Page 34

Chapter 34

Nat

Once again, I find myself across town, mask pulled over my face, stick in hands and skates on the ice. Right where I belong. In the bowels of the city, surrounded by darkness, by depravity. The ice beneath my blades.

I lose myself to this game.

I don’t even wonder if Jesse’s here.

I might not be Olli James, but I know how to initiate a play. Break the puck deep into the offensive zone, almost behind the net—there! My winger zippers in, and I saucer the puck out in front onto his stick.

Shot. Block—rebound!

I break in to scoop up the loose puck, bounce it up the boards towards my other teammate. His slapshot misses the net. Our second scoops it up, flings around the net towards me.

But this isn’t organized hockey.

While I’m watching my teammate, trying to get open, an opponent cuts in behind. His gloved hands ram my shoulder blades, slamming me into the boards. The edge drives up into my solar plexus to rip the air out of my lungs.

No whistle, no pause in play.

I shove him off, gasping. He takes a swipe at me, and I barely manage the dodge, still trying to find my air. What was I thinking, playing like it was real hockey and not . . .

The second swing rocks my jaw. Whips my head around, sends a bloom of pain through my skull. For an instant, I see stars.

And then, I see red.

He turns on me again, and I lose hold of the final shreds of my control. My vision tunnels in on the skater. The numbers stretched across his chest read Eighty-Nine—and they bunch in my fist as I yank the jersey towards me.

I swing.

He’s too dumbfounded to flinch back. My knuckles crack his jaw. And for the first time in far, far too long, the world feels like all its jagged, broken pieces have fallen into alignment.

I swing again.

Crack .

I should feel something, but I don’t, don’t; we’re far fucking past that. The anger consumes me. Red leaks into my vision and rage leaks into my limbs, and I let it, I let it, I let it, because anger is so much easier than any of the things I’ve been feeling—today, yesterday, these past weeks. These past years.

It’s why I fight: because anger is uncomplicated. One-dimensional.

Simple.

Red and white.

My opponent fills my vision: his blocky body, his leering black mask. My glove smashes into his face, and in that instant of distraction, I drop those gloves, rip the helmet off his head, and slam my bare knuckles against his cheekbone.

So it hurts this time.

It’s my first real fight in a long time, and I can’t stop because the rage has me blind to reason, blind to the world, blind to the skaters and the crowd and all I can feel is anger and all I can see is the blood.

My knuckles collide with his face again. Again.

Because how else would it go, how else does it ever start or end—my knuckles, someone else’s face.

I hit him again .

Again.

Again.

Again.

Too many times even for the Ice Out, because he’s down and he’s bleeding and I should stop—

And without warning, time fades.

Suddenly I’m seven years old, face pressed into the ice, blood pouring from my mouth and nose like somebody turned on a great red faucet. The jeers echo behind me, the ugly chants that brought me here, outside the school, that pressed my face against bitter ice with my nose bleeding and my eye swelling shut and my ribs aching.

My fingers dig at ice and snow until they find something solid, hard.

They’re bigger than me, those kids.

Stay down , says my head, but I can’t. I can’t, not while the voices chant behind me, not while the anger pulses through me like something separate and alive.

Not when Jesse’s watching, judging.

I stagger up, unsteady on my feet, and they laugh.

“What, you want more?” The biggest one looms over me, face spread in a grin. Just past him, Jesse watches. Not interfering: waiting to see how I handle it on my own.

So I do.

I hurl the rock clenched in my fingers. My aim is good—I’ve always been a decent shot—and the ice slams that bully square between the eyes.

He stutters back. “What the fuck.”

He lunges, and I stand my ground with my fists raised, though there’s not a hope in the world I’ll ever win. I won’t back down this time, can’t, don’t care if I get ripped to shreds—

An arm locks around my chest, hauling me back. Attempting to.

Someone digs their fingers into my blood-flecked jersey. Murmurs against my ear. “Hey. Nat! You won it. It’s over.”

Shit .

I’m not seven.

