Page 106 of The Has-Been

And if I want the truth from Aubrey, then I need to face some truths myself.

A burst of confidence thrums through me, although my stomach is rolling into knots.

After all the good that’s coming back into my life…Working with the team. Being back with my friends. Finding my happiness again.

Being with Aubrey.

I am just now realizing it—just now able to feel it—to say it.

To face it.

It wasn’t an accident. Not an incident, as my mother likes to call it.

It was me—it was all me.

I can hear it now…the silence I once wanted so badly…

I hear everything.

My own heartbeat thumping against my ears. The sound of my skates carving marks over untouched ice. A whistle blowing, the pounding of screaming fans’ fists over the glass. The sharp blast of a goal horn echoing through an empty arena. The audible snap of my leg. Dr. Shannon’s deep voice, “Your career is over.” Aubrey’s sobs in the middle of the night when she thinks I’m asleep.

They haunt me, torment my mind like my useless body terrorizes my future.

I can’t escape it.

That’s all I’ve become…noise.

Like I’m an apparition, like I’m being forced to watch my life play out before my eyes.

I’m no longer in control.

Things happen around me, but I’m not there, not really.

I’m a shadow on a cloudy day.

Unseen. Unpresent.

Vanished.

Forced to hear it all. Everything. All at once.

But not able to silence it. To make it go away.

I hear it all. Over and over.

I grasp at my ears, hot tears streaming down my face as I claw at them.

I just want it to stop.

For just a minute. A second.

A fucking heartbeat.

Just a brief disassociation.

For now. For forever.

I don’t know.