Unsteady

by Peyton Corinne

The rich-kid center whose future wasn’t dependent on anything, and the poor, scrappy defenseman whose future was entirely dependent on that rookie year—and yet, they’d never stopped that friendship.

To the world, there’s nothing Maximillian Koteskiy loves more than hockey. But anyone who truly knows him knows he’d give up every Stanley Cup win and his entire career if it meant he’d hold on to my mother.

“I’ll see you around, I’m sure.” “I hope so. She deserves something good.” It warms something in me that this enigmatic girl, Sadie’s best—and I honestly think only—friend, approves of me. Even if Sadie herself doesn’t.

I’ve listened to Sadie’s Songs playlist until I can pull it up in my head like a file, mentally playing my favorites and trying to imagine what she was thinking when she added them. But it isn’t long before my own feelings and thoughts invade each one.

“Barely Breathing”—the way she unlaced my skates for me when my hands were shaking. “Don’t Look Back in Anger”—the raging look in her eyes when she does her long program. “Sleep Alone”—her smile, her laugh.

A laugh threatens to burst out of me, pulling at my lips—even just this, just her written words, are enough to chase away a little of the anxiety from sitting in this too-empty room.

My body is healed fully, every bit of it pressed back together. My mind is the thing that’s permanently broken.

the image burned into my mind of her hovering over me in the locker room like a queen atop a throne. Does she know I’d kneel for her forever if it meant she’d look at me like that?

She’s burned into my every thought, like some sweet scent that brings back every good memory I’ve locked away.

To feel like she’s wholly mine, even for a minute. She’s so fucking small, but larger than life to me.

Maybe I should feel ashamed for thinking of Sadie like that, but it’s hard not to when she’s everything good. For the first time since March, I feel… alive. Which is somehow more dangerous, because now, I don’t think I can let her go.

I want to cling to her, to prove that whatever is left of me is worth something.

I’d know the feel of Sadie’s skin even if I were blind.

This is going to burn. He is going to burn me. Except I don’t care.

I hate this. I hate that I have to be the bigger man here, when he’s the one who ruined my life.

The weight of the words I want to say—but can’t—feels suffocating, and for a moment I’m Atlas, ready to drop the entire weight of the world from my shoulders if it means only a minute of relief.

Still, I refuse to drag any of them down. Refuse to see pity in their eyes or, God forbid, hear their laughs at the expense of my pain; their disbelief in my ability to lead them, even if I’ve lost that belief myself. How would any of them look up to a captain, and trust me to lead them, if they knew that every second on the ice, I’m fighting an internal war?

Falling into Rhys feels like what I imagine falling into addiction might be like. Everything with him feels easier.

Because I crave Sadie like an addiction.

It’s a piece of me that only she holds the key to. It’s the acceptance of me as I am, by the only person that matters right now.

Her touch soothes me as much as it ignites me. I was floating before, feeling nothing but numbness. Sadie makes me feel alive for the first time since that game. Like I’m a whole man again.

Surviving. That’s what is important.

“I think I’m in love with her.” I hear Rhys tell Bennett, but his voice doesn’t lower even a notch. “And she won’t let me in.”

“Sade doesn’t think I’m a golden boy, Ben.” Rhys smiles, but it’s all wrong. “I don’t have to pretend now that she’s here. She knows I’m broken.”

Even like this, perched in my backseat with a boyish sleepy smile across his face, Rhys looks larger than life. He’s destined to be something great.

He deserves so much more. He’s temporarily broken—there’s no fixing me.

This pain is my own, as is the choice of who I share it with. But… there is one more person who deserves to know.

“If you’d picked up a basketball all those years ago, I’d be courtside for the rest of my life with one of those big foam fingers. If you take up a paintbrush, I’ll buy every piece that we have wall space for. If you use that big brain of yours for engineering or law, I’ll do whatever I can to show I support you until my last breath.”

I just miss her. Sadie was my friend before anything else, even if her stubborn mouth wouldn’t let her call me that out loud. Those two months of morning skates are now some of my favorite memories on and off the ice. I want more of them. And yet, she is out of reach.

For the time being, I am waiting on her and making myself worthy of her.

A week back in therapy isn’t enough, but it’s a start. Sadie can’t be my crutch if I want her to be mine. I w...

It’s still hard being around my teammates and faking smiles, but there is a wound in me that hasn’t healed. It won’t happen overnight. I have to remind myself of that a lot.

He doesn’t show it often, but I’m starting to see that to Oliver, Liam’s and Sadie’s opinions hold more weight than even the praise of an NHL Hall of Famer.

“What is, bud?” He tucks his head into my neck. “That you have a mommy. And a nice one.”

Sadie is more alone than I thought.

The anger only faded, until it was just emptiness, and I missed the anger. Now, it’s only self-hatred left. But I’m learning the tools for it. I’m also learning that I might need better tools when it comes to handling Sadie Gray.

But if there is anyone in this entire world I trust, it’s Ro.

I don’t know how I’ll manage it. But I know I will, somehow. Because those two boys deserve so much more than this.

It sounds good. Like she thinks she could show up out of the blue and I’d drop everything for time with her, and she’s right. It’s just how our arrangement was before—and still is for me. I don’t give a shit what’s happening in this house, she’s the first priority I have.

I’ll take all the anger she needs to release; I’ll be her punching bag if I need to. If it helps. I don’t care, as long as it wipes that despairing, empty look from her eyes.

“Be mad. Yell at me if you want, but it’s not going to stop me from caring, and it’s not going to stop me from trying to help you, no matter how many times you push me away.”

She turns to the door. I can feel her slipping away, and I don’t want her to. I don’t want to do this dance with her anymore. Even if I never see her again, I won’t be able to stop wanting her.

“I don’t want you to keep me away, okay? I want to be part of your life.” “No,” she chokes out. “You don’t, Rhys. It’s messy and way too complicated.” “I don’t care.”

If she rejects me again, I think I can take it. In fact, I worry more that, if she lets me, the dark thing that lives in me will just want to take and take and take from her. I worry I will be too much, and yet still not enough.

I know I can love her. I just don’t know if she’ll let me.

The way I feel about her is real, so deep it feels like a cord looped from inside me to her, tethering me to her.

I’ll take any bit of her she’ll give to me—a dog begging for scraps, until she lets me in. I’m patient. I can wait.

Showing me that this thing between us isn’t just shared pain anymore; it isn’t emotional release. It’s something real. Something precious.

But I know Ro learned it all. She could probably coach a team if she wanted to, because she doesn’t do anything halfway.

She’s perfect.