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14

Luke

P ast

The lights reflecting off the ice send a sharp pang through the front of my skull, and I blink at the pain. The doctor says that should get better over time, but I’m not holding my breath.

“Ready?” Coach asks, stick in hand, waiting to send another shot sailing my way.

I toss my head, trying to clear not only the fogginess in my head but the pain behind my eyes. “Hit me.”

The puck comes sailing toward my five-hole. It’s an easy stop for me. I’m quick dropping down and closing that off. But the whoosh of the net behind me is unmistakable as the puck sails through.

“Fuck!” I slam my stick against the ice and skate along the crease, head hanging.

Coach’s blades scrape across the ice as he skates over to me, but I can’t even look at him. I don’t want to see the disappointment on his face. It’s my first time back on the ice with him one-on-one since the incident, and I wanted to prove that I’m back. That I’m ready.

That I’m still the same Luke Holloway I was months ago.

But I’m not.

“Talk to me,” he states, not asks.

“I don’t know what to say,” I tell him honestly. “Doc cleared me. I should be ready to go. I am ready to go.” I don’t know which one of us I’m trying to convince more right now.

“Just because you’re medically cleared doesn’t mean you’re at full strength.”

I shake my head. “I’ve been doing my workouts, staying on track.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about here, Luke.” He crosses his arms and stares at me in that penetrative way of his. I’ve played under Coach Raves for almost six years now, and I know by the look on his face he’s about to tell me something I don’t want to hear. “I know you can put in the work and how determined you are. But it’s going to take time to learn how to get around your new challenges.”

Challenges . I almost spit. Tracking the puck seeming to be impossible when it used to feel as effortless as breathing? That’s not a challenge. It’s a death sentence to my career.

For the last hour and a half as we’ve been practicing, it’s only becoming more and more obvious. If I can’t track, can’t see out of the corner of one of my eyes, how am I supposed to tend goal at the same level I used to?

“I’m never going to get back to where I was before, am I?” The words feel like glass shards cutting my throat.

Coach purses his lips and looks out at the ice.

I have my answer right there. I’m only thirty, but my body doesn’t rebound the way it used to. And now having to figure out how to navigate these new injuries…if I can’t be where I once was, what’s the point?

I don’t want the final moments of my career to be a failure because I didn’t know when to walk away. When to say enough is enough.

But that doesn’t make it any easier to swallow.

“I’m not going to turn my back on you, Luke,” Coach says. “But I’m also not going to lie to you and tell you that it’s going to be easy.”

That you’re going to be the player you once were , are the unspoken words hanging between us in an ice rink that used to feel like home and now feels like a skin that’s not mine.

I don’t belong here anymore.

The blades beneath my feet, the stick in my hand, the pads wrapped around my body, they all once used to feel like an extension of my body but now feel foreign and uncomfortable. The open holes on my mask suddenly feel as if they’re closing in, restricting the air from my lungs until it feels like I’m breathing through a straw, and I pull it off in a panic.

“Hey, take a breath. Look at me.”

I can’t. I fucking can’t.

“I need to go,” I say, dropping my mask and stick to the ice and skating toward the boards.

“Luke, get back here. Let’s talk.”

“There’s nothing left to say.”

I don’t turn around. I don’t look back. Almost as if on autopilot, I walk to the locker room and strip. It’s blissfully and achingly silent as I throw my street clothes back on, grab my bag, and leave. If I was in a better state of mind, I might look around. Might take it in one last time. Try to memorize everything from the framed memorabilia on the walls to the names of my teammates on each of the lockers. But I can’t.

The drive home is a blur, but somehow I make it back to my empty home. House .

It hasn’t been a home for quite awhile.

I carelessly toss my keys and phone onto the counter, a string of texts from Elle I don’t want to answer.

Elle: It’s been over a month and you still won’t talk to me?

Elle: After everything we’ve been through I think I’m owed more than this

Elle: Are you seriously done? That’s it?

Elle: Fuck you Luke.

Elle: I’ll sign the papers and then I want nothing to do with you

The rage, the disappointment, the helplessness, it crawls up the back of my throat, demanding to be purged. It explodes in a fury, and the house is the easy target. The bookcases lined with photos and trinkets I’d collected from traveling the country are first. Glass shatters as I throw frame after frame on the ground, my shoes crunching over the shards as I move to the next shelf and the next. Photos of Elle, photos of us, photos of our families, friends. None are spared to the wreckage.

My marriage, my career, my life, all gone in the span of a few seconds when my face hit the ice. When it’s over and I stand amongst the ruins of my life, I don’t feel better. The anger is still here, a rumbling beast in my chest, but it’s oddly comforting. There’s a bit of peace in the fury.

So I’ll find solace in that until it eventually turns to indifference, and hopefully one day, acceptance.

The pain behind my eyes is constant as I trod my way through the wreckage to my freezer, pull out a bottle of whiskey, and drink myself to sleep. At least in unconsciousness, I can forget that the thing I loved the most is no longer going to be a part of my life.