Page 115 of Wrong Pucking Jersey

“Honestly, I don’t really remember. That’s how insignificant it was,” I admit and shake my head. “All I know is that it made me really upset. Like crying like a child upset. It was enough for me to tell Jayce to fuck off and call it quits right there and then. It wasn’t too humiliating since it was only our crew left and a few adults in the hockey industry who were close to my dad. My mom came onto the ice to console me, while Maddox realized I was crying and got all protective. Basically, if my mom hadn’t been there, the two of them would have fought like cats and dogs. She told Maddox to take me over to the others and she’d talk to Jayce.”

“So she de-escalated the situation.”

“She did,” I admit. “Until the ice broke.”

“Fuck,” Dimitri curses, and I give him a side look before he corrects himself. “Puck.”

“Mom and Jayce were stuck on two broken sheets of ice, but my mom’s sheet of ice was thinner and completely collapsed. Everyone sprang into action, while Maddox handed me over to Dimitri and Ace so he could sprint skate to save my mom,” I reveal. “If you want to see O’Riley skating at his fastest, it’s when someone’s life is at risk.”

“That’s frightening to watch from the sidelines.”

“It is.” I let out a long breath. “I just kept screaming for her while my boys held me back. I did get out of their grasp and tried to move along the ice, but the ice broke and I fell in. Ace and Damien got me out in seconds and back on safe land.” I shiver at the memory. ”I think what made things worse was that Jayce was there, on his floating ice sheet, just staring while my mom struggle to keep up on the surface. Now that I’m a nurse, I can assume he went into shock and couldn’t respond, but fuck…”

I bite my bottom lip before I look away at the trees.

“I held that against him.”

“You still do,” Dimitri whispers as he gently presses his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t you?”

“It’s better than a few years ago. I mean, time is supposed to heal all wounds right? I guess the problem is, I never really confronted him about it afterward. Maddox reached my mom, jumping in with his skates and everything. He got her out, passed her to Wolfgang, and they got her off the ice with Dad and Coach Cyrus’ help. The police response was super-fast. Had an ambulance within two minutes. Aside from hypothermia, my mom would make a full recovery”

“That’s a relief,” Dimitri sighs.

“Yeah.” Now I smile because it feels like life is mocking me all over again. “Then they found the cancer.”

“Shit…” Dimitri is left speechless as I turn my head to see the actual devastation in his eyes.

“It felt like a blessing and a curse, honestly. I mean, if she hadn’t fallen into the ice, there would have been no reason to do a full body scan. It felt like a curse because we found the news when my dad was at the peak of his career.

“We were celebrating and partying, I was officially single and on the market, and Maddox decided this was his chance to make a move. To teach me that being around bad boys doesn’t have to be the way of life. I knew my mom would be more approving of Maddox, even though he looked like the typical bad boy stereotype. After he saved her, I’m sure her assumptions of him changed… but the cancer came along and destroyed our happy life. It was already stage three going on stage four. Those rare malignant ones that spread like wildfire until your organs shut down and you either become a vegetable or die trying to survive.”

I let out another breath and take a sip of my drink.

“Appointment here, medicine there, chemotherapy, and all the different remedies we tried. Google became my best friend when it seemed like everyone was distancing themselves from me. By then, my Heartbreaker Crew was breaking apart, and it felt like it was my fault.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Dimitri argues. “Do you still believe it was?”

“Yeah.” I don’t deny it. “I blame it on myself a lot of the time. Maybe if I didn’t break up with Jayce on the ice like that, things would have ended differently. It’s stupid, I know. Like, I may have been young, but I wasn’t blind to the obvious. We were breaking. Distancing ourselves because there were favorites. Competition within our tightly-knit group that no one wanted to acknowledge. There were other things we never really wanted to confront, you know? When one guy gets the girl, another may have wanted that girl, too. It was so much inner build-up that when it came crashing down, I wasn’t surprised.”

“But you couldn’t focus on that,” he acknowledges. “You were focused on your mother and her treatment.”

“Yup. Maddox, Wolfgang, Dimitri, and Ace understood that. They acknowledged I wasn’t really there. The others, however, were on Jayce's side, trying to put the problem on me. That our friendship ended because of my selfishness and that I changed. I don’t know what they talked about those few months when I wasn’t really around them, but they threw me to the lion’s den and hoped I’d be ripped to shreds. It kinda wasn’t until Mack got involved and reminded them that I was just a sixteen-year-old who was doing anything to save her mom from a disease that was stealing her most precious light in her life. It was their wake-up call after months of shit talk, but by then it was too late.” I shrug in hopelessness.

“She died.”

“Fuck, Mikayla,” Dimitri curses. “I know a lot of people hate when others apologize when it can’t change the past, but I’m really sorry. The me from back then probably wouldn’t have been a supportive friend, but the me now would have backed you up and tag teamed with Maddox and the others to teach them a lesson.”

“Thanks, Dimitri.” It feels a bit better getting it off my chest to someone outside of my circle.

“Can I ask what happened after that?”

“Hmm, not much really.” I try to think about it. “Maddox and I dated for a while. Way longer than when I was with Jayce. I honestly wasn’t really present. Just on autopilot trying to finish high school. Studying became a distraction, and I guess that’s what made a difference in my grades because I went from failing and Ds across the board to perfect scores and being offered a bunch of scholarships. I was no longer the cool popular coach’s daughter, just smartie pants Mikayla on the honor roll. The girls were still jealous that I was with Maddox, but most were thrilled when news spread that we broke up.”

“Was it ugly like how you and Jayce went?”

“Nah. Honestly, if I had to portray it, it was rather beautiful.”

“Beautiful?” Dimitri looks confused. “I don’t get it.”

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