Page 68 of Goalie and the Girl Next Door
Now, I’m here. I’ve made it further than most. I should feel proud. But instead, I feel like someone cracked my chest open and rearranged the parts. I want more. Not less hockey—but more life. More meaning. I want someone to know the whole of me, not just the part I let show.
And I don’t know who I am if I’m not chasing one single goal at the expense of everything else.
I nod slowly. “I didn’t know I was doing it.”
“I know, and for what it’s worth, you’re definitely not the only one,” he says, stepping back. “It sneaks up on you. One day you’re adjusting for the locker room. The next day, you’re a caricature.”
I laugh weakly. “So you’re saying I’m the French cartoon in my own story?”
“Well, you’re certainly dramatic enough.”
I grin at that. We start skating toward the edge of the rink, side by side.
“Thanks, man,” I say quietly. “Really.”
“Anytime. But you’re buying the next round of protein shakes.”
I snort. “Fine. But I’m adding a croissant.”
He points at me. “Only if it’s whole wheat.”
I cover my eyes. “Blasphemy.”
We laugh, and at least for a minute, it doesn’t feel like everything is caving in.
CHAPTER 23
MARCY
The rocking chair on my porch is one of my favorite spots. With my laptop perched on my knees, I hear the creak of the floorboard I’ve come to associate with either goat-shaped trouble or Angel.
It’s Angel.
She doesn’t say anything. Just extends an arm and cocks her head.
“Come on,” she says, in that deceptively sweet tone that makes you feel like you’re being recruited for either a community bake sale or a covert mission behind enemy lines.
“I’m busy,” I argue, though I’m already putting my laptop down.
“You haven’t left that screen in four days.”
“Not true,” I mutter. “I walked to the barn yesterday.”
She hooks her arm through mine and leads me toward the chicken coop. The autumn air has that crisp, bitey quality I love all the more so when it’s mingled with the various scents of outdoors and farm life. By the coop, there’s a wheelbarrow full of something vaguely hay-adjacent, a rake that’s seen better decades, and the sharp, unmistakable scent of poultry in the wind.
Angel grabs a rake and a strange-looking tool and hands me a second pair of gloves. We start working without a word.
At first, I’m grateful for the silence. Then I realize it’stoosilent. Angel is never this quiet. I’m standing within a couple feet of her and I can hear birds.
I stop mid-rake, turn, and squint at her. She doesn’t even look up.
“What?” she says, all innocence.
I lean on my rake. “You’ve been quiet for twenty minutes. You’re never quiet for twenty minutes. I know you want to talk to me. You want to ask me about Maple Fest or Clément or my very healthy, totally normal decision to become a hermit for a week, and you’re just waiting for me to crack.”
Angel places her coop-tool—whatever it is—on the edge of the wheelbarrow and gives me alook. “Okay. Tell me more.”
“About what?”
