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"I put him at a card table," I say.

"What?"

"At the Lantern. Every Thursday. The sin bin. I made the room sit him there." I look out the windshield. "I made him carry my bag. Tape my sticks. Fill my water bottles. I told the room nobody talks to him, and nobody did. For four months. I made him wait to eat until I said."

Nico's staring at me.

"And in November, there was a scrum in practice. Gunnar cross-checked him. Somebody put a knee in his ribs. He couldn't breathe." My voice is coming out completely flat. I can't make it do anything else. "I was three strides away. I watched."

"You watched."

"Yes."

"You stood there," Nico says. His voice is shaking. "You stood there, and you watched a guy go into the ice with a pile on him, and you didn't do anything⁠—"

"Yes."

"Why?"

I don't know how to say it.

So I just say it.

"Because I wanted him to know what it was like." My throat closes up. I push through it. "Being on the ice and looking up and seeing somebody who could help you, and they don't."

Nico stares at me.

"That's what you think happened," he says. "In April."

"I know what happened in April, Nico, I was there, I watched it ninety-one seconds at a time for six months⁠—"

"I never blamed you!"

He's shouting. In the little car, it's deafening. Nico never shouts.

"Not once! Not one time! You were in the crease, Dane, you were forty feet away. There was nothing you could do, there was nothing anybody could do. I've never thought about you standing there. Not once. I didn't even know you were in the frame until Mom told me you kept watching it!" He's crying now. He doesn't wipe it. "You decided I blamed you. You decided all by yourself. And then you went and found somebody else to be the guy who stood there, so you didn't have to be."

I can't breathe.

"I didn't⁠—"

"You put him at a card table. You let them pile on him in a scrum. Theo, who drives—who walks—to the Kwik Stop at eleven at night so his little sister can get braces, and sends me videos of a fish, and never once complained about you. Not once. You know what he said, every time I asked? He's fine. He's a goalie. He barely talks to me." Nico laughs. It's a horrible sound. "He protected you. From me."

He opens the door. Cold air comes in.

"Nico."

"I'm so mad at you. I'm so mad at both of you. Him for making me lie, and you for—" He stops. He puts his hand on the side of his neck. "I need to go find Priya. I need to go to the hotel. I can't be in this car."

"Let me drive you."

"No."

He gets out. He stands there with the door open and the snow coming down on his shoulders.

"Does he know?" he says. "What you did to him? Does he know you know it was wrong?"

I don't answer.