Unsteady

Since the accident, waking up drenched in sweat has become my new normal, so it isn’t a surprise when I turn over to ice cold, soaked sheets. What is a surprise, is the soft voice of my mother, not my alarm pulling me from yet another night terror.

“Shit,” I mumble, blinking through the bleary smear of moisture over my eyes.

My mother is leaning over me, her hand brushing the side of my face where I’ve turned towards her voice.

“You’re sleeping on your stomach again,” she begins, keeping her voice soft like she has been for the past months. It makes my chest clench tight because that isn’t like my mom—she is loud and invasive, and this summer of my demons has turned her into …this. “You really scared me this morning.”

Shit.

I close my eyes a little tighter, afraid of the look that I know is plastered across her face. While my father is more like myself, my mother is all heart with zero hard exterior.

Growing up, she’d been the soft place for me to fall; hell, even Bennett had let her tend to every scrape and mend every loss with a proud smile and kiss on the head while our numbers were painted on her cheeks. Now, and especially in the last five months, she’d been almost overwhelming in her care for me.

Nearly to the point I could swear my dad was about to re-enter the NHL and get checked into the boards to gain back her doting attention.

“Did I wake you?”

She’s smiling gently, still dressed in long sweatpants pooling on the hardwood and one of my father’s old threadbare Winnipeg team shirts. I push up onto my elbow and flip completely over, taking the proffered cup of water in her hands.

“No, your father’s getting a cold so he’s snoring like the dead.” I half-grin and see her real, genuine smile break through. “Are you alright, Rhys?”

If it were my father asking, I wouldn’t hesitate to lie, but my mom has something that pulls the truth out of me, no matter how deeply I try to bury it.

“I’m trying to be.”

She nods, sitting on the edge of my bed. “School is back in soon. Are you going to stay here this semester?”

“No,” I answer, thankful that she’s allowing me the space to distract myself. “I’m going back to the apartment next month.” And I’m dreading that conversation with Bennett more than I am for my first practice back. “I need to get back into my routine.”

While it isn’t a lie, it might as well be. Getting into my routine won’t help, nothing will.

Except for a pair of gray eyes and flirty smile.

It’s like a shot to the gut and I have to clench my hands in the bedspread to control the quick reaction.

God, Bennett is going to have to tie me to my damn bed to keep me from seeking that particular vice out. I can feel the thrum of my blood at just the thought of her, the immediate warmth that her voice and scent and face provide.

Whatever control I had before that game is gone—maybe it’s a piece of the part of me that died that night, considering nothing that’s left seems worth anything anymore and I’m still walking a razor’s edge with giving up.

Guilt threatens at the racing, hate-filled, darkened thoughts plaguing me; while my mother sits there, desperately trying to push the sunshine that glows from her towards me. I can’t bring myself to tell her that I feel nothing.

You felt something with Sadie.

“Yeah,” she agrees, before a sneaky grin stretches across her face and she rubs her hands together. “Wanna make biscuits and chocolate gravy?”

“What time is it?”

“Four, but who cares?”

“You know you’ll wake dad the second he hears a pot clang,” I warn, but I’m already shoving the sheets off my body and heading for clean, non-sweat-soaked clothes, to change into.

“Serves him right, the little mudak.”

My eyebrows shoot up, and I wait for the humor to force the laughter from my chest the way my mother has always been able to do. Yet, nothing comes up.

I try to shove off the self-hatred, shrugging and turning away to head into the bathroom, offering a quick, “Your Russian is getting better, but I doubt that’s what he expected you to use it for.”

“Cursing me out?” My dad’s booming voice is scratchy with sleep as he steps into my room, shirtless, wearing only his sleep pants. “Nah, that’s exactly why I wanted her to learn, my little rybochka.”

Tensing until I’m sure my shoulders are at my ears, I clench my fists and take a deep, heaving breath.

I wonder what kind of treatment that expensive sports psychologist would recommend if I told her even my dad’s voice is becoming a trigger for me.

“What are you two doing up?” He comes to stand behind my mom’s still seated form, hands dropping to her shoulders to squeeze before he pulls lightly on the loose ponytail of strawberry blonde hair. “Are you bothering my son?”

My son.

I try to breathe again, intentional and slow, relaxing my fists.

Because she’s big talk and no action when it comes to her husband, my mom only smirks up at him and nods. “Yep. Craving some biscuits and chocolate gravy.”

She doesn’t utter a word about what we both know. That my dad doesn’t snore. That she’s become a light sleeper since she found me nearly suffocating through a panic attack in my sleep months ago. That tonight she woke up to the sounds of muffled cries and probably nearly gave herself a heart attack when she realized I was on my goddamn stomach again.

