“Oh that shit ain’t cool,” Trent pipes in. At least he’s on my side for this. I hold up a hand to spare him.

“Yeah, that’s sort of what I always thought, except…” I pause, shutting my eyes for a beat, picturing her face as I told her, as she filled in the gaps, as her heart broke hearing my pain. “Turns out she never knew. She thought I was just gone. I don’t know where, but just…gone. Not in some shit-hole wannabe prison getting the shit kicked out of me on a daily basis.”

“Oh…damn, bro,” Trent says, leaning forward to lean on the counter across from me.

“Yep,” I say, mouth tight. “Damn. Or damned. Whatever.”

I walk away and leave my friend with the synopsis of my hell. I toss my envelope on my bed along with my keys and whatever other crap I’ve collected in my pocket. I look around at the blankness of my room, the walls and dresser top void of anything personal. I don’t have anything personal. I’ve kept my life sterile. I don’t even have a favorite…anything!

Except my car. I have that back.

And maybe I sort of have Emma back too. If I want her…

Do I want her?

Can I forgive her?

Is there really something to forgive anymore?

Letting go is proving harder than it should be. Or maybe it’s as difficult as I wanted it to be. I spent years building up the walls and anger—turning them into weapons against the Emmas of the world so I’d never fall victim to one again. To find out I did it all in vain—I just don’t know if I’m ready to believe that either. I don’t know what to believe. I’ve held on to that sourness, that poison, for so long that my insides aren’t sure what to do without it there.

I could fill it, though. I could fill it with her, with what we were supposed to be before that night ruined everything.

But would she even have me? Like this. What I am now? A hollow version of the boy my brother and mom spent years trying to protect to keep me whole and light and hopeful. One night was all it took to make my heart dark. One night, and a year of having my bones broken, my skin burned, my spirit shattered by an evil man and a group of boys just as damaged as I am.

She didn’t know. She said she didn’t know. Then she said she would have…what? Stopped me? Would I have let her? It’s easy to say that now. Sorry is a word. Actions…those are harder.

But maybe…maybe if she showed me something, a piece of who she was. Maybe if I knew she really cared.

“Hey. Let’s go hit the ice,” Trent says behind me, snapping me out of my self-pity and dangerous self-diagnosis. He’s holding my stick and my gear bag. His face is erased of everything I just told him. I stare at the stick in his grip, laughing lightly to myself. I just got my face tore up in a boxing ring and I want to make everything better by crashing my teammates into glass.

“I’ll drive,” I say, grabbing my bag from him and passing him in the hallway, my keys pressed in my palm.

“Hey, maybe I can take it for a test run sometime? You know…just up to the arena or whatever…” I stop at the door and laugh, then look at him over my shoulder, my lip raised. He already feels stupid for asking.

“No fucking way in hell,” I say, and I swing the door wide enough for him to follow me out, admiring my car on the road. In this mountain of shit I’m sinking in, that car makes me smile.

Maybe I’ll get Emma in it just once…for old time’s sake. Just to see how she looks here, in our past, in what we almost were. Maybe I can try us on.

I drive away a little faster, and I notice Trent’s smirk as I peel out.

* * *

Emma

I don’t know how I knew he’d be here. I just knew. I had to find a way to see him alone—without Lindsey. I need to know more. He needs to know more. And this need—it isn’t about my friend. Even though she’s precisely the reason I shouldn’t be here.

I’ve compounded this sham of Andrew and I not knowing one another to the point that there’s no escaping losing her friendship if it blows up now. No matter how I look at it, I’ve lied.

I lied to the girl who helped me bury my mother.

I suck in a deep breath, letting the cold harden my lungs—maybe my heart a little, too, just so I can hide it from the guilt brought on by thinking of Lindsey.

The Tech arena is colder than the one back home. It’s nicer here, too. The rink is surrounded by stands, different from the few bleachers that press up to the glass in Woodstock. I see his name on the marquee by the door. It isn’t one of the ones up top. It isn’t even in the middle. But it’s the first one I see.