Page 7

FOUR

DERRICK

“ Y ou sure you’re okay, baby?”

My mom’s voice crackles over the speakerphone, soft and full of worry, like she’s trying to hold me together from eighty miles away. I know I shouldn't have used my phone without help but that's what Siri is for, right?

I shift against the cool sheets of the massive bed I’m lying in, the curtains mute the morning sun into soft, heavy shadows across the room. The smell of fresh paint and lemon-scented wood polish clings to the air, a strange but not unpleasant mix. Clean. New.

“I’m fine, Ma,” I lie.

The words scrape out of me like broken glass. The truth is, I’m anything but fine.

I glance around the guest room Bast put me in last night. It's beautiful in that understated way he seems to carry himself with. It’s nothing flashy but there’s quality in every detail, the kind of place that doesn't need to announce its worth.

The walls are painted a muted gray-blue that reminds me of the ocean right before a storm, the exact color of twilight on Lark Bay when I'd sit at the pier after rough practice sessions back home.

Tall ceilings. Thick crown molding that must be original to the house.

Massive windows that would flood the space with light if the curtains were open, though right now they're mercifully closed, giving my aching head the darkness it craves. Everything is soft and heavy and still.

The furniture's modern but warm. Earth tones, clean lines. Nothing extra, nothing missing. There's a discipline to the simplicity that strikes me as familiar.

And everywhere. . .all over the room, are paintings.

Some landscapes, wide open and wild, brushstrokes loose and alive, capturing places I've never been but somehow recognize in my bones.

Some more abstract, almost dreamlike in their realism, bursts of color pulled together into things that feel real even if they don't look it at first glance.

One opposite the bed shows what might be a figure standing alone at the edge of something vast. Ocean?

Sky? The line between is deliberately blurred, and I can't stop staring at it.

Every canvas signed with the same tidy scrawl in the bottom corner:

"I swear, Ma, this guy's house looks like it belongs in some fancy-ass magazine," I murmur, smiling despite myself, feeling the pull of dry lips.

"There's art everywhere. Big-ass windows.

Real cozy, but also. . .I don't know. Him.

It fits him." I don't add that I'm still trying to figure out who ‘him’ actually is, the man behind the reputation, the myth I've followed since I was twelve.

Sebastian Bergeron is a mystery, and extremely private.

There's a pause on the other end of the line, then a soft chuckle that reminds me of Saturday mornings and pancakes. “Sounds like you’re in good hands, baby.”

I swallow hard against the sudden tightness in my throat. Yeah. Good hands.

The same hands that caught me when I nearly collapsed getting out of the hospital bed yesterday. Strong and steady when my legs turned to water beneath me, saving me the indignity of face-planting on the floor.

The same hands that held me steady in the shower last night, strong and sure as I leaned against him, too dizzy to stand on my own.

Those capable fingers adjusting the water temperature with practiced precision, his palm warm against my shoulder blade as I swayed.

He kept his eyes respectfully averted while still making sure I didn't crack my skull open on his fancy tiles.

He didn't flinch. Didn't joke. Didn't make it weird. He just. . .took care of me. Like it was the most natural thing in the world to have me standing naked and vulnerable in his personal space.

It should've embarrassed me. Should've made me feel small. Should've shredded whatever was left of my pride after that puck rearranged my brain.

But somehow, it didn't.

Somehow, it made me feel like I wasn't completely alone anymore in this strange limbo between who I was and whatever broken version of myself I might become.

"You're resting, right?" Mom presses, her voice gentle but firm. The way she used to sound when I'd try hiding a fever so I could still make practice. "No screen time, no trying to get up and sneak around, no?—"

"Yes, Momma," I cut in with a groan, scrubbing a hand over my face. "I'm practically handcuffed to this ridiculously comfortable bed. I couldn't escape if I wanted to."

The movement sends a fresh spike of pain through my skull but I bite it back. She's got enough weight on her shoulders without carrying mine too.

She laughs, the sound strained around the edges, like she's trying not to cry. I can picture her sitting in our little kitchen, the one with the yellowing linoleum I promised to replace last Christmas, fingers worrying at the frayed edge of the placemat I made her in third grade.

God, I hate this. I hate worrying her.

