In the ambulance, they give me more medication. The pain dulls to a manageable throb, but it doesn't touch the ache in my chest.
This is what I've always wanted, isn't it? To be left alone. To not have to deal with people and their expectations and their need for connection.
It's served me well on the ice, making me one of the best defensemen in the league. Nobody gets past my walls.
But lying here, watching the city lights blur past through the ambulance windows, I wonder if maybe that's the problem.
Everyone else has someone to celebrate with. Someone to lean on when things get hard.
I have no one.
And whose fault is that?
For some reason, the last thing I see before the anesthesia takes me under is that woman in the skirt suit. Natalie.
My last thought before everything goes dark is, what the hell was she doing at a hockey game dressed like that?
The END
