Page 111 of Puck Happens

My chest hurt. No. It was my heart.

How long until I wasn’t turned inside out by every half smile, every passing glance? How long before he was just one of the guys?

Would he ever be? Could all the money in the world make it easier to get over him?

Music suddenly filled the arena. One of those loud hard rock themes that played at every sporting event. A song that was meant to motivate the crowd to cheer louder and harder. It was blaring and distracting, but that was the point. The players needed to not be distracted by it. They needed to be focused on the opponent and the puck.

A few of the guys had come to a stop on the edge of center ice. They were looking up at the Jumbotron screen above the rink. Two big screens facing either end of the arena. Something up there got their attention.

All of them winced and then pointed up. They were probably showing highlights of some past game. Maybe Skalsberg smashing someone against the boards.

Their groans got louder. While I had no interest in whatever gross display of violence they were watching, if hockey was about players getting smashed up and I was going to be part of a hockey team, then this was stuff I needed to get used to. Even revel in when we came out on the winning end.

Except when I skated to a position where I could see the screen, I realized it wasn’t a hockey game. There were only two people on the ice. In costumes.

It was a pairs figure skating routine.

It was strange too, because I recognized Brian before I did myself.

Like for a second I thought I was watching him with a new partner. Was this some kind of a prank? Showing my old partner with this new partner on the ice? Was I supposed to be jealous?

Except the skaters blew by the camera at a dizzying speed and I saw me. Arms stretched, my joy in competing absolutely beaming out of my face. My entire body. I was vibrating with happiness. Focus. Drive.

Only the routine didn’t look familiar to me.

What the hell was I watching…

I felt it in my stomach first. That moment when Brian lifted me up in the air with his right hand. The heel of his palm digging into my pelvis. We’d practiced that lift every day for weeks, months. Over and over again. He spun around one, twice, his other hand lifting as he prepared to drop me in a controlled, dramatic descent so he could launch me into a spinning throw across the ice.

“Shut that off! Now!”

Through the buzz in my head I recognized Dillon’s voice. He was angry.

I couldn’t close my eyes. They were locked, instead, on Brian. Watching as my descent started. There was no control. The drama was raw and unplanned and horrific

I’d never seen this footage. Not once. There had been no point. Brian and our coach told me my blade had gotten caught in the lapel of Brian’s costume, which threw off his balance and… it had been an accident.

All of it an accident. No one to blame.

Only there it was on the giant screen in the middle of the rink. Like it was moving in slow motion when in reality it only took seconds. There it was, my skate just a shade out of position. He lost control and then it was my head crashing into the ice, my skull cracking, the blood…

The buzzing got louder, my vision filled with black dots.

I didn’t feel a thing as I dropped to the ice.

* * *

Dillon

“Liv!”

She dropped like a stone. Like she had no bones left in her body to hold her up. Her head hit the ice and I felt a spike of fear that felt like someone had shot me with an arrow.

“What happened?” Coach McKay was in sneakers making his way to the ice.

I looked around, but the team seemed to be in shock. Like they had no idea that watching the video of Liv nearly dying would be so traumatic to her she’d pass the fuck out.

Falling onto my knees next to her, I gently turned her, so she was flat on her back. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing was shallow.

---