Page 23 of Second Sin

But it’s too late.

The memory hits like a punch.

Hard.

Unforgiving.

I hadn’t seen her in a week. The team had a stretch of away games—East Coast swing, back-to-backs, no time to think, just skate and sleep and repeat. She’d texted while we were on the road. Said she needed money. Didn’t say why. Didn’t have to.

I told her it was the last time.

Meant it, too. Or thought I did.

But the second I landed back in the city, I went to her.

Some run-down motel off the highway. One of those places with flickering signs and a front desk behind bulletproof glass. I remember the way the carpet smelled in the hallway—like mildew and cigarette smoke.

Knocked once, and the door opened slightly, the latch old and busted.

I pushed the door open with the edge of my foot.

And there she was.

Sprawled on the floor like a dropped doll, limbs wrong, mouth slack, one heel still strapped to her foot, the other kicked off and lying sideways in a puddle of puke. Her lips were blue. Skin the color of wet ash. Eyes wide open, glassy, fixed on nothing.

The needle was still in her arm.

The smell hit next—thick and wet, a mix of sour rot and cheap perfume, thick enough to choke on. It clung to the walls, the floor, the inside of my fucking lungs.

I’d seen injuries before. Seen teammates laid out on the ice, seen blood, broken bones. But this?

This was different.

This was final.

Permanent.

I bend forward now, hands braced on my knees, trying to catch my breath. Trying to push her face from my mind. But it clings. Like the stink of that motel. Like guilt that’s fused to the bone.

I did what I was told. Called the number the team gave us for emergencies—the one no one talks about. Within hours, it was handled. Quiet. Efficient. No police statements. No headlines. They cleaned it up and kept my name out of it entirely.

I was never questioned. Never blamed. Didn’t lose my contract. Didn’t miss a game.

And somehow, that made it worse.

Because I got to keep skating like nothing had happened.

Meanwhile, her kids lost their mother. Her husband lost what little of her he was still holding onto.

And me? I lost the last piece of myself that still felt clean.

The guilt didn’t fade. It calcified. Settled deep in my chest like rot. I carried it with me everywhere—into the locker room, onto the ice, through every city and every game, like a second skin I couldn’t shed.

And when her husband finally found me again—outside a bar, two years later—I didn’t flinch despite knowing what was coming.

He didn’t scream. Didn’t threaten. Just looked me dead in the eye, jaw tight, fists clenched, and let it fly.

I didn’t dodge the first punch. Didn’t block the second. I let him hit me—again and again—until my nose shattered and I could taste blood in the back of my throat.

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