Page 13 of From Ice to Grace
Ending the call, I set down the phone before making my way to the bedroom. Opening the drawer to my nightstand, I pull out the blue velvet box that’s been haunting me for a year. My fingers draw small circles along the soft exterior. In it you’ll find a two carat diamond.
Princess cut. Platinum band. Perfectly beautiful.
But this isn’t the ring I wanted, not really. It took me a while to admit that maybe Axel didn’t really know me, didn’t really love me. Sometimes I wonder if I had been honest with myself from the beginning, would it have spared me all the heartache.
I’ve pictured throwing the ring in the Hudson River, watching the chemical ridden water swallow it up…my past and all the pain right along with it. But I’ve never been able to do it. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I close my eyes and take a breath.
Father, please help me to really forgive. I know I don’t have to see him to forgive him, so I ask that you show me how. Show me how to extend forgiveness and grace to someone who I feel is undeserving. How did You do it, Lord?
There’s no immediate answer, no booming voice coming from the clouds.
But instead, I’m filled with a quiet sense of certainty that God is still working.
For now, that has to be enough.
3
DECLAN
My head is killing me.
I’m not sure how much I drank last night, but it must’ve been enough to make the lights in this rink feel like they're burning straight through my skull. It wasn’t entirely my intention to pour myself a drink when I got home, but the more I thought about Avah’s words, and EJ’s reaction to me talking to his sister, the more I had to drink to forget.
Not to mention my aunt’s message.
Her praying for me only adds onto the guilt I’m already trying to shove down. Her prayers never helped my dad’s drinking, and clearly it’s not doing any good in my life.
I’m hunched over on the bench at the Rangers training facility in Tarrytown, breathing through the nausea. The rubber mat in front of me is swaying.
We’re supposed to meet with our penalty kill coach today, which means it’s a grueling day of practice. I’m counting down the seconds until I’m called, hoping for an intervention of some kind. Anything would do…fire drill, FBI raid, sky falling.
Anything, as long as I get to sit right here where I am.
Honestly, I’m not sure how I got here in the first place.
“You don’t look so good,” says my housemate and teammate, Wyatt Lindgren, as he slaps me on the back.
My brain smacks against my forehead and if I had more energy, I’d punch him right now.
“You know I’m hotter than you, Barney,” I mumble. My sharp comeback sounds flat, even to my own ears.
“Murphy!” Coach calls. I wince, since it sounds like he’s yelling right next to my ear. “Get on the ice!”
“They called you up a few minutes ago, dude,” Lindgren says from next to me. He’s breathing heavily, squirting water in his mouth before spitting into the gutter in front of us. “What’s wrong? You were fine when we got in last night.”
Last night after our flight, he went to his room and slept like a good, dutiful, hockey player. While I paced around the living room, phone in hand, debating whether or not to call one of the many numbers on my phone for a distraction. But since a booty call at four a.m. is pushing it, even for me, I opted for the bottle of bourbon instead.
Leaning on my stick, I get up. The motion has a wave of nausea coming over me. My stomach twists. Bending over, I spill everything on the rubber mat in front of me.
“What the—” Coach shouts, his voice echoing off the walls. It’s all too loud and too sharp. Too much.
“Are you okay?” Lindgren asks, his hand on my shoulder. “What’s gotten into you?”
I sink back onto the bench, my head between my legs.
“He’s hungover,” EJ’s voice comes from the ice. The iciness in his voice is unmistakable. It sounds a lot like Avah’s did last night when she told me what a talentless playboy I really am.
“Maybe he’s sick?” Lucas adds from his other side. He’s known me at my highest and my lowest, which means he knows this isn’t a stomach bug. Although, he’s probably hoping it’s a bug, because then he wouldn’t have to kick himself for not intervening in some way.
