Tia’s mouth lifts at the corner, all wry. She pats my shoulder, too, and she’s about to walk by, but I lay my hand on hers with a shake of my head. It’s the closest anyone’s ever come to guessing why I actually left.
“I didn’t want to cause her pain. I was trying to ...” I can’t really bring myself to finish that sentence.
It was easier to pretend she was better off without me. Because who would want to be with the shell of the man they loved? Who had promised them all these big dreams, promised the whole world, and used to stay up telling them stories so they could be safe from their own brain and sleep the way they deserved? But that man got dizzy and tired, and he couldn’t keep up with any of his promises, and she deserved someone who could.
“I’m sure you had your reasons, Bohdan.” She exhales sadly, shaking her head. “But at the end of the day, while you were ever-so valiantly trying to save her from you, you forgot that you helped Sloan save herself. That brain has been running rampant with no outside checks since you left.”
She pats my shoulder a final time and follows Sloan into the suite.
I drop my head against the wall of the ship. Feel a bit like banging it and causing another bleed.
Jay clears his throat. “You okay? You want to talk about it?”
I jerk my chin and grab one of the bottles of beer Talon brought out in a cooler. Nothing really matters anymore, so I twist it open with my teeth.
“Don’t tell me the great, big secret reason you left was because, what?” Talon looks exasperated, the lines of his face serious for once. “You thought she was better off without you? What kind of self-sacrificing bullshit is that?” He pulls a weird face, makes fists with his hands, and moves them in some sort of imitation of a robotic march. “I’m Bohdan, and I guess I’ve internalizedso much toxic masculinity, I think there’s only one way to be a man!”
“I couldn’t stay up anymore!” I shout, arms splaying wide enough to hold my biggest failure out for everyone to see. Beer foams over the neck of the bottle, and I hold my hand up, try to shake it off, and fail, so I drop back against the wall again, pinch my nose, and sound more pathetic than I ever have. “She needed someone who could.”
Talon’s lip curls up, and he pushes off the railing, pointing at me. “Couldn’t stay up? Do not fucking tell me you left her because you were, what, tired? Your brain was scrambled on national television. You had one of the worst cases of post-concussion syndrome ever seen in sports. And you ruin the one good thing in your life because you were tired? No shit you were tired.”
I clench down hard enough on my jaw that it starts to radiate down my neck, telling me all I need to know about how my head’s going to feel tomorrow. “I couldn’t stay awake. I couldn’t be what she needed. We used—before she went to sleep—I’d help her count and her fucking brain, man. She needs—” I cut myself off, it was a simple thing that broke it all down at the end of the day. “I couldn’t stay awake for her.”
Jay scrubs his face, grabbing a bottle but not opening it, just sitting there twirling it in his hands. “We know she has ... worries. She’s been open about it with both of us. You can say it out loud.”
I close my eyes, and I try to remember what it was like when we were happy. Sloan smiling softly under the moonlight reflecting through those windows, lips parted at the Cupid’s bow, my thumb tracing her cheek before my mouth met hers.
But all I can see is her face crumbling into nothing, all of her shrinking when I left.
Shaking my head, I drain the bottle. “Do you know what it was like? To see her turn inward every day? To see her brain eat her alive? To have the girl I loved when I was twenty and the woman I’d have fucking roped the moon for look at me every day and even when she didn’t say it out loud, know she was wondering what she did wrong? To watch her start to believe it, when she spent so many years working so hard to try and unlearn the things the brain she was born with taught her? Because I couldn’t stay up and tell her three things I loved about her before bed? And there was so much fucking noise in my brain I couldn’t even remember to do it in the morning.”
For the first time in his life, Talon looks disappointed in me. “That girl would have drowned for you.”
“She was! She was fucking drowning and so was I! You two didn’t live in that house. You didn’t live in her head, and you certainly didn’t live in mine.” I punctuate each word with fingers to my temple. Pinching my eyes closed, I slide down the wall until I’m sitting against the ground, one leg propped up. I raise my hand, gesturing to each of them. “You can still fucking skate. You can still fucking play! You’re retiring because you want to, Talon, not because you need to. And Jay—” I turn towards him with a resigned shake of my head. “You should have went first in the draft. Seattle wasted their pick, as it turned out.”
Jay tugs at the chain around his neck with a shake of his head. “They didn’t waste their pick, Bohdan.” He exhales, comes to sit beside me, and drops a hand to my knee. “They gave you the C after one year. Most points in a season, more than once. You took them to a cup. You won them a cup. Still hold the record for most points in franchise history.”
“They aren’t an old franchise,” I mutter.
“Brain might be broken, but he still remembers to self-deprecate.” Talon’s brows rise when he drops to my other side.
Jay rolls his eyes, but a smile fights at the corners of his mouth. Running a hand through his hair, he tugs at the ends, and one strand falls across his forehead. “What was it you said to Sloan before we boarded? Do those facts negate that she’s still the most beautiful girl in the world?”
Talon leans forward, joining in with more exuberance than fits the situation, pointing at my hairline where the scar, starting to throb now, hides under a rogue wave. “Does the fact that you have that scar negate the facts of your career?”
I give them both a flat look. “I’m not answering that.”
I know, logically, that even though it was cut short, my career was a good one. I’ve come to terms with that part of my life looking differently than I thought it would from the first time I set foot on the ice.
It’s the carnage this stupid fucking scar left in its wake.
“And maybe ...” Talon leans forward, eyes wide like he’s eagerly waiting for our reaction to what he thinks is going to be an awe-inspiring, jaw-dropping statement. “Maybe you should have let Sloan tell you what she needed, instead of making a decision on her behalf.”
Jay leans forward, bringing his hands together in a slow clap. “When did you get so wise, Talon?”
Talon grins. “Retirement’s really opened my eyes.”
“What’s next? Talk show?” I ask dryly.
