Chapter 7: Bench

We didn't talk about the car for four days.

We talked about everything else.

I drove him to class and carried his bag.

I took notes on the bench and made his breakfast.

He ate it standing at the counter with his back to me.

He said please once. I almost dropped the pan.

On Wednesday, at 5:10 in the morning, the physical therapist's orders arrived by text.

"Ice work," I read aloud. "Weight in the boot, with support. Start with a chair."

"A chair," Henrik said, deadpan, from the passenger seat.

"A folding chair, on the ice."

"Where do I get ice at five a.m.?"

I turned the car into the arena lot.

"Skating club's ice," I said. "I'm not using it all."

He looked at me for a long moment.

The sky was still black behind the arena roof, and the lot lights made everything the color of tea.

"Prescott will lose his mind," Henrik said.

"Prescott's asleep."

We went in through the side door.

The arena at five in the morning was the quietest place I knew, a giant cold room where my own breath sounded loud.

I flipped on the center lights.

The ice lay in front of us, perfect and white, with nobody's marks on it yet.

I put down a plastic folding chair at the edge of the tunnel, away from the spot where he'd fallen.

Henrik didn't look at the spot.

"You go first," he said.

"What?"

"I want to see it. Your program."

My throat closed.

"You've seen it. Sixty-one times."

"On a phone." He lowered himself into the chair, stretched his boot out and held the back of it with both hands. "Not from here."

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Hockey Captain That Hates Me from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.