I hang my head on the bench, not wanting to make eye contact with anyone. I don’t want to witness the pity in their eyes.
I’ve been playing like shit since Halloween. No one else knows why, but I do.
I’m too much in my head, thinking about every moment with BBUGirl and where I went wrong. Did she not like what she saw? Was I not enough? Was I too much?
Meeting her in the chat room was totally random, and slipping into her messages was something I don’t do often, or ever. But there was something about her that appealed to me, and I couldn’t get enough.
I haven’t opened up to someone like that in a long time, maybe ever. The thrill of anonymity helped, especially at first. I wasn’t Dallas Dawes, the star hockey player or son of a hotshot lawyer. I was just me, and that was enough.
Until now.
Is it me or something else?
A microphone gets shoved in my face as I exit the arena to my truck.
“What’s going on?” a female voice that I recognize asks. She reports for the college paper, so it’s not a full media frenzy, but I’m still annoyed.
“I don’t know.” I shrug.
“What needs to happen to bring back the Dallas Dawes attack?”
What needs to happen?
I need to find my girl.
“I’m missing my girl,” I admit to the reporter. It’s been a long day, and I’m just done.
“Your girl?” The question rests in her voice.
Could this reporter be my girl? She is a student, but I glance at her hair, and it’s not those blonde curls. I guess my Cinderella could have worn a wig, but, shit, this is hard.
I’m never going to find her.
“Yes. She ghosted me,” I admit.
“Someone ghosted you?” There is a hint of disbelief in her tone.
“Yes.” I grow more serious. “I need to see—” I shake my head. “I need tohearher at the next game, cheering me on.”
“You heard it. Dallas Dawes needs his girl at the next game. I take it she knows who she is?”
“I hope so. She’s my Cinderella, and I need to find her.”
Chapter Twelve
Ella
“This is crazy!” I yell over to Faye and Cami as I scoop some popcorn up and shove it into a box. The ice arena doesn’t employ Cami, but she jumped behind the snack bar to help Faye and me once she saw how long the line was before the game. It hasn’t let up yet.
We’re only five minutes into the Harbor Seals’ home game, and the arena is packed.
This rink is smaller than the one they typically played at, you know, before the fire, but there are many more fans than usual. They normally only pack the stands for the playoffs, but not always.
Hockey is popular, sure, but it’s harder to get students to a cold arena off campus, especially when the shuttles don’t run this way.
“What is going on?” I ask again when the line finally quits halfway into the first period.
“You don’t know?” Cami asks.
