Page 109
ELLIE
Denver had offered me everything. The physical therapist position. Internationally ranked athletes. A salary that made my current paycheck look like an allowance. The CEO had walked me through their facilities like she was selling me a dream.
And I’d sat in that glass-walled office overlooking the Rockies, nodding in all the right places, asking the appropriate questions, while my phone burned in my pocket with the text I’d sent before I’d put it in airplane mode.
I don’t know how to be less broken either.
Now I sat in my car in the arena parking lot at 11:04 PM, staring at his truck three rows over, and wondered when exactly I’d turned into a person who flew across the country to avoid a conversation.
I’d watched game six on my phone during the layover in Chicago. Crammed into an airport seat between a businessman who smelled like coffee and a woman watching cooking videos without headphones, I’d pulled up the stream and watched Brashe Kedish play like he was trying to prove something to the world.
Eleven saves in the first period alone, each one more impossible than the last. Diving, splitting, catching pucks that should’ve been goals with a desperation that made my throat close up.
He’d played like he had nothing left to lose.
My heels clicked too loud on the pavement when I got out. The blazer pulled tight across my shoulders, professional armor I’d buttoned up that morning before leaving for the airport while telling myself I could act casual about all this. Denver was about exploring options. Being smart.
The building looked haunted without the crowd. Security lights cast long shadows across the glass entrance. Somewhere inside, faint music played. A celebration, probably. They’d won. Advanced to the next round of the playoffs.
I used my keycard on the side entrance. The hallway echoed with my footsteps, each click of my heels announcing exactly how much I didn’t belong here at this hour.
I’d get what I came for and go home to Marzipan.
That’s what I’d been telling myself since I’d pointed my car toward the arena instead of my condo after leaving the airport.
I flicked on my office light. Patty’s desk was cluttered with family photos, stacks of paper, and a coffee mug that said World’s Best Mom. My own desk looked sterile by comparison. Organized. Professional. Like the person who sat there had everything together.
The team photo hanging on the wall caught my eye. Last season’s roster, everyone grinning at the camera. Brashe stood in the back row, his goalie mask tucked under one arm, his expression neutral.
I’d studied that photo a hundred times since I’d started.
My hands moved on autopilot, gathering things I didn’t actually need. A pen. A notebook. The instruction manual for the ultrasound machine I’d already memorized.
I was crying.
“Fuck.”
The word echoed in the empty office. I wiped my eyes, smearing mascara, and stared at my organized desk that was about to become someone else’s problem.
Denver wanted an answer on Monday.
I already knew what I was going to say. I’d known my answer before the plane even landed in Denver.
I’d sat across from the CEO in her glass office, looking at the Rockies through floor-to-ceiling windows, and all I could think about was how Boston didn’t have mountains. How the Denver facility didn’t smell right. How none of the athletes would know that I arrived at 7:15 every morning or that I picked tomatoes out of my salads or that I’d spent ten months believing I wasn’t enough.
They’d see my resume. My credentials. The rehabilitation protocol that had gotten Brashe Kedish back on the ice in record time.
They’d never see me.
And maybe that should’ve been enough. Competence should’ve been sufficient.
But then I’d realized something that made my chest ache: I was tired of being seen for what I could do instead of who I was.
Brashe had noticed the purple sticky notes and the smiley faces. He’d brought me coffee and asked if I’d eaten breakfast.
And then he’d reduced me to my job title because he was scared.
Just like I’d run to Denver because I was scared.
