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SCARLETT

L oser’s Luck Tavern is packed for the broadcast of the Black Bears’ semi-final game against Wisconsin.

The whole campus and town have been buzzing the last couple days unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. You could’ve tasted the excitement and anticipation in the air just walking around. It’s so infectious that it didn’t even take a lot of persuading to convince Harper to come out with me.

Too bad the scoreboard doesn’t quite match the level of excitement.

The game’s a grinding 0-0 stalemate as the teams enter the third period.

It doesn’t help that the refereeing has been atrocious. The guys mentioned that Wisconsin has a reputation for playing dirty, and they’re living up to it—and getting away with most of it.

And, unfortunately, the lack of action on the ice makes it far too easy for me to get sucked into my thoughts, something that’s been happening since yesterday, when I watched an interview Lane had on ESPN.

I knew Lane was good, obviously. I knew he was going to the pros next year.

But I guess, before I saw how hyped up he was on a national sports channel, how much of a big deal they made the interview out to be, and how famous sports anchors on the network gushed over him … I guess I didn’t realize just how big of a deal he is.

Just how bright of a future he has in front of him.

I never fully appreciated that Lane might be just a year away from being one of the best and most famous hockey players in the country.

Instead of being a local hero who gets recognized and adulated everywhere on campus, he’s about to become the kind of person who gets that treatment everywhere in the country . He’s about to be a bonafide celebrity.

And he’s about to become all that on the other side of the country, playing for San Jose while I’m back here in Vermont, with two more years left before I graduate.

I’ve been living in the moment so much with Lane, eager to make up for the lost time with him, enjoying every minute of it, that I haven’t really thought about the future.

It hadn’t really sunk into my mind that we’re just a couple months away from a huge cleavage in our lives, him moving to another coast after we’ve only just gotten together.

I don’t want things to end between us. We haven’t had a real conversation about this, but with the way Lane talks sometimes, the casual comments he makes about things we should do in the future that imply we’ll still be together months or years from now, I don’t think he does, either.

After all, the way we felt about each other didn’t fizzle out in the year and a half we were apart after Chicago, even if during all that time we both thought the other had callously broken our hearts.

But being pulled apart after just months of finally really being together, Lane’s life suddenly changing, while I’m here in Brumehill for two more years and who knows where for law school for three more …

I’m trying not to be pessimistic. Things can work out, and I want them to. But am I setting myself up for the biggest heartbreak yet if I just assume they will ?

My attention gets pulled back to reality as an exclamation of outrage fills the room.

I refocus on one of the flatscreens above the bar to see that, once again, a Wisconsin player fouled one of our guys and the refs did nothing about it.

A Brumehill player whose name I don’t know got body checked in the chest so hard that he fell flat on his back on the ice, even though the puck was all the way on the other side of the rink.

Fans at the bar are spouting off at the refs.

On the screen, I watch the guys I know fill the ice as their coach calls for a shift change. We win control of the puck, and it looks like we’re really building up momentum, until one of the Wisconsin players slashes his stick at Sebastian’s shins, sending him tripping face-first onto the ice.

He hits hard, his helmet smacking against the cold, solid surface in a way that has everyone in the bar wincing.

And it looks like he isn’t moving.

Concern shoots through me. Next to me, I sense Harper going tense all over. I flick my gaze to her and see worry etched on her face, her eyes wide and glued to Sebastian on the TV.

“Come on, get up,” she whispers, almost inaudibly, like a prayer. Her fists are clenched in front of her chest and she doesn’t even blink; it’s like the rest of the world’s melted away for her.

Finally, after a long several seconds, Sebastian gets to his feet. He’s staggered but doesn’t look seriously hurt. Relief floods me, and it hits Harper so hard that she lets out the heaviest sigh I’ve ever heard.

Normally, I’d tease her for it, but this is one situation that seems beyond the lines of teasing. Though I certainly store this away in the expanding file that Sebastian and Harper’s relationship takes up in my brain.

Kiran has to come out and sub for Sebastian. Soon after play resumes, Rhys targets the Wisconsin player who tripped Sebastian with the most brutal body check I’ve ever seen.

Rhys slams his shoulder into the guy’s sternum like he’s a linebacker for the NFL instead of a hockey defenseman.

The guy goes flying backward and clatters to the ice, to the resounding cheers of everyone at Loser’s.

But now the refs decide to grow pairs of eyes.

The crowd here piles every curse word in the book onto the refs’ heads while Rhys gets sent to the Sin Bin.

Wisconsin scores on their power play.

In a game where goals have been almost impossible to come by, the Black Bears are down 0-1 and facing the end of their season.

They’re able to regroup when Rhys gets let back out. Minutes later, the bar erupts when Lane scores a defensive goal on Wisconsin, tying the game.

“Fuck yeah, Lane!” I yell at the top of my lungs. Even Harper’s so into it at this point that her arms are wrapped around me and we’re jumping up and down together.

The clock hits zero, and they go to sudden-death overtime.

Sebastian’s cleared to come back in the game, and when overtime starts, he plays with a vengeance.

Both teams go all out for the first five minutes of the overtime period, but then Sebastian steals the puck, dekes past two Wisconsin defenders, and fires it off, sending it careening past their goalie into the net.

It’s pandemonium all throughout Cedar Shade as the Black Bears win.

Two days from now, the last game of Lane’s career will be for the college championship.