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I was a fucking fool if I thought this was for the best. Telling her about Sarah was a double-edged sword. Admitting to anyone what I’d been through only guilted them into sticking around. Because how could you stop talking to a guy because he lost his wife and crawled into a dark hole that he almost never came out of?

Fuck it. We were already here. There was no turning back now. There was no backtracking and saying, “Well, never mind, I don’t feel like telling you about the hardest thing I’ve ever been through that literally shaped me into the person I am today.” I needed to get it all out, and if it was too much for her to handle, I’d be okay.

Eventually.

Clearing my throat, I picked up where I left off.

“I celebrated with my team for all of five minutes. It’s a blur, honestly. When I watch back the videos of our team winning the cup, it doesn’t feel like I was truly there—just an imposter in my own body. Not when just moments later my joy was ripped from my hands when my dad came down to the ice to pull me away and tell me that Sarah had passed.” I clamped my eyes shut, trying like hell not to summon the emotion.

“Hunter…”

I knew what she was going to say next. It was like being thrown back in time to when I was twenty-two years old and every teammate, their wife, my coaches, and strangers on the street would say, “Hunter, I’m so sorry for your loss.”

Eventually, you became numb to it.

She never finished her sentence, just rolled her thumb over my arm with sorrow in her eyes.

Feeling uncomfortable, I repositioned my body, so my back leaned against the headboard.

“Sarah took her life.”

“Oh my God. I⁠—”

“You don’t have to be sorry.”

“I—I was going to say I wasn’t expecting that. But I am sorry. I’m human, and it would be crazy for someone not to feel for another person in this situation. I hoped you’d tell me one day, but I guess … I just … my mind didn’t go there.”

She sat up, matching my position.

“Yeah, well, I spent a long time in a dark hole blaming her and thinking she was selfish. I hated her for ruining the most important moment in my life. For the longest time—years—I couldn’t step foot on the ice. I won the championship only to forget it along with the rest of my past. I buried that time in my life and became a shell. I never had another relationship. I retired far earlier than anyone should have from hockey, and I took over my dad’s position after losing him just months after Sarah. I never wanted to own the team—not yet anyway. If I stayed healthy, I could still be doing what I loved most. But apparently, that wasn’t my life plan. She took that from me.”

My blood was pumping, and I could start to feel that I was getting worked up, and the last thing I wanted to do was show Andi that side to me.

I’d done years of therapy—granted, I probably owed my therapist a call since it had been a while. But I had spent years doing the inner work to change my mindset, to be able to look back and be sad for two kids whose lives didn’t turn out in the way that they would have hoped. The one thing I could never shake, though, was the feeling that scratched at my insides. That sometimes in my weak moments when I threw therapy out the window, those old feelings would break through the cracks and tell me that Sarah was the most selfish human being I’d ever known.

“Can I ask you something?” Andi piped in, her voice a timid whisper, and I hated that I was making her feel uncomfortable.

“Anything. As hard as it is, and even if it doesn’t seem like it, I’m an open book.” I did my best to reassure her.

“Do you know why … why she … did it?” she stuttered.

I understood her hesitancy. There wasn’t really an easy way to ask someone that question, but what Andi didn’t know yet was that I’d been asking myself that same thing for years.

“I wish I did. She never left a note. She didn’t tell her friends—even her best friend who found her and called the cops. She’d buried this deep dark secret and never got help. I’d seen a lot of therapists, and they all said the same thing—Sarah had her own demons that had nothing to do with me.”

Pausing for a beat, Andi’s face softened, and she looked me directly in the eye.

“I didn’t know you back then—obviously, I was like fourteen—” I couldn’t help but chuckle, even in the midst of this dark heart to heart. “But I can almost guarantee it wasn’t your fault for what happened. I don’t have any personal experience with losing someone to suicide, but from what I’ve learned over the years, I’d have to agree that she was likely fighting her own problems, and it was probably hard on her to ask for help. Sometimes when you’re in the thick of it, it seems easier to give up because you can’t find a way out of the darkness.”

Andi may not know someone personally who has struggled with this realm of mental health, but she sure as shit was wise beyond her years.

“You’re much better than a therapist.” I sighed a breath of relief.

“Are you saying I should quit stripping and start a new venture?” She teased in a way that instantly made a heavy moment feel lighter.

God, this woman. She was a ray of fucking sunshine.

“I’m saying, I could talk to you for hours. Maybe it’s because I’m older and it’s been a hot minute since I’ve dove into this topic, but talking with you about all of this isn’t nearly as bad as it was back then.”