Page 118 of Cherry Picking

I look down, and sure enough, my right leg is bouncing.

“I think I’m scared of the wrong things.” I scrub my temple. “Say she finally answers. Say she actually wants to make this work. I’m starting to wonder if that’s the right thing for her to do.”

“Tell me why you feel that way.”

“Because I’ve been trying to be good for five weeks.” I grimace. “Five weeks is nothing. I was good with Ophelia, too, for a while, and then I wasn’t. I didn’t even notice I’d stopped. It wasn’t a conscious decision. I just slowly went somewhere else and left her all alone.”

“You think you’ll do it again.”

“I think I don’t know how not to.” My voice cracks. “So if Evie lets me back in, all I’ve really done is line up somebody else to disappear on. And she deserves better than a guy on his best behavior, hoping it holds.”

She goes quiet. “That’s very honest.”

“It’s not a good thing to feel.”

“It’s a true thing, and the truth is where we start.” She finally scribbles a few words on her notebook. “So let me offer you something, and then you have a game to play. You’re treating this like a question about your character—whether you’re the kind of person who leaves. That’s a trap, because it has no answer, and you’ll circle it forever.”

“Then what’s the question?”

“Whether you’ll notice,” she says plainly. “You didn’t disappear on Ophelia because you’re a monster. You disappeared because you stopped paying attention, and nobody—including you—was watching for it. So the work isn’t becoming a man who’d never do it again. The work is building a life where somebody would catch it early. Where you’d catch it. That’s a thing you can actually do.”

I groan. “That sounds like a lot of talking about my feelings on an ongoing basis.”

“It’s the worst,” she agrees. “You’ll hate every minute. Same time next week?”

I snort. “I might be in the playoffs.”

“Then we’ll do it around your schedule.” She reaches to end the call and stops. “If she doesn’t come tonight, that’s not a verdict. And if she does—you don’t have to have it all figured out to be glad to see her. You’re allowed to just be glad.”

The screen goes black, and I’m looking at my own face in it, which is a hell of a way to end a therapy session. I sit there a minute longer than I need to.

Then I get up, find my keys, and go to work.

The whole arena is vibrating before the puck even hits the ice. Everybody in this bowl knows the math.

We have to win, and we need Ottawa to lose in regulation, or the season is finished right here. Which means for one night, I’m rooting hard for the New York Empire, an organization that’s been trying to remove my head from my body since February.

Cardone kept me at the deadline—a show of faith I’m not sure I earned—but tonight is the only invoice that matters.

Warm-ups, second lap, I let my eyes sweep up to the family section behind the glass, hunting for the two seats I’ve left under her name for three straight home games. I keep doing it because stopping would feel like a finality I’m not ready for.

They’re empty.

I put my head down and find the edge of my blade until the ice is the only thing I can feel.

Bellan doesn’t bother with a speech. He stands in the center of the dressing room in his charcoal suit, looking at us until the room goes still, and says, “You know what tonight is. Go take it.” From Bellan, that’s practically a sermon, and the room comes up off the benches in a roar.

Augie bumps his helmet into mine in the tunnel, a sharp clack of plastic. “Good?”

“I’m ready.”

“Then keep up,” he says, his smirk visible even through the cage. “I’ve been carrying your heavy ass all season.”

“Just win the draw, Aug.”

The first period is a goddamn knife fight.

Washington is already out of the dance, and they’re playing like they resent anyone who still has a chance to stay. They clog the neutral zone and dump the puck into the corners, leaning on us until the glass shudders. For twenty minutes, nobody scores because the space to do it doesn’t exist.