Page 138 of The Goalie in Room 1

I stared out at the ice. Thad was at the far end now, skating lazily after a puck.

“Yeah.”

“How long ago?”

I took another drink.

“How long?”

“Couple of months.”

His head snapped toward me. “A couple of fucking months?”

He stared at me. I stared back.

“Why?” he finally asked. “Why haven’t you been in the net?”

I looked down at the bottle between my hands.

I knew what he was asking.

I spent nearly a year trying to get back. Through three fucking torturous surgeries. Through every doctor who told me to wait and every person who told me to be realistic.

And every fucking day my knee hurt so bad I contemplated risking the addiction my parents battled and lost.

Then Dr. Thaddeus Vale cut me open and put somebody else’s cartilage in my leg, and I had to start all over again. And for ten months, life got whittled down to one more rep. One more degree. One more milestone. One more chance.

And maybe now I had one. But I never asked the question. Never put my knee to the test.

“You’re not going back, are you?” Aiden asked.

I watched Thad fire a puck toward the empty net.

He missed.

By a fucking mile.

Jesus.

“No.”

The word came out before I could think.

Aiden was quiet beside me. I turned my water bottle in my hands.

“No,” I said again.

Something in my chest loosened, and my body melted as all the tension left me.

Huh.

Wow!

Aiden looked at me. “When did you decide?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

That was the truth. I said the words today, but before today there hadn’t been some big fucking moment where I’d stood in front of a mirror and announced that Cash Benjamin, professional hockey player, had officially retired. Somewhere between learning to walk without crutches, going to work at the rehab center, getting on the ice again, and spending more time on two wheels than any sane person should, getting back to the show had stopped being the first thing I thought about when I woke up.