is worth surviving.

The thought should probably scare me more than it does. A healthy person would be alarmed to find themselves six stories above the sidewalk at three o'clock in the morning, staring down at the city and wondering how much courage it would take to lean forward rather than backward. Instead, I find myself mostly tired. The kind of tired that settles somewhere deeper than exhaustion. The kind that follows you through entire years until you can't remember what life felt like before it arrived.

The city glows beneath me in a thousand different shades of white and gold. Cars move through the streets below, their headlights tracing familiar paths through downtown traffic. Somewhere nearby, a siren wails before disappearing into the distance. Life continues exactly as it always has. People are falling asleep beside their spouses. They're coming home from late shifts. They're worrying about bills and deadlines and what they're going to eat for breakfast tomorrow morning.

I envy them more than I envy millionaires.

Because normal people get to wake up thinking about normal things.

I wake up thinking about William Grove.

When I close my eyes, I see blood immediately. I don't think there's been a single night in the last two years where the memory hasn't found me. It arrives in pieces at first: the scrape of skates against ice, the roar of twenty thousand people, the blur of William's jersey as he cuts toward the net. Then the collision comes, followed by the impossible amount of red spreading across the white ice. No matter how many times I tell myself it was an accident, my brain always stops at the same place. William Grove falls. I survive. The world keeps turning anyway.

The league called it a freak accident.

The investigators called it unavoidable.

The lawyers called it tragic.

The media spent six months calling it every possible variation of those three things.

None of it changed the fact that William died. The NHL eventually cleared me of wrongdoing. The investigation ended. The lawsuits disappeared. The reporters found other stories to chase. Life moved on for everyone else. Mine never really did.

Tomorrow is opening night. My first regular-season game in almost two years. The realization settles heavily in my chest.

Training camp was manageable because nobody outside the organization cared very much. The preseason games were uncomfortable, but they were easy enough to survive. The crowds were smaller. The cameras were less interested. Most people were paying attention to rookies trying to earn roster spots.

Tomorrow is different. Tomorrow every seat in the arena will be filled. Sports networks will run little comeback segments before puck drop, and commentators will lower their voices and talk about resilience. Tomorrow, there will be people in the crowd who still believe I got away with murder.

The worst part is that on nights like this, I agree with them. I know what the investigation found, and accidents happen in hockey. I've heard every argument. I've repeated them to myself so many times that I could probably recite them in my sleep.

It doesn't matter.

It was my skate. My fault.

There is a part of me that will always believe William Grove should have gone home that night and I should have been the one who didn't.

The wind cuts across the rooftop hard enough to sting my face. I shove my hands deeper into my hoodie pocket and stare at the concrete below.

One step.

That's all it would take.

The simplicity of it is almost insulting.

No more nightmares or panic attacks. No more pretending I don't hear what people whisper when they recognize me. I won't have to see William's parents in interviews and wonder if they're happier on days when they forget my name exists.

I picture the headlines. Then, against my will, I picture Mrs. Grove. The only time I met her was during the investigation. She cried through almost the entire conversation. Mr. Grove sat beside her looking like a man who had aged twenty years in six months. Neither of them yelled at me. Neither of them blamed me. Somehow that made it worse.

I remember Mrs. Grove reaching across the table and squeezing my hand.

You didn't mean to hurt him.

I still haven't figured out how to live with those words. The thought of putting that woman through another tragedy connected to my name makes something inside me recoil. She has already buried her son. She shouldn't have to sit through another press conference because I couldn't handle my own guilt.