Page 205 of Off Limits: The Firsts

But now? Shit, she’s the only one who thought I was worth pursuing. Being my fucking punching bag. She’s the only one who cared enough to dig beneath the surface despite my shitty attitude. Not Sanderson, who has a stake in my well-being, but Dekker.

She made me admit that I’ve burned out.

She forced me to acknowledge that I care.

She made me believe in the possibility of more.

I start rejecting the thought, and then try to push that ingrained response away.

I nod. It’s slight, but it’s there.

“It was supposed to have been me that day,” I finally say.

Her breath hitches. She gently takes my hand and leads me to the couch. Her papers are still where she left them last night, her laptop still open and no doubt the battery dead, but she sits me down in silence. She waits until our knees are touching and our eyes hold before she asks the one question that can break and free me. “Who was supposed to have been you that day?”

I stare at her for as long as I can before looking down to where I’m winding my thumbs around each other . . . and I tell her my story.

All of it.

Terry Fischer, and wanting to get back at Jonah for my dad’s punishment.

Jonah driving buzzed to get my mother because I’d refused to.

The young mom of two little girls he killed in the accident when he crossed the median strip.

The way my mom became frantic in the driveway that day when she realized it was Jonah in the accident and not me.

My dad’s heart attack when he found out about Jonah.

And then life after.

The endless hours on the ice where my dad tried to make me be my brother. How I felt—and probably still feel—like it’s the only way we survived from the drastic change in our lives.

But did we heal?

My mom hasn’t lived a day since then. Her every waking moment is for Jonah. My dad lives for him too, but also for me to actualize the dreams I robbed Jonah of.

And me? I’ve lived, but every accomplishment, every defeat, every critical text has been to reach my one goal, to win the Stanley Cup, because that’s what was expected of Jonah.

Not of me.

Not for me.

But for them.

For him.

Because as stupid as it sounds, it’s all I’m good for, and it’s the only amends I can make.

Dekker

When he’s finished with his story, with the guilt that owns him and has owned him for sixteen years, tears are on my cheeks and so much sadness is in my heart.

There’s also a healthy dose of anger too, but not at him. No way. His decision that day was of a young kid lashing out at a harsh father’s favoritism. It was his way of rebelling for being made to miss a teenager’s rite of passage. While consequences are consequences, the ones his father put on him that day, and Hunter’s decision to refuse to collect his mom, are in no way worthy of a lifetime of devastating guilt and a life sentence of penance.

And he’s borne the burden daily. Bullied to believe he must attain the things his brother may have achieved, because who knows? Jonah may have had an injury. He may have gotten into a different car at another time with alcohol in his blood. Who knows? But to be made to feel less than when he, Hunter Maddox, has achieved nearly every accolade possible, is the captain of an NHL team, is one of the highest paid hockey players in the US. It’s . . . it’s criminal.

The hardest thing to process though, is how to make Hunter see and comprehend the reprehensible injustice. It was Jonah’s choice to get behind the wheel and drive drunk. No one knows what the future held for Jonah, so how could he be responsible for robbing him of something that hadn’t happened yet?