Page 63 of Pucked Up

Still, I couldn't sleep.

Every time I closed my eyes, my thoughts cracked open. Images, half-formed—crowds, locker rooms, questions I wasn't ready to answer. Whispers, too. The kind that always come when someone wants your redemption story but doesn't care how you survived.

I'd made the choice. I was going, but that didn't mean I'd kicked all the fear to the curb.

Proving myself still able to perform on the ice didn't bother me. I was scared of being seen.

Out there, there'd be eyes. Coaches. Teammates. Media. Strangers on forums who'd know my name again, only this time as a curiosity.

I'd be the kid who got wrecked and crawled out of the woods with a limp, an older man, and a massive scar. What would they call us? What would they callme?

Micah shifted in his sleep. His fingers twitched against my hip.

I stared at the ceiling. We hadn't named our relationship. Not really. Sex, yes. Connection, sometimes. Coexistence, for sure.

We shared pain buried so deep that we both learned to recognize it without speaking. Would it be real away from the cabin?

Here, we were ghosts clinging to a house that didn't ask questions: no fans or expectations. The second we crossed into the world again—into grocery stores and away games and handshake greetings—what would we be?

I'd watched Micah face down a man in a bar and hold the fire in his fists without lighting it, but that didn't mean he'd never burn. And I didn't know how to carry that weight if it cracked open in public.

I rolled onto my back, careful not to wake him. The blanket shifted, and the cold nipped at the edge of my collar.

Maybe I was selfish. Perhaps I wanted him to want the future how I did—terrified, yes, but still choosing it.

I whispered, more to the dark than to him: "You gonna make it out there with me?"

His hand tightened around my side slightly. I didn't cry, but I didn't sleep either.

I lay there, eyes wide, and watched morning try to claw its way through the cracks in the cabin.

The following morning, we didn't speak much. There wasn't anything left to say that hadn't already passed between us.

Micah poured coffee into two mismatched mugs—mine chipped, his with a burn mark on the handle. We drank it standing by the window, watching the wind comb through the trees like it was searching for something we forgot to pack.

My bag sat by the door, already zipped. His was next to it, the side pocket still bulging slightly where the wolf carving rested.

He watched me lace my boots. His eyes tracked the tremble in my fingers when I stood, but he didn't point it out.

When I opened the cabin door, the cold hit fast. It was less biting than during storms but sharp enough to sting my eyes.

Micah shut the door behind us, then stood there for a long moment, hand resting flat against the wood. The key turned with a dull scrape.

When he slid it from the lock, he stared at it for a few beats. Then, without words, he reached up and unhooked something from the old nail above the doorframe.

It was a black knit cap—mine. I'd left it there the first week, soaking wet and too cold to wear. I never picked it back up.

He turned and handed it to me, but there was no ceremony.

"I figured you'd want this."

The wool was stiff in places, stretched out, still smelling faintly like smoke and cedar and the salt of old sweat.

I took it from him, fingers curling into the fabric. My throat closed. For a second, I couldn't breathe past it.

It was stupid—a cap. Not even mine initially—I think I'd pulled it from a bin near the fire when my ears went numb that first night. It was the first thing in the cabin that kept me warm.

I hadn't even noticed it was missing until it came back.

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