Thirteen.
The number is carved into the back of my eyelids. I see it when I blink. I see him when I close my eyes. Sometimes I even see it in my dreams, flashing across a scoreboard, stitched into a jersey, spray-painted across the walls of my mind.
Connor.
Always Connor.
His voice is a scar I can't scrub away. His laugh, a phantom echo. His absence, a room I walk into daily without realizing until it suffocates me.
I don't hear Mom knock. She just walks in like she used to when I was little, when I'd fake sleep to avoid chores or responsibilities. She's carrying a tray. Toast, tea, and something softer, something quieter, in her eyes. A flicker of what she used to be before everything shattered.
"Tryouts are tomorrow," she says, placing the tray on my desk, her voice light, too light, like she's trying to sneak the words past my defenses.
I say nothing.
I keep my eyes trained on the ceiling. Like if I just ignore her, maybe this will go away. Maybe I will.
"I saw the flyer in the hallway," she adds, a little more carefully this time. "Figured you'd want to know."
I stay still.
It's not that I didn't see the flyer. I did. Big bold letters. Team tryouts. 4 PM sharp. All welcome.
All welcome. Even the girl who vanished.
She crosses the room and sits on the edge of my bed. The mattress dips beneath her weight, but I don't move. Don't breathe. She doesn't touch me at first. Just sits there in the quiet, waiting.
"I'm not asking you to go back," she says finally. "Just… maybe skate. Just once. See how it feels."
Her hand finds my foot through the blanket. Light. Warm. Real.
"I miss the way you used to talk about the ice."
And just like that, the burn rises in my throat. Hot. Sharp. Fast.
I blink hard, and she gets up, sensing the moment before it breaks.
When she leaves, she closes the door gently behind her. Like if she's soft enough, I won't shatter.
The rink is colder than I remember.
I slip in through the side entrance the same way I did when I was younger—through the back hallway, past the trophy case Connor used to tap for good luck. The keys still work. Coach never changed the locks.
Everything's the same. The faint hum of the lights. The creak of the boards. The scent of old ice and rubber and memory.
I'm the only one here. The silence is deafening.
I lace up my skates in the same spot I used to, far left bench, second seat from the end. My blades are worn, but they still feel like mine. The laces dig into my fingers as I tighten them, each pull a little more certain than the last.
Just one skate.
That's what I told myself. What I told Mom.
But the second I step onto the ice, I know I'm lying.
This isn't about one skate.
It never was.
I glide forward and pick up speed. My legs remember. My lungs adjust. My balance clicks into place. The sound of my blades slicing into fresh ice feels like breath after drowning.
This isn't about skating.
This is about something buried clawing its way to the surface. Something angry and sharp and still alive inside me.
Connor's voice lives here. In the beams, in the boards, in the vibrations under my feet. I can feel him—his grin when he passed me on a fast break, the way he used to yell encouragement mid-sprint. It's a ghost I'm not ready to let go of.
I push harder. Drive into a spin, tighter than I expect. I stop on a dime near center ice, the spray curling up and catching the light like smoke.
For one perfect second, I forget to hurt.
I didn't go to school the next day. I sleep too long, scroll through my phone for hours, pretend the ache in my calves is from restlessness and not what it really is, hope.
At noon, my screen lights up.
Coach Halder:
Tryouts are at four. Whether you show up or not is your call.
I stare at it until the screen goes black again.
Then I grab my skates.
The locker room smells like it always has—sweat, tape, disinfectant, adrenaline.
Voices echo. Cleats clatter. Players shout over each other, energy buzzing like a live wire. It's a new team, mostly. I barely recognize the names on the locker tags.
I stay near the edge of the room, invisible. Just another shadow. Nobody notices the girl with the quiet eyes hugging the wall.
Good.
I'm not here to be seen.
Coach finds me eventually. He says nothing for a second, then gives me that look—the one that strips away everything until all that's left is what you're made of.
"You skate hard, you stay. You don't, you go."
I nod.
That's all I need.
The whistle blows.
And I hit the ice like I never left.
Each stride is a memory. A heartbeat. A scream. I don't care about the others or how long they've been training. I don't care about the whispers or the stares. I care about the fire in my lungs, the cut of my blades, the rhythm in my bones.
Coach watches from the blue line, arms folded. He doesn't yell. Doesn't cheer. Just watches. I feel his eyes tracking every move, every fault, every flash of the old me trying to resurface.
When it's over, I'm drenched in sweat. My lungs burn. My legs throb. My shoulders feel like they've been carrying the world.
But I didn't fall.
And I didn't leave.
I just sit there, helmet in my lap, sweat cooling on my skin as the last few drills wrap up.
There's a different kind of silence now.
One that doesn't sting.
One that waits.
Later, in the hallway, I pass a group of girls from the team. They don't say anything. Just glance at me like I'm a rumor come to life.
Let them look.
Let them wonder.
They don't know me anymore.
They don't know what I've buried to get here.
I walk out the front doors just as a car pulls up.
Sleek. Black. Too shiny for this town. The kind of car that doesn't belong in a parking lot with rusted pickups and dented hatchbacks.
The driver's side door swings open, and a guy steps out.
He's tall. Broad-shouldered. He wears a hoodie under a letterman jacket like it was designed for him, not handed down. His jaw's sharp, his hair windswept in a way that seems intentional. Effortless.
I don't know his name.
But something in my stomach twists anyway.
He grabs a duffel from the backseat. Pauses. Looks up at the school like it's a dare.
Like he's not here to fit in.
He's here to take over.
Then he turns, and I see it.
The number stitched across his jacket sleeve.
Thirteen.
My brother's number.
No.
Not like this.
Not him.
Not now.