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My mom.

She drove eleven hours from Ashby. She didn't tell me. She texted me from the parking lot at five o'clock: Your friend Nico got me a seat. Don't be mad. I took the weekend off. She's wearing my old Harrow jersey inside out, so you can't see the logo, with LINDQVIST on the back. She's sitting next to the brother of the guy I hit, and they're sharing a bag of popcorn.

I skate my lines in warmups and look up at her every lap. Every lap, she waves.

Dane doesn't look at me once.

He's in his crease, stretching, the way he always does, hips and hamstrings and the backs of his knees. Scraping his ice. Tapping his posts. He's completely still in between. The goalie stillness. I can't read him at all.

This morning I put five pucks past him and told him I never wanted him to back off, and then I left. And he didn't say anything.

I don't know what that means. I don't know if it means anything.

I skate my lines.

Harrow scores first.

It's a tip in front. Nothing Dane could do. Cole gets the secondary assist, and when he skates past our bench, he looks right at me and taps his glove on his chest, twice. Sorry.

I tap mine back.

We tie it in the second. Okoye, on a rebound, the kind of ugly goal Halvorsen loves. The building's so loud I can't hear Halvorsen yelling the lines.

Harrow goes up again with eight minutes left in the third. A deflection off Petey's stick that changes direction twice, and Dane's flat on the ice when it goes in. Petey looks like he wants to die. Dane gets up, fishes the puck out of the net, and skates over to Petey, and says something in his ear, and pats his helmet. Petey nods.

Two–one, Harrow. Eight minutes.

Six minutes.

Four.

Halvorsen pulls Dane with a minute fifty left. Extra attacker. Dane skates to the bench, and I'm the guy going over the boards, and for one second we pass each other at the door. His shoulder brushes mine.

"Go," he says.

It's the first thing he's said to me all day.

I go.

I win the puck behind the Harrow net. I don't know how. Mikey's on me, and he's not trying very hard, and I'm not sure he knows that. I get it on my forehand and curl out to the half wall, and the whole building's screaming, and I look up.

Wes is at the point. All alone.

I don't shoot. I put it on his tape.

Wes Abernathy, who has scored four goals in three years at Graymoor, winds up and puts everything he has into it.

It goes in off the Harrow goalie's shoulder and the post. One minute and four seconds left.

Two–two.

I don't hear anything for about thirty seconds after that. Wes is on top of me. Petey's on top of Wes. Somebody's crying, and I think it's Wes.

Overtime.

Twenty minutes, sudden death. Next goal wins.

Nobody talks in the room during the break. Halvorsen comes in and looks at us and says, "You know what to do," and leaves. Dane's in his stall by the door with his mask in his lap and his eyes closed. He's breathing slow, in through his nose, out through his mouth. I've watched him do it before games all year.