My dad wrinkles his nose, because as much as he loves anything my mother does and would gladly eat raw meat if she served it to him, he hates chocolate gravy with a passion.

“Well, then what are we still doing here? The oven preheating alone takes an hour.”

They both stand and start for the door, but pause and wait for me. My mother is all masked concern, now smiling and love-sick half in my father’s arms.

But my dad’s eyes are relentless as they take stock of my every muscle, seeing too much and yet nothing all at once. Does he see a stranger where he once saw a twin?

“I need a shower, and I’ll be down,” I say, shutting my eyes and then the door before I can hear anything else, desperate for a break to just be empty without the pressure of pretending I’m not.

Seeking any feeling, even pain, has clearly become some sort of hobby of mine, as I find myself at the rink by five a.m. two days later. Even earlier than my last little visit.

I follow my dad’s directions again, flipping on the overheads and saying a quick good morning to the night shift manager, grateful for Max Koteskiy’s celebrity status providing access to slick, fresh ice and an empty rink.

I get through my warm-ups off ice easily, stretching slowly to release all the tension from my horrid night of sleep.

But, sitting in the vacant locker room, it only takes a wave of dizziness to completely derail my focus. My vision goes blurry, hands clenching around nothing as I release the laces that were nearly wrapped around my fingers. I try to stop it as I feel the panic mount, leaning over to hang my head between my knees, forearms pressed to my thighs to keep me somewhat upright. A shiver works down my spine as I fight against the squeezing in my chest, the fear mounting as my eyes blink fuzzy again.

I close them.

“This is pathetic. Stop it.”

But speaking the words out loud does little to drown out the sound of my own screaming, “I can’t see,” like a broken fucking record in my head. My hands reach up and cradle my head as the pounding of my temple rises to a sickening level, and my eyes won’t open because I’m too damn afraid that they won’t work.

“Get it together, goddamnit.” I clench my hands in my hair, resisting the urge to slap myself in the face.

“We have to stop meeting like this, hotshot.”

Fuck.

Even the rasp of her voice is enough to pull me back to this side of the living.

I gently raise my head, trying to pull myself together enough to sling a smile onto my ashen face.

Without thinking, my eyes open, blinking rapidly to clear away the fog. Still, I see her clearly. Her face is calm, forehead relaxed and mouth set in a sweet little smile—the perfect image of unbothered ease. Except for that tiny divot of her eyebrows and the concern in her gray eyes so deep I could swim in it.

“I’m sorry,” I rasp.

My breathing has already started to calm, distracted by the way she struts around the locker room and makes herself at home, dropping her bag into a corner by one of the long benches.

“Need me to give you mouth-to-mouth?”

The flirty taunt is so sudden it works like a cold water shock to my nervous system. Everything settles, my focus turning away from my half-on skate and wholly onto her.

Her muscular legs are wrapped in smooth black fabric, a school issued athletic long sleeve shirt, tight on her upper body. Her hair is down today, thick and straight with fringe dripping from behind her ear that has my fist closing to prevent reaching out and tucking it back.

Instead, I try to focus my eyes on the cluster of freckles beneath her eye.

“A-are you flirting with me?” The words slip out fast, my voice nowhere near to sounding normal, still breathy and weak and I almost want to take it back because I’m a hollow shell of nothingness and she’s so goddamn full.

“Me? Flirting with the hot hockey player who keeps showing up in my space?” She smirks down at me, pulling one of the headphones out of her ear, the cord dangling in her hand. “I’d be stupid not to.”

She’s so upfront, be it anger or teasing, so brutally honest in the face of my weakness that it settles something in me.

Or completely sends every brain cell I have left into an absolute frenzy, which might explain why I suddenly blurt out, “Do you want to do something about that then?”

It’s a taunt more than it is a flirt, and the old me would never say something so bold. The old version of my controlled, captain-on-and-off-the-ice persona followed a strict three-date rule before any hook ups, which were already a rarity. I didn’t want distractions—I just wanted hockey.

Until hockey decided it didn’t want me.

Maybe I want a distraction from how much I hate what hockey has become in my head.

She hums, a sound that’s both snarky and sweet all at once, her body gliding across to me.

“Put this in.”

I take the earbud from her outstretched fingers, brushing the skin lightly with knuckles as I do, letting the sensation of her nearness coat my stretched, tense muscles. The headphones are old, the cord connecting them dangling between us as she sits on the bench next to me.

Desperate, I spread my legs until my sweatpants are pressed lightly against her legging-covered flesh. She doesn’t move away, only watches me patiently as I put the earbud in my left ear.

There’s a quiet stillness to the music—soothing and just repetitive enough to drown out the mass of older panic taking over my brain. Like the sound coming from the bud in only my left ear is enough to overpower everything else.

Except for the warmth of her beside me. Somehow, that’s more.