I would rather loseeverything.
That's the line I cross in my head, clean and irreversible, and once I cross it there's nothing left to weigh.
None of it.
Rhys is more.
Rhys is more than all of it.
Rhys is everything.
I choose Rhys.
I wait until Marcus comes back on the ice and I immediately go to him.
It doesn't take long.
I get close enough that there's nothing between us, nothing incidental about it, and I say: "Whatever you just said to him. Don't."
Marcus turns to face me with a confused look.
"Stay the fuck away from him," I continue. "You've done enough. You did enough a year ago. Walk away from him and don't come back."
A million emotions move through his face. Guilt, maybe. Recognition. The look of someone who knows exactly what he did and has been living with it and thought he could come here tonight and look at Rhys and call it something else.
"You don't know what you're talking about," he bites out.
"I know exactly what I'm talking about," I say. "I know that you watched all of it happen and chose nothing." My voice is level. "I know you loved him and chose yourself." I hold his gaze. "So I'm telling you again. Leave him the fuck alone. He’s mine."
Marcus looks at me, glint of challenge in his eyes.
"And if I don't?" he says, and shoves me once.
That’s it.
I hit him.
Clean. Hard. The right hand, all of it behind it. My father, Rhys, Danny, Jonah, all of it.
A good hit.
Good enough that he stumbles back.
The bench erupts. Whistles everywhere. Players from both sides. Fitch yelling something from the bench that I'm not hearing. The ref between us immediately, hands on my jersey,and Marcus coming back up with blood at his lip and fury in his face and I feel nothing except the relief of a decision fully made.
The best decision I’ve ever made.
And it feels like a head laying on my chest.
Tastes like peppermint.
I’m at peace for the first time in a long time.
No longer haunted by ghosts.
They separate us.
Marcus goes to his bench and I go to mine.
