Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 95393 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95393 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
Stepping into the arena, I hear people talking and look into the offices that have their doors open. “Hey,” I say to a couple of the office staff.
It’s been my home for the past eleven years. Drafted second overall when I was eighteen, I thought I was the king of the world. Until I realized we were a club that was on a rebuild. Not going to lie, it fucking sucked in the beginning. We sucked. Period. We finished at the bottom of the standings every year for three years straight. It was all the new up-and-coming kids. The few veterans didn’t give a shit about anything since they had a contract and were going to retire. We were a bunch of rookies who looked amazing on paper, but when put together, we each wanted to be the hero. It took a while to see that in order for one of us to be the hero of the game, we had to play like a team.
The pictures lining the hallway toward the locker room show the last seven years of learning how you find success working as a team. Pictures of different game moments through the years. My eyes almost want to avoid the picture of Benji and me during our rookie year. It’s the night we both got our names on the score sheet. Me for my first goal, and Benji for the assist on the goal. I stop in the hallway as if I just walked into a wall. My eyes are on the picture; both of us have the same picture in our house. But this one is blown up to the size of the whole wall.
It's me about four feet off the ice, jumping to celebrate the goal with Benji skating to me. You can barely see my face, and all you see of Benji is his back. But that moment is a moment we’ll never forget. It’s when Benji and I bonded. We were line mates and roommates. We shared an apartment and even hotel rooms until we could get our own.
“How are you doing?” someone says, and I look over at Cole who walks toward me. He’s wearing the same thing I’m wearing. Black gym shorts with the matching T-shirt. Only difference is I have my baseball hat on—backward of course.
“I’m good.” I lie to him because what the fuck can I say to him. “You?”
“I’m still in fucking shock,” he admits, looking at the picture. “Fucking asshole.” He shakes his head. Looking down, he slaps my shoulder, then moves on to the locker room.
“Yeah,” I whisper, putting my head down and following him toward our locker room.
When I walk into the locker room, the black carpet looks freshly washed, the team logo of a factory, buildings with a bridge over it in the middle in white, black, and gold. The same logo on the ceiling lights up. “Hey.” I look around the room and see a couple of the rookies already here. The wooden bench sits in a half circle around the room. Each cubby has our jersey hanging there, with our name in gold on the shelf on top with our number. Another shelf on top of that has our helmet with our number on it, and then above that is a picture of us. Four words go around the top of all the pictures—accountability, passion, one goal.
“Yo,” a couple of them call to me as I make my way over to my stall.
I place my phone and keys on the top next to my gloves. “I can’t believe summer is over already,” Andreas, our goalie, whines. “It was gone in a blink of an eye.”
“Did you go home?” Connor, a defenseman, asks. Andreas came from Sweden and was drafted a little over five years ago.
“For a bit,” he says, “then came back.” He looks over at me and then looks down. The whole team came back for the funeral. There wasn’t one player, one coach, one member of the team who wasn’t there for the funeral.
I sit here almost like I’m not here, which is the weirdest thing I’ve ever done. Usually, I’d be in here, undressed and ready to hit the ice in fifteen minutes. A couple of minutes of chitchatting but my ass would be on the ice. But now it’s like I am stuck to this seat and have no motivation to get the fuck up.
It’s been over a month since Benji died. Thirty-seven days, to be exact. Thirty-fucking-seven days I’ve been in this daze. Thirty-seven fucking days of nothing but questions that can’t be answered. “You going to work out before getting on the ice?” Cole asks as he shakes his pre-workout drink in a plastic bottle.
“Might get on the bike.” I tap the bench under me. “Maybe hit the weights.” He stands there like he’s waiting for me. “I’ll meet you there.”