Unsteady

by Peyton Corinne

bug.”

Creed?,

say goodbye to the hockey hotshot, bug.

The closer she gets, the faster my heart races at the idea of arguing with her.

my father might love us, deep down, but he’ll always love his vices more.

A pang in my heart weighs my shoulders down, twisting in my chest until a scream is almost pushing through my lips. It feels like my body is on fire from the inside, every bit of anger and resentment and fear bubbling like an active volcano, and I know I’ll explode on him if I don’t get out of this room right now.

Do you have to leave us with him? That’s the real question. Oliver might remember Dad before all this, but Liam doesn’t. Liam only knows this father—the one who doesn’t show up, who continues to grow weaker and nearer to death every day. Oliver might be bursting with anger, but Liam is wrestling with fear.

recognize him—the hockey hotshot Rhys from the other day.

“I c-c-can’t breathe,” he manages to gasp out. He can, he’s breathing right now, but I’m no stranger to a panic attack. My mind settles, the chance to focus on someone else always a welcome distraction against the endless screaming in my own head.

I’ve been a caretaker my entire life, and no amount of annoyance can keep me from kneeling before him and taking his hands in mine.

“You’re Liam’s mom.” I snort. Closest thing to it. “Sister, but yeah. We met. Sadie.”

I want to speak, to fill the space with comforting words, but I find myself empty of them.

Not my circus. Not my monkeys.

But no matter how loudly I play the music, or how many times I fall while trying—and failing at—a triple axel, nothing can pull my focus from the hockey boy with the sad eyes.

Rhys’s

That can’t be the way they spell his name.^

My beat-up Jeep Cherokee looks almost ridiculous next to his sleek black BMW, but I manage to keep the snide comment on my tongue from tumbling out.

“Not if I see you first,” I mutter beneath my breath. A little vow to myself to steer clear of the boy with the sad eyes before I try to take his healing into my own hands.

Whatever control I had before that game three months ago is gone—maybe it’s a piece of the part of me that died that night. Nothing that’s left seems worth anything anymore, and I’m still walking the razor’s edge of giving up.

You felt something with Sadie.

Seeking any feeling, even pain, has clearly become some sort of hobby of mine,

the concern in her gray eyes so deep I could swim in it.

The old version of my controlled, captain-on-and-off-the-ice persona

We sit back, like every movement is just as in sync, connected by the headphone cord between us.

Something about his words makes me want to hug him, a light burn behind my eyes.

It would be so easy to kiss him. The boy is a hazard to my personal boundaries and health.

Rhys Maximillian Koteskiy: 6′3″. 210 lbs. C. Shoots Right.

“I’m only thinking about how obnoxious it is to spell ‘Reece’ like that.

it doesn’t matter how many guys she watches me take into a bathroom or sneak out of our dorm in the morning, she’s convinced that my love story is out there.

I laugh, a real one that makes both of my parents look up at me in surprise. Guilt chases away the good almost immediately. Have I been so empty, even with them?

I spot a text from “DO NOT ANSWER,” I can’t stop myself. Please Sadie I need your…

I clap my hand over her mouth, pushing into her and sending us both lightly into the boards.

I’m in her orbit now, and she’s becoming my goddamn center of gravity. Whether she realizes it or not.

“All right, hotshot, let’s make a deal.” No deal needed—if she keeps looking at me like this, I’ll do anything she says.

Oliver’s heated stare shoots to mine like a caged animal ready to scratch. He looks like Sadie, defensive and ready to fight.

I spot Sadie instinctually, as if she’s a homing beacon forever drawing me back to her piercing gray stare.

Why are you so angry? Why do you skate like you’re on fire? Who is so bad that you listed them as DO NOT ANSWER in your phone? Are you safe? Are you okay?

try to listen most on those days, as if the lyrics she hears might be another language for her. I want to pick up on the smallest of hints, desperate for as much of her as I can consume.

“Sadie’s Songs for Reece’s Sad Demon Brain,” I read aloud, before adding, “You spelled Rhys wrong.” “Your parents spelled your name wrong on the birth certificate.

Digging a second set of AirPods from my pocket—a gift I’d been working up the nerve to give to her for nearly a week, I slip them into her ears and gently let her go.

I want to stay just like this with her forever.

I’ll stay an arm’s distance away as long as it means she’s still near me, chasing out the shadows crowding my empty body. I know it isn’t healthy. I just don’t care.

Send me what you have and I’ll see what I can do on my end with the custody papers.”

“There’s some fucking woman up there saying she’s Liam’s mom, and now he’s hiding.” My stomach drops. Liam doesn’t know; Oliver probably barely remembers. Five years ago, I woke up early for a before-school practice, hoping to bring Oliver with me to avoid anything with our dad. But when I walked down the stairs, Dad was passed out across the couch hugging a bottle, and a baby was on the floor, just looking at me with wide gray eyes. I was terrified, a sixteen-year-old high school student who already had too much responsibility with Oliver, and suddenly, there was a bouncing little baby boy to add to the absolute shit show of my life.

I owe him everything.

YOUR COACH, not sure this is a healthy boundary...i dont trust this coach character

For a moment, while lying on Ro’s bed waiting on her, I think about trying to contact Rhys. Like something about him would make this better—which is ridiculous, considering who he is and what he’s dealing with himself. But I can’t shake the thought.

I watch Sadie slide on her stomach into the boards, hard. She doesn’t move. She’s on her goddamn stomach on the ice and she isn’t moving. Fuck.

She’s crying, nearly sobbing, like she can’t take a breath. Panic is still racing through my veins, but I try to concentrate on her.

slip my arm under her legs and pick her up in a bridal carry.

without thinking, I drop a kiss to her forehead

“For the record,” I say, looking out along the lake, across all the life around us. “I am offering.”

My stomach hurts. Finding him like this again… a week before he has to be back at practices…