Page 104 of Don't Cross the Blue Line
And the woman who sees him—she’s not what you’d expect either. She knows everything about hockey and has never once set foot in an arena. She has a voice that eighteen thousand people would recognize and a face that none of them would. She has built an entire life inside the safe perimeter of her own walls, broadcasting her sports podcast from a home studio. She hasn’t been to a game. She hasn’t been to a grocery store or a restaurant or anywhere that requires her to walk out her front door and trust that the world won’t hurt her.
She’s afraid to be seen. To be known. Instead of hiding behind pen names, she hides behind her walls.
Until Jake. He shows up when the heroine needs him. She doesn’t ask him to. He’s just there. And he makes her feel not so alone.
And she sees him. Not the stats or the jersey, but the man underneath. She sees his walls and doesn’t demolish them. She stands on the other side and says I’m here. When you’re ready. However long it takes.
So I keep reading, the sun starting to gleam on the streets when I reach the final chapter.
Jake stepped out of the tunnel in his sweats, wearing his skates. One last moment on the ice. He doused the memory of the crowd jeering as he started toward the bench. Where he’d be sitting until the end of his suspension. Or until the fans ran him out of town, whichever came first.
He just needed this, quiet ice time, to mourn.
And that’s when he saw her. There, at center ice, knees rattling on wobbly ankles, stood Lily. On skates. And in full gear—his. Helmet slightly crooked. Holding the boards like they were the last solid thing on earth.
He stopped skating.
She spotted him across the ice, and her whole face lit up, chin rising, jaw set, eyes a little too wide. She set out toward him, arms waving as though she was trying to tread water.
He skated to her. Slow. Stopped just short.
“What are you doing?” His voice came out low. Just for her.
“Standing on the ice.” She looked down at her skates like they’d personally betrayed her. “Poorly.”
“Lily.”
“No,” she said in that strong, familiar, stubborn voice—the one she’d kept hidden for all these years. “You didn’t abandon me. In my worst moments, when I finally gathered the courage to leave the comfort of my home, you were there, and you never let me down. And now I’m here for you. No matter what. They don’t know you. But I do.”
He could hardly process what he was hearing. “You left your house.”
“It was worth it,” she said, sucking in a nervous breath, wobbling just a little. “I’m team Jake Reeves. One hundred percent.”
The crowd noise in his head faded. The arena, the suspension, the six months of doubt and careful damage control—all of it—went somewhere far away and quiet.
He reached up and unsnapped her helmet, tipped it back off her head. She blinked up at him, cheeks flushed from cold.
“What are you doing?” she said.
Jake laughed. “What does it look like?”
He kissed her. Right there at center ice, one hand cupping her face, her fingers curling into the front of his sweatshirt like she needed something to hold on to. She kissed him back like she meant it—like a woman who’d spent years building walls and was finally, deliberately, choosing to stand outside them.
I close the manuscript.
The hollow doesn’t just fill. It cracks open. The way ice breaks in spring—not violently, but the slow structural surrender when the sun pours down and the world turns warm.
Jake isn’t even proven innocent yet, and she’s there for him. She sees him, and she’s willing to stand by him. Willing to see past all the things that try to define who he is.
And suddenly, I get it. She was never using my letters as material—only as light for a broken character worth a second chance.
And maybe, yes, she added some depth into Jake—frankly, he’s a lot more conscious of his feelings than I am, so maybe that’s a bit of overwriting there, but okay, fine. I liked it.
Really liked it. I lean back against the sofa, not tired. And then I get up, go to my mother’s desk, and find some paper.
I pick up a pen.
Dear S.B.—
