Page 85 of Breakaway Daddies

The boards creak under my skates like they’re greeting me with suspicion, not warmth. Like they remember me, but aren’t sure I still belong here.

The sound echoes up into the rafters, familiar and sharp, setting something loose in my chest that I’ve been trying to hold still for weeks.

The first few laps feel almost good. Almost. My leg burns, but it holds. My lungs pull tight, but they keep up. My blades bite into the surface just like they used to.

It should be a victory, just being here, should feel like something. But it doesn’t. Not really. It’s all motion. All noise. Muscle memory with no heartbeat behind it.

The ice is different when your head’s full of ghosts.

Every corner I round feels slower than it should. My stride’s just slightly off, too cautious, too heavy. There’s no rhythm in my body, no fire sparking up my spine the way it used to.

It’s like trying to play a song I once knew by heart with fingers that don’t feel like mine anymore.

The guys give me shoulder taps and half hugs, rough welcomes like they’re trying to jolt me back to life. I hear the usual, “Glad to have you back,” and “Looking good out there, man,” but their eyes say something different.

Their eyes say they’re watching. Measuring. Wondering if I’m still the same player I was before the injury… before everything fell apart.

I push harder, trying to lose the doubt in sweat and speed. Harder strides. Sharper turns. More force than finesse.

I throw myself into the drills like I can punish the hesitation out of my body, but it clings to me like a second skin.

Coach shouts instructions, and I chase them like they’re the last thing tethering me to who I was.

But there’s no edge. No teeth in my game.

I should feel alive out here, should feel like I’m burning through the ice, but all I feel is the void where she should be.

Jinx.

She’s not here.

Not in the stands, smirking with that half-assed supportive look she wore like armor. Not pressed up to the glass, shouting sarcastic nonsense just loud enough to make me crack a grin during drills. Not in the quiet space between whistles, where I always felt her watching even when she pretended she wasn’t.

Now it’s just silence.

A blank stretch of plexiglass. A missing piece in the rhythm of my world.

Thomas skates up beside me, trailing a figure eight into the ice like he doesn’t know how to say what he needs to say. He glances over, eyes tight, jaw tighter.

The wind of our movement roars in my ears until he finally mutters, “You doin’ okay?”

I shrug. It’s the best I can offer. Anything more would break open the ache I’ve been duct-taping together for weeks.

Anything more and I’m afraid I’ll shatter.

He nods like he understands. Like he’s skating through the same fog.

We’re all broken in the same direction now.

Coach’s whistle cuts through the air like a blade. “Davis! Boyd! If you’re not here to work, get the hell off my ice!”

Thomas flinches. I don’t. I barely blink. Just meet his eyes for half a second before we split off, him left, me right, diving into whatever drill Coach starts barking at us next.

My body moves. I push into turns, drop into my stance, flick pucks toward the net like I’m on autopilot. Like maybe if I can just go fast enough, hard enough, long enough, I’ll outrun the parts of me that still miss her.

The ones that wake me up at night, thinking I heard her voice. The ones that feel her in the space beside me every time I reach for a towel, a hoodie, a breath.

I chase the burn in my legs like it owes me something.

---