I’m not being beaten half to death.

No, it’s me connecting punches, my opponent bleeding through the dark cloth on his face. I’m the bully here.

Vaguely, I wonder if Jess is here tonight. Watching. Shaking his head, laughing at his pathetic little brother losing his shit out on the ice—

The scent of strawberries and coffee permeates the stink of sweat and the cold crack of ice, and that presence, his presence, is a sudden shock of cold water on my hot anger. My shoulders collapse, muscles softening, my whole body melding into him.

Reality crashes back in.

The crowd’s roaring. People roaring. Teammates and opponents roaring.

Slowly, the tunnel of my vision widens, giving me a clearer view of the muddled scene. The man on the ice leans onto hands and knees. Bleeding. Someone crouches next to him. The other three stare.

My chest heaves with labored breaths as the anger recedes. The crowd shrieks and cheers and boos and my heart’s still beating fast, fast, fast, like the breath tearing from my lungs, like the adrenaline pumping through my veins.

There’s still an arm around me. “Nat.”

My name on his lips. Soft and sobering, a comfort and a punishment in one tangled breath. My chest clenches tight. I inhale his faint, faded scent under the sharp cold of the ice and sweat-fermented pads.

Olli.

Olli’s arm wraps my chest, his head against mine. “You good, Mouse?”

“No.” I exhale long and slow through my nose, pull in a trail of icy air behind it. My lungs are still going too fast, too shallow.

The rage beats a heavy drum in my blood, ricocheting in my bones, throbbing almost painfully beneath my skin, but it’s ebbing. Slowly. My fists still want to swing, but my head’s in control again.

Do my fingers shake ?

I turn to Olli, and I nearly choke on my own breath. He’s masked, but not suited up to skate. He’s here for me. “Why—what—”

“Syd called me,” Olli says, voice quiet. “Your knuckles are bleeding. I think it’s time to get off.”

It’s only then I discover the blood on my hand, dripping down. No pain, just blood. Slowly dripping. Pat pat pat, drop drop drop. Leaving tiny red blotches on the ice like a tattoo of my sins etched into the white of my faded dreams.

Olli leads me off the ice. The adrenaline pulses through me, heady and high, tingling my fingers, making my bones sing. The knuckles on my right hand start to throb, and I welcome the pain, because pain is better than anger.

The crowd roars around me, maybe in disapproval, but I don’t give a flying fuck.

All that matters is that Olli’s behind me, his hand on my shoulder. He guides me into the locker room, down onto a bench, sits beside me. “What the fuck, Taylor?”

The words shatter my rage like cold-weakened glass. Their harshness, my name. The swear. Olli James doesn’t swear.

Until now.

At me.

The last of the anger billows from my lungs in a whoosh. “Aspen.”

“What the hell happened out there?” Uncharacteristic coldness seeps from his words.

“I don’t know,” I say, and I don’t.

The fleeing anger leaves my blood cold with shame, regret, guilt. Leaves me struggling to understand, to clean up the destruction in its wake.

I stare at my hands, the knuckles swollen and red, dripping blood onto the black matting. Not the first time I’ve sat here and bled onto the floor. It won’t be the last.

Doesn’t mean I want to be here, like this—bleeding my anger out where everyone can see it .

“Here.” Suddenly, Olli’s fingers slip under my palm to guide it towards him. I don’t know when he managed to find a first-aid kit, but a wipe appears in his other hand. The wetted cloth caresses my knuckles with such gentleness, he must believe I’m sensitive enough to feel that pain.

I watch in fascination as he lifts the blood away, the fresh and the dried, leaving only the bruised, cracked, callused knuckles behind. The perpetual, unyielding sign of my shame.

I exhale in a slow, tired sigh. “It was fucking stupid.”

“Something’s off tonight, isn’t it?” His fingers trail across my palm, feathering tiny tingles across my skin that ignite every cell in my body.

“Everything’s fucking off.” I can’t look away from his hand on mine, filling my every nerve with delicious sensation I shouldn’t be allowed, not when I’m like this—this ugly, jaded mess.

