Page 55 of How We End
“What?”I hadn’t meant to shout.Crystal looked up at me.“Ignore her needs.What the fuck does that even mean?”Now I sounded like my mother.“Is she suffering?”
“Of course not.”Leah exhaled.“All her needs are being met.It’s complicated.Please talk to your family.I know this is difficult to understand, but it’s your family’s only option.This is the facility we are trying to get her into.Crystal, can you give me the brochure from St.Margaret’s in Rapid?Here.”She held out a brochure.
“And this place has beds.”I took the glossy leaflet that had photos of happy people on it.
“Yes.Talk to your sister.And happy holidays,” Leah forced out before turning to go back through the locked door.
“You too.”I stared at the brochure, wishing I had stayed in Vegas.
CHAPTERTWENTY-SEVEN
WYATT
November 26
I texted my sister on the way home.And in true Morgan fashion, she said not to worry about it.At my sister’s, I hauled the groceries in and started putting them away.The two youngest boys were yelling at the TV, game controllers in their hands.Remington walked into the kitchen.
“Did you get Gatorade?”he asked, looking in the bags.
“Yeah.”I pointed to a bag on the floor.“Where’s Grandpa?”I didn’t know how to start with him or my sister.I Googled St.Margaret’s.It was more like a prison for the elderly.There was an entire Reddit thread on how horribly the patients were treated.Some people complained staff strapped their parents down.Others said their mother was drugged to the point she did nothing all day but drool.My mother may have lost her mind, but that was not how I wanted her to live out the rest of her days.
“Did you see your boyfriend took a puck to the face today?”Remington smirked.
“My boyfriend?”I took the Cool Whip out of the bag.He couldn’t mean Julian.No one knew about us.
“Yeah, Silver.You only like him because he’s pretty.You and all the other women that watch,” Remington said, rolling his eyes.
“Right, because women couldn’t possibly understand something as complicated as hockey.”What a little shit.
“If you did, you’d know he’s an asshole who can barely play.He thinks that because his dad was Quick Silver, he doesn’t have to try.His season has been shit.If he was anyone other than Silver’s kid, he would’ve been cut or sent back down to the minors.It’s nepotism at its best.”
“Nepotism.Is that your word or your father’s?”There was no doubt he was Hunter’s son.He wore his shaggy blond hair the same way Hunter had in high school.Hunter had been popular in school because he was cute and played sports.I had no doubt Remington was following in his father’s footsteps.
“No, and it’s true.You ever watch one of his interviews?”Remington pulled out his phone.“Here.”
I took the phone.Julian stood there still in his jersey, leaning on a stick with his nose taped and a dark circle starting to form under his right eye.“What happened to him?”
“I told you he took a puck to the face today,” Remington said.“Blaisy shot a puck, and it deflected off the crossbar.See?”
I watched the replay.Anders took a shot at the goal, and the puck bounced off the pipe and hit Julian.He went down quickly with his glove covering his face, blood dripping onto the ice.The hit was on a loop.The shot.The hit.Julian falling to his knees.The blood.“Oh god.”
“It’s not a big deal.It happens all the time.That’s why they wear visors,” Remington said, unscrewing the lid from his drink.“If you ask me, he deserved it.”
“Why would you say that?”I handed his phone back to him.
“Because he’s an ass.”Remington was full of himself, like his father had been at that age.I remembered Hunter strutting into this kitchen, high off a state win.He had big dreams of being “called up.”He got something up, and Morgan ended up pregnant at eighteen.
“Really, and you know him?Had a personal conversation with Julian Silver?”I had seen Julian after the game.Witnessed his body bruised and battered.The self-doubt little shits like my nephew filled him with.The assholes on the podcast judging him.Everyone thinking they could do it better.
“I don’t need to know him.I watch him.There’s an entire Discord about how he snubs his fans.”
“Oh,” I said, leaning against the counter, crossing my arms over my chest.“A Discord.Thank god a bunch of pimply teens who don’t know what to do with their dicks have decided what a good player looks like.”
“Who’s a pimply teen?”my sister said, walking into the kitchen with a bag of groceries.
“I know what to do with my dick, and I sure as hell wouldn’t have taken a puck to the face.”
“Remington,” Morgan snapped.
