“Oh, that’s fucked up,” I muttered under my breath as the first place was announced.
The air in the arena was electric, charged with the cheers of the crowd. It felt all so distant, muffled by the raging storm inside of me.
Brooke and I stood there, side by side on the podium, our hands tightly intertwined, as the words repeated on a loop inside of my head.
In first place, with a performance that left everyone speechless, are Brooklyn Desrosiers-King and Reece Carter.
They were haunting me like demonic whispers coming from deep inside a forest.
I couldn’t be happy about it. All this time, I’d been pushing myself to be better for Brooke, to win at least once just for her… why now?
Why on a day like this?
The win was meaningless.
The gold medal hung around my neck, heavy with the weight of expectations to deliver a better performance next week in Colorado Springs.
I glanced at Brooke, wanting so desperatelyto feel that calming wave hit me when she beamed a smile at the cameras. Her eyes sparkled with joy and pride. She deserved this so much, but I couldn’t share that joyous moment with her.
Dad was supposed to be here, watch this moment, see us win. He was supposed to sit in the crowd and cheer us on, but he was probably still in surgery.
He was the man who had taught me everything I knew about skating and ice hockey. He was the one who supported me the most when I picked up figure skating for Brooke and said it might benefit my hockey performance. He watched every game, and every competition, even when he couldn’t be there in person.
I’d always get a call from him once everything was over. I’d always hear the pride in his voice and it felt so strange knowing he wasn’t going to call this time. It felt wrong that he didn’t watch me today.
He was fighting for his life in the OR while I was standing on this stupid podium, basking in the glory of the first place, when all I really wanted was to be by his side.
How could I celebrate when he was slipping away from me, and every moment spent on the ice without him watching me felt like a betrayal?
My hands clenched into fists, my jaw tight with frustration.
“We can leave any second,” Brooke whispered to me, making sure to cover her face from the camera so nobody would try to read her lips at a later time and cause unnecessary drama. My dad once told us to do this when we were younger. “We’ll head straight to the hospital and?—”
I bowed my head as the national anthem began to play, trying to hide the tears that threatened to spill over. “I have a hockey game to play.”
“Reece…”
“It’ll be good for me,” I argued again. It was a few hours spent with my mind being anywhere but with my father.
Brooke squeezed my hand, her touch warm and comforting, but it only reminded me of what I was about to lose. “Okay.”
When the anthem ended, I forced myself to raise my head, plastered a smile on my face just to please the cameras, and pretended that I was just fine. I was happy. I was proud of my win. I was… perfectly fine. But inside, I was crumbling with every breath that I took.
As we stepped down from the podium and made our way off the ice, we were greeted by Brooke’s dad, as always.
My fiancée almost fell right into Miles’ arms, shrieking with excitement, and smiling with pure happiness as her dad told her how proud he was of her, how well she’d done.
It was like someone was stabbing a knife right through my heart over and over again. I would never hear my father tell me how proud he was of my accomplishments ever again.
“I’ll just go get changed,” I muttered as I walked past Brooke and Miles, heading straight toward the locker room. If I had to pretend to be just fine for another goddamn second, I was going to lose it.
43
BROOKLYN
We made it to the arena for Reece’s game with five minutes to spare. Reece rushed inside to get changed, so I couldn’t even wish him good luck, but that was okay. He had worse things to worry about than winning a game or waiting for me to wish him luck.
His coach seemed angry, but kind of relieved that Reece showed up at all. He’d been skipping a few more games for me recently. Each time he did, I felt awful about it, but even if I tried to make him go, he always found a different excuse to stay at practice with me.