Page 238 of Saving Forever with the Hockey Captain

"I've watched grown men play through broken bones."

Another silence.

"I've never seen anything hurt a man like this."

My laugh sounds nothing like one. "The irony…I finally told her."

Coach turns toward me. "And?"

I stare at the cold vanilla latte.

"She listened." The words scrape coming out. "Then she left."

The truck falls silent again. Coach doesn't offer advice, doesn't tell me I'll get over it.

He just sits there beside me.

For months Annette has been teaching me how to heal.

Somehow, she's become the one wound I don't know how to survive.

Chapter thirty

Jamie

Grief

By the time I pull into my driveway, the coffee is still sitting untouched in the cup holder.

I can't bring myself to throw it away.

The engine falls silent.

I stay where I am.

The cabin sits exactly the way I left it this morning. The porch swing moves gently in the breeze. Someone down the lake starts a boat.

Life goes on.

Apparently, no one bothered to tell the rest of the world that mine had just stopped.

***

The cabin is quiet. Not the peaceful kind. The empty kind.

I set my untouched coffee on the kitchen island before shrugging out of my jacket.

For one ridiculous second...

I glance toward the hallway.

Half expecting to hear—

"Jamie Walker, if you're trying to sneak out of your exercises again..."

Silence.

The words never come. I let out a slow breath. "Yeah."