I should pull away.

I can’t.

“You want to talk?” Olli’s voice is a low hum.

He’s so soft, so good , and maybe that’s what makes the next words tumble out. “This place is fucking stifling. Don’t you feel that? I don’t know how you can see so much sunshine and beauty in it.”

“Sometimes you have to look for beauty to find it.” He shifts back to let go of my hand, leaving my skin cold in the wake of his heat. “It doesn’t always present itself to you. Just like happiness.”

His own hands tangle together in his lap, his gaze cast down like he’s studying the long digits, coiled together. But the angle of his head’s just off, so I know he’s staring sightlessly at the floor. “You gotta look for that light in the darkness. And yeah, it’s a constant battle. One you sometimes lose.”

The words hang between us, a dark and heavy weight. Something that should belong to me, not to him, not to sunshine and smiles and laughter.

I wriggle my fingers. Luckily, nothing seems broken. “I haven’t fought like that in a while. ”

“Did something happen?” Olli’s gaze never leaves my face.

My instinct is to force a smile, brush it off. Brush him off. I’ve gotten so used to saying I’m fine, everything’s fine, things have always been fucking fine.

Probably why so many of my relationships have never gone very far.

But maybe the fight has me too riled to pretend, because my chest clenches tight with unspoken words. I want to tell him. I want to bring him into my fold, my inner circle, my closest confidence.

I don’t know how .

How do you explain your feelings, your entire life, to someone new when you don’t even understand them yourself?

The urge to talk builds on my tongue. And yet the words catch in my throat.

“Look how well I’m handling my life.” I huff a dry laugh. “This is why I play here, Olli. Not with the Dingoes. Because I belong here. I don’t want my damn daughter to see me like that. To know—”

My voice breaks.

But I continue anyway. “To know how much of a fuck-up her father is.”

“I get it,” Olli murmurs, looking down at his own hands. Flexing his own long, smooth fingers. No scars on those hands, no ink. “Trust me, I get it. When I get stuck in my head . . . you really think I want the whole world seeing me like that?”

The soft words halt any others. “No.”

“No. Nobody wants to show the world they’re broken. Ja—” Olli’s voice breaks, forcing him to start again. “Jaded. Damaged goods. Irreparable.”

I focus on his words. On my breath. On my hands dangling over my knees.

“But at the same time, we’re drawn to the people who reflect our darkness. That’s why the crowd loves you—because they see themselves in you. ”

Why is breathing so much more difficult when he’s around? His words from before drift back to me. You are the representation of Day River.

“I can’t . . . ” I sit back, putting space between us. “I can’t be what everybody expects me to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t be this . . . this hero of the people .” I tilt my head back, close my eyes. Looking at him makes me want to shatter. “That was my dream so long ago, and it broke me. And I can’t go back to that.”

“But that’s the thing,” Olli says, his voice barely a whisper. “It’s not the same dream. It’s not the same expectation. It’s not wearing a mask—it’s showing the world what you really are. Broken and beautiful. And letting them love you for that.”

A huff of breath escapes my lips, something that might be laughter. “And what about you, Olli? Will you do the same?”

“It’s not the same,” he says, his voice suddenly small, lost. Like maybe he’s not the sturdy Aspen after all—maybe he’s the Mouse and I’m just the asshole that made him feel so small.

A new wave of guilt floods me. Ever the asshole. “I . . . didn’t mean that.”

“No, you’re right.” He offers me a tight smile, one that barely turns the corners of his lips. “It’s instinct, to hide our darkest, most broken pieces. I get that better than anyone. But at the end of the day, don’t listen to me or to them or anybody else.” His hand rests against his chest, over his heart. “Listen to you .”

He leaves me with those words. Alone, reeling.

I toss my skates into my bag. Stand. But by the time I leave the locker room, Olli’s already long gone. Still, I follow his ghost into the night.

It’s probably best if I don’t know whether Jesse won the Ice Out tonight.