Page 31 of Fractured Ice

Most people leave when it's over. I don't.

I find a spot near the arena exit and I stand there with my hands in my pockets to wait. I tell myself this is a professional follow-through and I almost believe it.

It takes about thirty-five minutes. Ethan comes out with two guys I recognize from practice, a tall defenseman with dark hair who I know is Declan Hayes, and a shorter winger who talks with his hands and has been laughing at something since before they came through the door. Luca Moretti. They're deep in a conversation that involves Luca doing some kind of dramatic reenactment of a second-period play, Declan's shaking his head, and Ethan's got one hand in his hair and he's almost smiling.

Then he sees me.

The almost-smile finishes becoming a real one and then recalibrates into something more careful. He says something to the other two and they glance over. Declan gives me a nod and Luca grins entirely too much, then Ethan's walking toward me as the other two are heading in a different direction.

"Hey," he says.

"Take off your shirt," I say.

A pause. He looks at me with the particular expression of a man who's trying to determine if he's being messed with. "After everything that happened, you sure you want to start there?"

"I saw you rolling your shoulder in the third period. Take off your shirt."

"We're outside. It's February."

"Ethan."

He makes a sound that communicates significant protest, then unzips his jacket anyway. The henley underneath follows. He's standing in the February night without a shirt, and I look at his shoulder, his ribs, his side. I don't say anything for a second because I can't.

The bruises from the fight have had a day to develop. They're dark, spreading across his ribs and up the left side, and there's one on his shoulder that's going to be a problem for the next week at minimum. They're layered on top of the usual collection of hockey bruises, which means there's a lot of purple and green and yellow across his torso, but I know the difference between a puck impact and a fist, and I'm looking at bruises from a fist's work.

I think, at least.

"That's from the fight," I say. Not a question.

"Some of it."

"He hit you in the ribs."

"I'm fine."

"Ethan. He hit you in the ribs."

"I've had worse from practice." He says it simply, just stating a fact, and somehow that's more difficult to receive than if he'd made it into something. "Can I put my shirt back on?"

I nod.

We start walking and neither of us says anything for a little while. Campus is quiet the way it gets on game nights when most people are still inside somewhere and the cold keeps the rest anywhere with a heater. My breath makes clouds in the air and I watch my boots, thinking about how to say the thing I've been trying to say since I found out the truth.

"I'm sorry," I say. "For what I said. This morning. When I accused you of⁠—"

"You don't owe me⁠—"

"I do." I look at him. "I was scared and I said something that was genuinely terrible, and the fact that I was scared doesn't make it okay, and I'm sorry."

He's quiet for a step. "You woke up in a room you didn't recognize with a gap in your memory where most of a night should be. You were terrified." He glances at me. "I don't hold it against you."

The kindness of it lands somewhere I wasn't expecting and I don't know what to do with it, so I look back at my boots and keep walking.

He rolls his shoulder.

"Stop," I say, without fully planning to. I take his hand and steer him toward a bench off the main path, and he sits down with the look of someone who's learned it's not worth arguing with me when I've decided something.

“What are we doing?”