Page 95 of The Grumpy Defenseman
Appeared again.
Then:
Evan: Okay.
That was all.
No forgiveness.
No warmth.
No clean landing.
Just okay.
Small. Spare. Entirely him.
And somehow enough to let me keep breathing.
Evan
Igot to the practice rink before sunrise.
Sleep had nothing to do with it. I had not.
Sleep required a kind of peace I did not have, and pretending otherwise had stopped being useful somewhere around two in the morning.
The building was quiet when I let myself in. No skate blades on rubber mats. No music from the locker room. No equipment staff moving laundry with the resigned efficiency of men who had accepted thathockey smelled like wet gear and poor choices.
Just the hum of the ice plant and the steady cold under the building.
I walked to the home bench and sat down.
Tomorrow. Early.
I had sent it because if I waited, I would turn the conversation into something I could manage from a distance. A text. A silence. Something I could study instead of touch.
I was done doing that.
The rink lights were still on their overnight setting. Half power. Enough to see the ice, not enough to pretend the room was awake.
I looked across the surface and saw what I always saw before a game: space and consequence. The rink made sense because every mistake left a mark. You missed a read; the puck went behind you. You lost your gap; somebody punished it. You lied to yourself about where the pressure was coming from, and the play told you the truth before the crowd did.
That was clean.
People were not.
I was not.
My phone sat face up beside me on the bench. No new messages. She had answered okay last night, and that one word had carried more weight than any paragraph could have.
At 6:02, the side door opened.
I knew it was her before I looked. Her steps were familiar now. Measured. Direct. The walk of a woman who had trained herself not to enter rooms as if she needed permission.
She came through the tunnel in jeans, boots, and a black jacket, camera bag over one shoulder.
Of course, she brought the bag.
