Page 150 of The Pucking Arrangement

I sit up, muscles stiff and aching from last night’s brutal game. We won. It should feel good.It should mean something.

But victory tastes like dust when she’s not with me.

When the house I come home to feels like it’s missing its heartbeat.

The gym calls to me. My sanctuary. My confessional booth. The place where pain makes sense.

I flick the lights on, the hum of electricity filling the silence. No music. The weights don’t need a soundtrack.

Just me. And the iron. And the quiet agony of repetition.

I load the bar with the usual heavy load. Maybe physical strain will distract me from the gaping hole in my chest.

Maybe if I push hard enough, I won’t see her standing in my kitchen, wearing my shirt. Won’t hear her laugh in the back of my mind. Won’t feel her pressed against me in the dark, breathing my name like a prayer.

I duck under the bar, the weight settling heavy across my shoulders.

I drop into the first squat, exhaling sharply.

One.She’s gone.

Two.I let her leave.

Three.What kind of a fucking moron does that?

By rep ten, sweat beads along my forehead, dripping between my shoulder blades. My quads burn. The familiar fire is welcome—a distraction from the tighter, sharper ache in my chest.

I rack the bar, rolling my shoulders, giving myself a few minutes before the next set.

In that short respite, the silence presses in.

The silence of this house without her.

The silence of the music room above me, where she used to play, her cello weaving through the air like something alive.

My grip tight around the bar, I drop into another rep. Then another. Eight turns to ten. Then twelve. I push through, muscles screaming, but it’s not enough.

It’ll never be enough.

I catch my reflection in the mirror across the gym.

Sweat-soaked. Hollow-eyed. A man who had something ripped away.

Or worse.

A man who pushed something away.

“Papa’s sad when you’re not here. I heard him and Babushka talking.”

Ris’s innocent words slice through me, sharper than any blade.

I’d nearly combusted when she said it in front of Erin. Not because it wasn’t true, but because it was too fucking true.

And what had I done?

Exactly what I’ve done since Elena died.

Locked it down. Shut it off. Built walls so high and thick not even a determined six-year-old can breach them.

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