I hate being stuck here, broken, useless, while she's back home in Lark Bay dealing with her MS flares and pretending not to need the help that she clearly does. Pretending the tremors aren't getting worse. Pretending she doesn't need her cane or wheelchair more days than not now.

"I should be there with you," she whispers, the guilt in her voice cuts deeper than any injury could.

"You can't," I say quickly, sitting up too fast and immediately regretting it as the world tilts like I'm on the deck of a ship in rough seas.

I press my palm to the mattress, grounding myself.

"You need to take care of yourself. Promise me, Ma.

Please. Ms. Bethany is checking in, right? And you're taking your meds?"

Another silence falls between us, heavy and aching. Eighty miles of worry stretched taut between us. She’s so close, yet so far away.

"I just. . ."

My voice breaks, and I squeeze my eyes shut against the sudden burn of tears that have nothing to do with physical pain.

"I don't wanna lose it, Ma. Everything I worked for. Everything we worked for." The contract. The security. The promise that she'd never have to choose between rent and medication again. "I can't?—"

"You won't," she says fiercely, cutting me off before the panic can swallow me whole. "You hear me, Derrick? You're strong. You're stubborn as a mule. Just like your momma. You're going to fight through this like you fight through everything else."

I breathe shakily through my nose, trying to absorb her certainty. Trying to make her faith in me tangible enough to hold onto when the dark thoughts creep in.

Trying to believe it.

"You're more than hockey, baby," she says, softer now. "You're my boy. And I'm proud of you, no matter what happens."

Tears threaten again, but I blink them back furiously, staring at the ceiling, at Bast's painting of that solitary figure on the edge of something vast and unknown.

She doesn't need to hear me cry. Not today. Not ever.

"Yeah," I croak out. "Yeah, Ma. I'm gonna fight."

"Good," she says warmly. "Now go get some rest. Let that handsome goalie take care of you for a little while."

I snort. If only she knew.

"I love you, baby," she says.

“I love you too,” I whisper back before ending the call.

The room feels too big as I softly tell Siri to end the call.

Too quiet.

I sink back into the mattress, staring up at the ceiling.

I can hear faint sounds from somewhere downstairs, clinking dishes, the low murmur of Bast’s voice on a phone call, maybe. Coffee brewing. Life happening outside the wreckage of my world.

I think about the way he looked at me yesterday when he helped me into the house, steady, patient, like I wasn’t a burden or a lost cause.

I think about the way he touched me in the shower, gentle but unflinching, like I was something valuable, not something broken.

I think about how stupid it is to let myself hope for anything.

Especially from him. Especially after last summer. But still. . .

For the first time since the accident, something inside me unfurls, just a little.

A fragile, green tendril of hope pushing up through concrete rubble.

Something raw and stubborn and so fucking desperate to survive.

The same something that got me through the hard times when Ma was too sick, through the various hockey camps when coaches said I wasn't built right, through every doubt and setback and ‘no’ that tried to define my limits.

Maybe I'm not totally alone after all. The thought lands like a revelation, though it shouldn't be, Ma's always been there, in her way. But this is different. This is someone seeing me at my absolute worst and still offering. . .something. Not pity. Something steadier.

Gathering every ounce of strength I have left, I push back the covers and swing my legs over the side of the bed. The movement sends a flash of white-hot pain through my temple, and I have to pause, fingers digging into the mattress edge.

My head swims, but I grit my teeth and breathe through it. Three counts in. Five counts out.

One step at a time. That's all I can manage, all I need to manage. The floor is cool beneath my bare feet, anchoring me to now.

One day at a time. Today I'll get downstairs. Tomorrow. . .well, tomorrow can wait its damn turn.

Feelings can be dissected later. Right now, I'm exactly where I need to be. Not where I wanted, not where I planned, but here. Standing on my own two feet in the quiet aftermath of destruction, finding out what remains.

One step, then another.

I grip the edge of the nightstand, breathing through the vertigo that swirls like angry hornets behind my eyes.

I catch my reflection in the full-length mirror propped against the wall. I barely recognize myself in the dimly lit room. Dark circles cradle my eyes like bruises. My normally tight curls are wild, sticking out in every direction. The bandage at my temple is stark white against my dark brown skin.

I look fragile and I grimace at the thought, because fuck that.