Page 77 of Triplets for the Pucking Playboys
I move past him, out of the main walkway, into the quiet rear corner where the gear bins give way to a semi-enclosed space we all call the bathroom trailer, though it’s mostly a supply nook with a mirror, a sink, and just enough floor space to breathe without anyone looking. The lights shift into their pregame dimming cycle, soft and low, barely humming. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and it knocks the breath out of me. My hair clings damp to my forehead. My eyes look like they’ve been rubbed raw. My face has taken on that waxy sheen that comes just before things go sideways. But I’m still standing. That counts for something.
I brace my weight on the counter edge and draw in a slow, thin breath. The pain in my back pulses steady now, a rhythm beneath the noise, but I shove it down. Clarke’s waiting. There’s no room for collapse.
I gather the compression sleeve and a fresh heat wrap from the storage bin and step back into the main trailer, where Clarke’s already perched on the low bench by the med cabinet, his right leg stretched out in front of him, tape half peeled and irritation stamped across his face.
“Hey,” he mutters, “I tried stretching it out, but it’s not warming up.”
“Let me see,” I say, already crouching down beside him. The mat presses into my knees as I unwind the old wrap and discard it. The joint looks tight, not swollen, but stiff through the lower quad. I rub a line of heat balm down the side, working it in with the heel of my palm, smoothing tension away with the practiced rhythm of a hundred other game nights.
“You skating or babying it?” I ask without looking up.
“Skating. Full-out.”
“Then breathe through it.”
He winces once. I pause.
“You want to sit or play, Clarke?”
He huffs out a laugh and exhales. “Yeah, okay. Keep going.”
I finish wrapping his knee, check for compression, then press his foot gently. “Push against me.”
He does. The resistance is good. I nod, pat his shin once, and step back as he stands and tests the joint.
“You’re good,” I tell him. “Out there in two.”
He nods, grateful in the way players are when they know their body’s been held together by someone who didn’t flinch. He exits fast, already focused on warm-ups.
I rise slower, and this time the pressure behind my eyes returns in full. The low pulse in my back jumps sharp, like a wire pulled tight. My breath doesn’t come fast, but it comes wrong, like I’m breathing underwater, like I’m using muscles I forgot I had. I press a hand to the med cabinet for balance and reach for the tray—one last tray. The one stocked for final prep: caffeine chews, anti-cramp mix, energy bars, gels in packets with bright fake flavors. All the things that make the last ten minutes before puck drop feel like a ritual instead of a panic.
The plastic of the tray hums against my palms. I grip it tight, holding it like it could anchor me, like I could will the painto wait. I take one step, then two, toward the setup bench. I focus on my feet, on the floor, on the line between motion and collapse. I tell myself I just need to set it down. Just place the tray. Sip water. Breathe.
But my foot catches on the edge of the mat, just slightly, just enough. My balance slips sideways. The tray jolts, and I can’t recover it fast enough.
The clatter is deafening. Energy bars, crinkling foil, packets and tubes scatter across the floor, sliding beneath benches, tumbling across boots and bags. The noise slices through the hum of the room like a blade. And then everything stills.
I know the second it happens. My knees go soft, my spine folds in, and I feel my weight shift in a way that cannot be undone. I try to grab the edge of the bench, the side of the cabinet, the air itself. There’s nothing to hold me. My hands skim surfaces that feel miles away. My body follows gravity with agonizing slowness, like something has broken loose inside me and is finally giving way.
I go down, not like someone fainting, but like someone sinking. Knees first. Then hips. Shoulder. Elbow.
The chaos hits hard and fast, like a starter’s pistol.
My name is being shouted, again and again, and it’s not one voice, it’s many—Beau’s deep and clipped with panic, Finn’s cracking like he’s furious and afraid at once, someone else just yelling “Sage” like that will undo gravity. I can’t make out their faces. My body feels unhitched, half floating, half molten. My stomach turns in tight circles. My limbs are numb and on fire all at once.
I feel a pair of hands cradling my head. Someone got to me fast, caught it before it hit the floor, and I should thank them, but my mouth won’t shape the words. There’s a surge of sound again as someone sprints out the trailer door. I hear the clatter of skates on aluminum steps and the bark of the boom operatorcalling for medical. TheStorm Frontcrew is still outside. The camera light flickers against the wall. One of them is recording.
Paramedics arrive with terrifying speed, the trailer door slamming against the wall as two men in navy jackets push inside, carrying gear and urgency in equal measure. One drops to his knees beside me, speaking calm and fast, asking questions I can’t process. My eyes won’t stay open. My mouth won’t give them answers that make sense.
“Do you know where you are?” someone asks.
I think about saying “trailer” or “bench” or “hell,” but my tongue is thick and clumsy.
“Pain?” another voice says. “Where?”
I try to lift my arm to point to my lower back, but nothing moves the way I want it to. Someone presses two fingers to the inside of my wrist. Someone else peels my hoodie up to check for swelling, bruising, anything that might explain why I’ve just dropped like a stone in the middle of pregame chaos.
Then I say it. I don’t mean to. It comes out before I can stop it, floating up through the fog.
