Page 11 of Undone

Her words felt like a joke. I’d never had my own room before, but she didn’t need to know that.

It’s harder now, to avoid getting too comfortable. But LaBlanc’s return is the harsh reminder I needed, to remember who I am. This room, this white-picket-fence home—this isn’t for people like me.

Maybe an hour, maybe two, passes before there’s a knock at my door. I call for them to come in, knowing just by the footsteps it’s Sahara. Her hands have a plate of chocolate chip cookies from earlier in the week. She’d had me try them, excited about her own baking since discovering my sweet tooth.

“Thought you might still want dessert,” she says, hovering the plate toward me. A peace offering, when she didn’t do anything wrong. When I don’t reach for them, her face starts to crumble. It makes the pain in my chest too sharp, enough that breathing hurts, so I grab them and set the dish next to me on the bed, picking up one of the warmed cookies immediately.

“You okay?” she asks.

“Yeah. Just some stuff with hockey.”

She crosses her arms and rocks slightly on her sock-clad feet. “I figured as much.”

Silence lingers for a moment, before she gives a brisk nod and turns toward the stairs. “Just remember that Nate does care about you, Toren, and if he’s asking you to do something it’s because he cares about you. Do you . . . he said it’s because of the new coach? That he coached you in high school? Did something happen?”

What’s the right way to say He tormented me on the ice for years, then dangled a carrot in my face when I tried to break free of it, and kept me locked up just as much as he did his own flesh and blood?

“No,” I say, instead, pasting a fake smile across my mouth. “I’m just being dramatic.”

The words taste bitter, and for a second, I’m sure she’s going to argue. Say it, I want to beg. Tell me this is real. Tell me I’m not being dramatic, that what I’m feeling right now is real. Help me. Please—

“I’m sure you’re not,” she whispers, her hand settling on my shoulder. I shrug out from under her grip, careful to look away before I see the rejection hit her.

“Well, if you need anything, sweetheart, just ask.”

Her feet are quiet on the stairs as she leaves me to wallow. I end up waiting only an hour before leaving again, using the night on my bike to try to clear my head.

Chapter 4

Toren

Despite my threats, I show up to the arena bright and early.

It’s empty—as it should be two hours before practice is set to begin. But I know Harris is here, his truck parked in the lot along with a few other cars littered about.

We didn’t talk last night or this morning, but I know he’s waiting for me to speak first.

There’s a part of me that wants to just confess it all. Damn the consequences, just let him know the entire history between myself and LaBlanc. Even if it means opening all the old wounds I cauterized long ago. The part of myself I’ve buried deepest wonders what he might do— Would he take my side? Believe me?

No one else has before. And why would they? Everything that exists—the articles, papers—they spewed the same story told from lying tongues.

A flash of that night slams into my head, LaBlanc with his arms crossed at a dining room table and a spread of papers in front of him.

“I swear, I didn’t do it. You have to believe me—”

“I don’t know what to believe.”

“Please, please, I wouldn’t—”

The memory of my own voice grates at my skull, teeth clenched. Harris won’t believe me. There’s no reason to even try. I’m a lost fucking cause.

I stomp through, hands clenching and unclenching as I walk through how to explain this. There’s not a chance in hell LaBlanc hasn’t spewed something horrid about me, but I’m used to it. And if Harris hired him, then he knows we have history.

Your name will always be tied to mine.

LaBlanc’s voice is a taunt inside my head, echoing. Harsh and inescapable.

Still, I don’t want to quit. If I can’t tell Coach Harris the truth, then I’ll deal with it. I’ve done it before, and I’m different now. Older. Angrier. Smarter, too, which only means LaBlanc will underestimate me. Even if he hated me, he loved the way I played hockey. He can try, but nothing will stop me from my future. Not this time. I’m so close, I can fucking taste it.