Total pages in book: 45
Estimated words: 41634 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 167(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 41634 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 167(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
My phone buzzes again.
Mark.
Forgot to mention. The Coleman kid will be there. The New York Titans are in town that weekend. Great PR opportunity for the “rivalry” angle. Play nice, or at least don't punch him in front of the donors.
Ryan Coleman. The name alone makes my jaw tighten, a Pavlovian response to years of cross-checks and whispered insults in the scrum. While I guard the net in calculated silence, he crashes the ice like it’s a street fight. I measure each movement to the millimeter. He throws himself at the world and somehow lands on his feet. The worst part isn’t his recklessness or his volume. It’s how they all lean toward him when he enters a room, like flowers following the sun. He plays the game like it’s a street fight, and he treats the media like his personal fan club. The thought of spending an evening in a tuxedo while he struts around the room is enough to make me want to skip the gala and take the fine from the team.
But the gala isn't just about PR. It’s about the hospital. Seattle General. I think about the kids I’ve visited there, the ones who look at my mask like it's a superhero’s cowl. They don't see the man who can't sleep or the athlete who forgot how to have a conversation that doesn't involve save percentages. They see the Ice Wall. They see something that can't be broken.
I lie back on the bed and stare up at the dark ceiling. I try to imagine the gala, the scent of expensive perfume and the clinking of champagne flutes. I see myself standing in the corner, a glass of sparkling water in my hand, counting the minutes until I can return to this apartment and this silence. It is a familiar script, one I’ve performed a hundred times, yet tonight, the thought of it feels different. It feels like a chore I no longer have the strength to complete.
There is a particular kind of loneliness that only happens when you have everything you ever wanted and realize it doesn't have a heartbeat. I have the trophies, the contract, and the penthouse. I have the respect of the league and the fear of every forward who skates toward my net. And yet, as I close my eyes, the only thing I can feel is the vibration of the arena buzzer, a sound that tells me the game is over but doesn't tell me where to go next.
I think of Ryan Coleman, probably surrounded by friends and family in some loud New York bar, celebrating a win or commiserating a loss with people who actually know his middle name. He has a life that exists outside the rink. I have a cage made of ice and a mask that I never really take off.
Stop being a dramatic pussy, I tell myself as I roll over, pulling a pillow over my head to drown out the hum of the city. I need to sleep. I have practice at ten, a meeting with my trainer at one, and a film session at three. My life is a series of boxes to be checked, a mechanical progression toward a retirement that will be as silent as this room.
I pull the covers up to my chin, the smell of expensive cotton the only scent in the whole place. I’ll go to the gala. I’ll shake the hands. I’ll even stand next to Ryan Coleman and let the photographers capture our ‘rivalry’ for the morning sports section. I’ll do it all because it is part of the job, and the job is the only thing I have.
As the first hints of dawn begin to gray the edges of the curtains, I finally feel the pull of a shallow, restless sleep. There are no dreams, only the recurring image of a puck flying toward me in slow motion, a black dot against a white world that I have to stop at all costs. I reach for it, but my hands are tied, and the puck passes through me like I’m not even there.
I wake up an hour later, my heart racing and my skin clammy with cold sweat. The apartment is still silent. The city is still there, indifferent and vast. I get out of bed and walk to the window, watching the first ferries crawl across the Sound like slow-moving beetles. I’m thirty years old, and I feel like I’ve been holding my breath for a decade.
I go to the kitchen and start the coffee maker, the machine hissing and spitting as it comes to life. It’s a sound I know by heart, the first note in the daily symphony of my isolation.
CHAPTER TWO
HARPER
The smell of the ER at three in the morning is a cocktail of industrial-grade bleach, stale coffee, and the metallic tang of dried blood. It’s a scent that lives in my hair and under my fingernails, a constant reminder of the chaos I choose every single day. I adjust my stethoscope, the cold rubber biting into the back of my neck, and stare at the monitor in room four. Tachycardia. Again.