His voice slices through the cold like a blade.
"What the hell are you doing out here, Lane?"
I jerked, skates wobbling. The sharp turn I make leaves a messy scar on the ice. I didn't look back. I don't have to. I know that voice, rough, no-nonsense, worn down by years of yelling over whistles and heartbreak.
Coach Halder.
My heart goes feral in my chest. I didn't hear the door open. Didn't notice the lights come on. One second it was just me, the cold, and the sound of my blades. Next, I was caught like a thief.
"I asked you a question," he says again, closer now. Boots crunch on the rubber mat lining the rink tunnel.
I glide toward the edge of the ice, limbs stiff. The boards feel higher tonight. Heavier. I peel off my skates with shaky fingers. My boots are still there, waiting like they never left.
"I couldn't sleep," I mutter.
Coach folds his arms, brow low, eyes unreadable. "So you broke into my rink?"
"I didn't break in. The door was unlocked."
"Still trespassing."
I focus on my laces. They slip through my fingers. I didn't say sorry. I didn't cry. I just sit there, knuckles white and knotted, holding back the truth boiling in my throat.
"You gonna call my mom?"
He shakes his head once. "No. Not tonight."
I wait. He doesn't speak again right away.
"You were flying out there," he finally says, quieter now. "That last sprint, hell of a cut. You hit the center ice like it owed you blood."
My lungs tighten.
"Maybe it did," I say before I can stop myself.
He tilts his head. He knows. They all know. The way people look at me in the halls, like I'm some half-ghost. Like I should've stayed buried with him.
Connor's number is still up in the rafters. Retired. Honored. Frozen.
Just like me.
"I told you I don't play anymore," I whisper.
Coach doesn't challenge it. He just studies me the way he used to during drills, trying to find the weakness in my form.
"You miss it."
I shake my head.
Because if I say yes, it means something in me still lives.
And if it lives, it means I let him die alone.
"I don't want to talk about it."
"You're already talking."
My voice breaks. "It's not your business."
"No. But skating is."
I slide off the bench and pull my hoodie tight around me. I feel cold everywhere. In my bones. In the hollow of my ribs where Connor used to be.
Coach watches me throw my bag over my shoulder like I'm made of glass and anger.
As I reach the door, he calls out.
"You coming back tomorrow night?"
I stop.
The cold air sucks into my lungs and won't leave.
"What?"
"I lock up at midnight. The ice will be fresh. If you want it."
I glance over my shoulder. "Why?"
He shrugs. "You're not done. I saw it in your stride. You're still skating like the past is chasing you."
"It is."
His voice softens. "Then keep skating."
That night, I lay awake with the lights off and Connor's number pulsing behind my eyelids.
Thirteen.
Painted on his old helmet. Stitched into my nightmares.
I remember his laugh. The way he skated backwards and teased me for falling on crossovers. The way the ice felt under our feet the last time we played together. How our blades moved like music, two halves of the same song.
I remember the knock on the door. The headlights slicing across the living room. The frozen silence that followed.
The moment the world cracked open and swallowed everything I loved.
It wasn't supposed to be him. Connor was golden. Untouchable. The one who always bounced back, even when I couldn't. He was the reason I kept lacing up in the first place. He was the voice in my ear when I played scared, the hand pulling me up when I fell too hard. He believed in me before I believed in myself.
The last time we were on the ice together was a tournament in Grand Rapids. I still have the medal. Still remember his grin when we won. How he said, "We'll do this forever, Cass. You and me."
But forever didn't last.
He didn't come home from that party. One dumb decision. One driver too fast, too drunk, too blind to see the red light. I was supposed to pick him up. But I fell asleep.
And I never got to say goodbye.
I told myself I quit hockey that night.
But the truth is, hockey quit me first.
The silence that came after wasn't peaceful. It was suffocating. Empty rinks, broken laces, untouched gear. My body forgot how to want the game. My heart refused to touch the ice again.
I thought I was punishing the world by leaving it behind.
But maybe I was only punishing myself.
Maybe that's what Coach saw in me. Not potential. Not drive.
Just a girl bleeding out on the ice, chasing ghosts.
Mom doesn't talk about him anymore. Not really. She keeps his room clean, like a museum. His jersey folded neatly on the chair. His sneakers by the door. It's like we're both afraid that letting go will mean we really lost him.
Sometimes I sneak in there. Sit on his bed. Read the stats he wrote on the whiteboard above his desk, goals he'd never score. Games he'd never play.
I didn't even go to the funeral. I sat in the locker room, the one we shared growing up, staring at the stall he carved our names into with a broken skate guard.
Lane x Lane.
He thought it was funny. Twins on the ice, unstoppable.
Now it's just me.
And I've been skating in circles ever since.
Everyone thinks I'm done. That I burned out. That the pressure was too much, that I crumbled under the spotlight.
No one wants to say it. But they all think it.
The truth is worse.
I'm afraid to be great again. Because being great means I survived.
And surviving when he didn't? It feels like betrayal.
But Coach Halder saw it.
The way I moved tonight. The way I felt again. Just for a moment.
Maybe it wasn't anger or grief.
Maybe it was muscle memory. Maybe it was my heart reminding me it can still beat.
That I can still skate.
Maybe I'm not trying to remember.
Maybe I'm trying not to forget.