Page 22 of Mind Pucked

She grabs her stomach, pulling herself out of the laughter, and nods. “Yes. Just having a lot of fun and I fell. I can’t get back up for all the laughing.”

I offer my hand and yank her up, my face way too close to hers as she dusts herself off. I shouldn’t feel anything, but that twinge is there all over again.

“Look, Daddy. I made a new friend. A duck friend.”

I deflate at the words. Hayden’s having such a good time. There’s no danger here.

“Thank you.” I look at Amelia when I say it, and I back up several steps so we’re not so close to each other.

She nods. “Of course.”

We stay until the sun goes down, stopping for a break at some point to eat some tacos from a food truck for dinner. Hayden groans when I say we have to go back home, but it’s about to be her bedtime, after all.

After Amelia says goodbye, and I tuck Hayden in, the silence starts to envelop me again. After the day Hayden has had, I know she’ll get to sleep right away. I’ll be left alone with this huge hole in my heart that Lyla left. Some days it just gets so lonely.

Eventually, I drag myself into my own bed and lie down, hoping to just crash and sleep. Unconsciousness is better than this emptiness I feel without the woman I was meant to be spending every day of the rest of my life with. Instead, I end up in a dream. One I haven’t had in a while, but it makes me just as hurt and angry as the day I missed out on the finals because my wife was dying.

“Sir, you need to take the detour. We’re cleaning up from an accident that’s under investigation.”

The officer looks like he’s already sick of me as I get out of my car. I’m lucky he doesn’t reach for his gun as I go barreling toward him. Not that I can say for sure I’d care if I was shot. If it weren’t for Hayden needing me, I’d be a goner already.

“I know. It was my wife.” My voice cracks, and tears involuntarily cloud my vision. “My wife was driving. Can I just…I just want to see what happened.”

The officer slowly lowers his arm and purses his lips, but as I clear my vision, I can see the look in his eyes. Pity. How bad was it, that he’s considering breaking protocol for this widower?

“I can give you a few minutes, but you can’t touch anything. Do you understand?”

I nod, knowing he means the words to sound harsher than he’s able to say. Instead, he’s looking at me like I’m some kind of specimen to study. The young dad, robbed of his partner in an accident that the police and doctors can’t even make sense of.

He lets me pass but watches me like a hawk, staying only about a foot or two behind me as I wade through the glass shards and ashes to the smoking, crumbled mess that was once a car.

My hand flies to my chest, and I nearly collapse at first sight. I honestly can’t tell how much of the twisted metal was there for her to be trapped in before it burst into flames, and how much has been taken away from the fire since then.

I stumble forward, some sick part of me needing to see what used to be the front seat. The smell is acrid, and I try to ignore the fact that there’s a hint of burning flesh in the mix. Instead, I focus on the damaged front end, the small opening they had to pull Lyla out of, and the deployed airbag that’s nothing but a burnt scar now.

I almost reach out and touch what’s left of it, the last place she was sitting and alive and vibrant. My wife. But then the officer clears his throat while hanging over my shoulder. It brings me back to my senses, and I jerk back, circling around to the other side where that motherfucker escaped the scene.

There’s less damage to this side, at least from the crash. The seat is all the way back, like it was shoved back to avoid getting crushed. That can’t be a coincidence, unless the person sitting there was gigantic. Even I don’t need that much space.

The fire has done more damage, though it’s clear no one was seated here when it did. The door is wide open, one of the only recognizable parts of the car in its original form. I notice something inside the pocket, almost glued on with the heat—a wallet.

I turn around and point to it, my brows furrowing at the officer. “Did all of your team miss this?” I grit out.

He comes around to the other side of me and looks down before calling over someone in a suit wearing gloves. She gives us a look, and I’m told it’s time to go. “But I want to know whose it is,” I protest as the officer tries to lead me back to my car.

“It’s a wallet!” the detective calls out, and my world stops. They’ll get the bastard now. They’re about to say the name on the ID, but then…

I sit up in a cold sweat in my bed. While it feels like morning, the glaring darkness outside my windows lets me know it’s nowhere near. So, I drag myself to the kitchen for a warm glass of milk, hoping it’ll help me go back to sleep when really, I don’t know that I want to.

I smile and lean into my teammates as several photos are snapped. I don’t know what the hell is taking so long for just a few good pictures, but I don’t work for a magazine. I’m just a hockey player. What do I know?

We’re told to relax and wait to see if this round came out, and I search the crowd gathered around the picnic tables to my right. Amelia’s hard to see since she’s so short, but there sheis, shoving her way through with Hayden on her shoulders, the coffee I begged for in her hands.

“Tall Americano, double shot of espresso,” she tells me with a half smile as I reach her. I say nothing, feeling like an addict as I swipe the huge cup and down the hot liquid like it’s oxygen.

“Late night?” she asks.

I almost snap at her that she shouldn’t pry, but then I force my shoulders to relax. It’s not her fault. “Kind of. Couldn’t sleep is all.”

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