Page 11 of Player Misconduct
Inhale for four, hold for four, exhale for six.
Kendall mirrors it, eyes closing. I match her cycles in my head, a quiet inside joke with myself. The engines build to a soft roar. Her hand finds my sleeve without looking. I let it stay.
Takeoff. The runway bumps turn to air, and everyone pretends not to notice their stomachs lift. I stare out the window—bright wet smears of Seattle sliding away beneath the clouds. I think about the blue line, the seam that opens if you hit it with speed. I think about the sound of the building exhaling last night when we won.
By the time we climb above the first clouds, her breathing has evened out. Her hand slides from my sleeve to my forearm, slowly, as the Dramamine takes hold. The space between us shrinks until her knuckles brush my ribs. Her head tilts toward my shoulder in stages, like a tree deciding where to land—then lands there.
I don’t move for a long time. Not even when my arm starts to tingle.
I invent a drill in my head calledBecome the Doctor Pillowand I nail it perfectly because she doesn’t so much as flinch.
Eventually, I risk a glance down. The lashes I teased last night are even more unfair up close. Her mouth is soft. A sweet pink I’d bet tastes just as good as it looks. The crease between her brows has smoothed out; the tension is gone. Dramamine and a woman with a sauna-towel voice—1. Fear—0.
“Good?” I whisper to no one.
She doesn’t answer. Her hand curls, not around mine but near it, like a truce flag. The podcast voice tells her she’s safe, but I could have told her that myself. As long as I’m around, she always will be.
I’d say it out loud, but she’s not ready to hear it. Maybe she never will be.
If that’s the case, then I’ll settle for flights like this. When she lets me sit beside her, lets her guard drop, lets me be the pillow.
And if that’s all I get, then Coach better get used to me taking more hits that draw blood for her to bandage up.
Denver air hits differently when we land. Everyone says altitude like it’s an excuse; it’s not, it’s a fact. It dries your nose out and makes your legs feel like you forgot to charge them. You skate through it. That’s the job.
Morning skate is legs and touches, pucks snapping off fiberglass, Coach Haynes barking in that gravely tone that still says he scored thirty-one goals one year. I run my pattern. If I do nothing else in this life, I will skate clean. I owe eight-year-old me that much—back when I was all elbows and thrift-store pads and a rink that smelled like ammonia and the sea.
We go lines… we go reps. I win more draws than I lose, and Wolf chirps at me between circles about how my faceoff win is the only reason he tolerates my “finnish finesse” on zone entries.
Kendall watches from the tunnel with Theo, clipboard tucked against her chest. She is backlit by the fluorescent, scientifically unflattering light, and still I swear she glows. She catches me looking and points two fingers at her eyes then at me: hydrate. I make a show of chugging back a barrel to impress her and get a head shake I don’t deserve.
We bus back, take naps, wrap sticks while eating lunch. I text my mom a picture of the skyline and she sends back three blue hearts and a photo of the dog asleep on her knitting. She asksif Kendall liked the licorice. I say she is brave and add a winky face. Mom sends thirty-five question marks. I tell her to watch the game.
The building is full before warmups. Denver’s band does this drum thing in the concourse that makes your ribs rattle.
In the first period, we settle into a long fight ahead of us. Everyone is pretending not to have nerves. I take the first shift and waste it winning a puck battle that goes nowhere, but it puts sweat on my back and quiets my head. Second shift, I turn a middle pickup into a controlled entry and feed Slade late. He looks at me like I did it on purpose, though he knows I did. Sorry buddy, next time.
We get it back on the power play. I fake a pass to Luka Popovich, and then send it to Slade. He hammers it. 1–1. I take a seat on the bench, down a water bottle and take a deep breath. Oxygen is a drug in thin air.
Between shifts, I hear the steady sound of Kendall’s voice without making out words. Theo nods; she writes. The headset cord drapes from the back of her collar, and I have an unreasonable urge to tuck it someplace safe so nobody trips. Focus.
Second period is a seesaw and not the fun kind. Wolf ends up in the penalty box more than usual and comes back out with eyes like a thunderhead. I keep it simple, chips and chases, retrieve and bump, the little ugly things you do to back up what you advertised in warmups.
On a change, I catch Kendall’s line of sight by accident. She gives me the world’s smallest nod, like something private just between the two of us. It’s ridiculous how quickly it gives me a burst of energy. Like I could shake all night.
We go out for the third period, tied.
The first thirty seconds are nothing but shifts—pucks in feet, whistles at bad times, the universe trying to see if we’ll blink.We don’t. Our line catches a matchup I like; their second pair is gassed from the last kill. I win the draw clean, slide it back to Luka, and we roll.
I get it on the half wall with a touch of space. One stride, then two, weight on the inside edge. I slip the puck to my backhand when I see an opening like a curtain. I see Slade cutting back. I see the goalie’s shoulder twitch—and then I see nothing.
It’s the legal kind of hit that doesn’t feel legal from inside your skull. A body, shoulder high to my chest, my head whipping on the swivel of my neck. The boards come too fast and in slow-motion at the same time. I don’t even hear the whistle.
Then the world turns dark with only stars shooting into my vision and then… nothing.
Coming back is like walking out of a pool with all your clothes on. It’s heavy at first. Then you are aware of small things, like the ice brutal against the back of your arms, a burn at your cheekbone, the ridiculous thought that someone needs to fix the arena lights because they are too bright and one is haloing a person’s head like a painting.
“Kendall,” I say, except my mouth doesn’t shape it right. I can tell because she shakes her head. The kind of headshake that says I am here and we are okay but we are not doing this your way.
