HUNTER

 

I STARE AT DEKKER, AND my body and mind revolt.

I’m terrified that if she sees what I did, she’ll walk away for good and never come back.

Her eyes tell me to trust her and her words tell me to believe her, but fucking hell if that’s not hard when all I know is regret. When all I feel is guilt.

I took away their star, their life, their hope.

“Hunter? Come on, talk to me. You can trust me.”

My pulse pounds in my ears and my chest feels like it’s on fire, like the space around my lungs is constricting and squeezing the breath out of me.

Betrayal comes with telling someone. A betrayal to my misery, to myself, to the way I’ve lived my life, and fuck, it’s a hard thing to let go.

I open my mouth and shut it, the words so very hard to utter, that day so godawful to relive, but I know I need to.

I know that if anyone can help me, it’s Dekk. She walked away from me before, knowing I would hurt her if she told me how she felt. I knew it. She knew it. It was so much easier to pretend like her leaving was no big deal.

But now? Shit, she’s the only one who thought I was worth pursuing. Being my fucking punching bag. She’s the only one who cared enough to dig beneath the surface despite my shitty attitude. Not Sanderson, who has a stake in my well-being, but Dekker.

She made me admit that I’ve burned out.

She forced me to acknowledge that I care.

She made me believe in the possibility of more.

I start rejecting the thought, and then try to push that ingrained response away.

I nod. It’s slight, but it’s there.

“It was supposed to have been me that day,” I finally say.

Her breath hitches. She gently takes my hand and leads me to the couch. Her papers are still where she left them last night, her laptop still open and no doubt the battery dead, but she sits me down in silence. She waits until our knees are touching and our eyes hold before she asks the one question that can break and free me. “Who was supposed to have been you that day?”

I stare at her for as long as I can before looking down to where I’m winding my thumbs around each other . . . and I tell her my story.

All of it.

Terry Fischer, and wanting to get back at Jonah for my dad’s punishment.

Jonah driving buzzed to get my mother because I’d refused to.

The young mom of two little girls he killed in the accident when he crossed the median strip.

The way my mom became frantic in the driveway that day when she realized it was Jonah in the accident and not me.

My dad’s heart attack when he found out about Jonah.

And then life after.

The endless hours on the ice where my dad tried to make me be my brother. How I felt—and probably still feel—like it’s the only way we survived from the drastic change in our lives.

But did we heal?

My mom hasn’t lived a day since then. Her every waking moment is for Jonah. My dad lives for him too, but also for me to actualize the dreams I robbed Jonah of.

And me? I’ve lived, but every accomplishment, every defeat, every critical text has been to reach my one goal, to win the Stanley Cup, because that’s what was expected of Jonah.

Not of me.

Not for me.

But for them.

For him.

Because as stupid as it sounds, it’s all I’m good for, and it’s the only amends I can make.