Page 33 of Goalies Don't Date Ice Princesses

“I can’t believe how well Archer did tonight,” Adelynn said, her eyes still sparkling with excitement. “He’s such an amazing goalie.”

I nodded in agreement, my heart swelling with pride for my boyfriend’s accomplishments. “He really is.”

We fell into a comfortable silence as the movie played on, the familiar plot unfolding before us.

We stayed up late into the night, talking and laughing until our voices were hoarse and our eyelids heavy with exhaustion. As we finally drifted off to sleep in our cozy beds, a sense of happiness washed over me.

twenty-one

I wokeup to Adelynn screaming.

It took me a second to wake up fully and figure out what was a dream and what was reality, but it was soon very obvious that the screaming—which was coming out in between awful choked sobs—was real life.

I jolted upright in bed and tried to jump out, but my feet tangled in the twisted sheets. I slammed to the ground and hissed as my arms scraped the rough carpeted floor. It took me the longest fifteen seconds of my life to detangle myself from the sheets and run into the bathroom, where the light was on. I burst in, my heart pounding in my chest, and I was greeted by a sight that halted me in my tracks.

Clutching her phone to her chest like a lifeline, Adelynn trembled with each breath she took. Her tear-streaked face was contorted with grief, her eyes bloodshot and puffy. Clutching her phone tightly to her chest, she trembled as if the weight of the world had settled upon her shoulders, looking more fragile than I’d ever seen her.

Her sobs filled the room, echoing against the walls. I approached her cautiously, afraid that any sudden movement might shatter what little semblance of composure she had left.

“Adelynn?” I asked. I wanted to hug her, but I was afraid of what would happen if she did. I wasn’t sure I could hold her up if she collapsed. Her sobs become shallower as she gasped for breath and trembled. She looked at me with big teary eyes and managed to choke out only one word.

“Archer.”

* * *

The next thing I knew, we were in the backseat Blair’s car, racing toward the hospital. I hugged Adelynn to my chest, rubbing my hand on her back, trying to reassure her, even though I had no idea what to say.

Even though I was freaking out just as much as her.

When we got to the hospital, Blair dropped us off right at the door and promised she would come in just as soon as she parked the car. I wasn’t sure if Adelynn even heard her as she high-tailed it through the doors. For somebody who had looked so frail a minute ago, she was now the fastest person I’d ever seen, and I barely managed to keep up with her as she ran for the waiting room. Luckily, we didn’t have to go far before we found her mom and Mr. Jamison standing together near the nurse’s station.

Adelynn reached them first, and I skidded to a stop right behind her, my hand naturally falling to her shoulder as I stood on my tiptoes and tried to peer around them, as if Archer would be right there, even though I knew he wasn’t.

“Is he okay?” I asked breathlessly. My voice merged with Adelynn’s as she threw out the same barrage of questions. “What happened? How?—”

Mrs. Rainn held her hands up to silence us and said, “We don’t know much yet. All they said was that it was an accident on the ski hills and they’re looking him over right now.”

“But he’s going to be all right?” Adelynn asked. With the way I was pressed against her, I could feel her heart practically beating through her chest. I couldn’t imagine the memories this was bringing up for her right now. For all of them.

“They said his injuries didn’t seem life-threatening,” Mrs. Rainn said. Her face betrayed her as pain crossed her features for a moment, but her expression returned to the neutral one she had before just as quickly. “That’s all we could hope for.”

“What kind of accident was it?” I asked. If he was in the ER, then it had to be something bad, right? Otherwise, their on-site medics could have helped him.

Mrs. Rainn let out a long breath of air. “It was on the chairlift.”

Adelynn gasped like she’d been punched in the gut. I tightened my grip on her shoulder, hoping it was comforting in some way. How many times over the years had I wondered what it must have been like for her and her siblings to get the call telling them that their dad had been in an awful accident? But I didn’t need to wonder anymore—here it was, hitting me in the face, reminding me that it only took a moment for someone’s life to get thrown upside down.

“He fell?” I asked. Mrs. Rainn’s gaze turned to me, allowing me to see the red rims of her eyes and the tear stains she probably thought weren’t visible, and I suddenly wished I hadn’t said anything at all. But I had and I couldn’t leave it hanging in the air like that, forcing everyone to wonder where I was going with it. “Do you… I mean… If he fell…” It was hard to get the words out and even harder to decide how to phrase it. Of course she was right that we should focus on the fact that he was alive—but the athlete in me, the part of me that had skated with him every night for the past few weeks, couldn’t ignore the other major thing that could go wrong. “How badly did he hurt his legs?”

Mrs. Rainn didn’t have to say the words—the way her face fell told us everything we needed to know. I felt like someone had punched me in the gut, throwing all the air out of my lungs. Adelynn let out a cry and spun around to hug me, pressing her face into my shoulder. I wrapped my arms around her and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to pretend there weren’t tears building in my eyes. This wasn’t my moment to be upset. I could cry later, but right now, I needed to comfort my best friend—Archer may have been my boyfriend, but he was her triplet, and her feelings trumped mine right now.

“He’s alive,” I whispered. I wasn’t sure if I was comforting her or myself. “That’s what matters. He’s alive.”

But even when I knew that, my heart ached as I imagined how he would react if he woke up and realized he couldn’t skate.

twenty-two

The hospital roomwas filled with a calm stillness as Archer’s steady breaths filled the air. Adelynn and I sat side by side, our bodies slumped in chairs that seemed to swallow us whole. Her grip on my hand was tight and desperate. We’ve always been there for each other through thick and thin, but this was more than we’d ever gone through together. The rhythmic beeping of the machines was providing a steady soundtrack to our collective anxiety.

---