“I don’t know if I can,” he says in a whisper.
I don’t care that he feels a million miles away from me, I take another step toward him and place his face in my hands. He tries to pull away, but I don’t let him. “I know you’re a good person, Hunter Maddox. I know you bust your ass day in and day out chasing a ghost no one can see, and I know it has to be a merciless burden that you carry.” I wipe the lone tear that escapes his eye and slides down his cheek. It’s devastating to see. But it’s also a sign that maybe I’ll be able to get through to him. Maybe I can help him. “Please, talk to me.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
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.
CHAPTER FIFTY
DEKKER
WHEN HE’S FINISHED WITH HIS story, with the guilt that owns him and has owned him for sixteen years, tears are on my cheeks and so much sadness is in my heart.
There’s also a healthy dose of anger too, but not at him. No way. His decision that day was of a young kid lashing out at a harsh father’s favoritism. It was his way of rebelling for being made to miss a teenager’s rite of passage. While consequences are consequences, the ones his father put on him that day, and Hunter’s decision to refuse to collect his mom, are in no way worthy of a lifetime of devastating guilt and a life sentence of penance.
And he’s borne the burden daily. Bullied to believe he must attain the things his brother may have achieved, because who knows? Jonah may have had an injury. He may have gotten into a different car at another time with alcohol in his blood. Who knows? But to be made to feel less than when he, Hunter Maddox, has achieved nearly every accolade possible, is the captain of an NHL team, is one of the highest paid hockey players in the US. It’s . . . it’s criminal.
The hardest thing to process though, is how to make Hunter see and comprehend the reprehensible injustice. It was Jonah’s choice to get behind the wheel and drive drunk. No one knows what the future held for Jonah, so how could he be responsible for robbing him of something that hadn’t happened yet?
But his words were so powerful. A life led with guilt and regret. Wanting to take back something that happened so long ago, when there’s no way he can know what would have happened if he were the one in the car that day either.
“Hunter.” I shake my head. “There is so much to say, so many comments I want to make; I don’t know where to start.” I reach out and lace my fingers with his, the tears on his cheeks dried long ago, but the pain they leave behind so very visible.
“Don’t say anything. Please. I don’t deserve any sympathy. I don’t deserve to feel better or to rationalize it all away. I’ve spent years doing that. I’ve spent nights slamming the puck into the net as hard as I can to help and it doesn’t, because when it all comes down to it, look at me and the life I have, and then look at Jonah and the life he’s been left with.” He goes to pull his hand away, but I hold on tight to it. “I definitely don’t fucking deserve it.”
“Survivor’s guilt is real.” My voice is a whisper, a small offer in the giant chasm that one incident left.
His chuckle is hollow. “It’s so much more than that.” He shoves up off the couch and moves to the windows to look at the morning outside. The city as it comes to life. His hands are shoved in his pockets and his shoulders are squared, as if he’s about to go on the defensive after everything he’s confided in me.
“You didn’t make Jonah drive drunk that day, regardless of what happened before he grabbed the keys. You didn’t steal his career, because who knows what could have happened—I mean, professional athletes are injured all the time. And you sure as hell don’t deserve to live a life paying for things you had no control over.”
My words hang in the air. My only hope is that they somehow cling to his soul and add some balance to the harrowing grief and guilt and gravity that have domineered it for so long.