The Arena Laughed at My Milk, So Four Hockey Men Kept Me novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Garnet's POV

Garnet's POV

I laid my parka flat on the fresh ice, and she laid hers over it.

We knelt there in the dark with the exit signs red on her face.

It was two in the morning, a week after she told us.

The rink was empty and the sheet was new, glassy and hard, and our breath hung over it in the cold.

"You said you'd tell me when I told you," Katja said.

"I did."

"I told you."

"Yes," I said.

I do not talk much, and the other three have stopped waiting for me to start.

I had been trying for a week to find where to begin, and there was no good place, so I began at the hat.

"My sister lived nine days," I said. "I was twelve."

Katja did not move.

"My mother brought her home from the hospital in Lloydminster in a blanket," I said.

"She wore a white hat my aunt knitted, with a little point at the top."

My voice sounded flat out here, and I let it.

"On the tenth morning the house was too quiet," I said. "My father went into the room first. Then he shut the door."

"Garnet," she whispered.

"I stood outside that door for most of a week."

I looked at the ice between my knees.

"I never opened it. I was twelve, and I thought if I opened it, it would be true."

She had both hands over her mouth.

"My mother's milk came in the day after," I said. "Nobody told her what to do with it."

"Garnet."

"I heard her through the wall. I never heard a sound like that before, and I haven't since."

I looked at her face.

"Until you."

She made a small broken noise, and I kept going, because if I stopped I would not start again.

"When the board came on, Abram put his hand on my chest in the tunnel," I said. "He held me there for twelve minutes."

I flexed my hand.

"I don't blame him. I would have taken four contracts through that wall."

I looked at the tape.

"When the horn went, I ran to the booth and hit the door with my fist. It's steel. It didn't open."

"You hit it until it broke you," she said.

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