The Hockey Captain Wants His Plus-Size Ex Back Chapter 08
Cole told me about the dream two days later.
He found me outside the practice gym, standing under the awning while rain blurred the campus lights. Easton was inside finishing a meeting with the athletic director. I saw Cole coming and considered walking away.
Then I saw his face.
He looked like someone had dug him out of a grave.
“Mia,” he said.
I did not answer.
His voice shook. “I saw it.”
Cold spread through my body.
“Saw what?”
“The closet.”
The rain sounded suddenly too loud.
Cole swallowed. “You were locked in. You kept calling me. You called and called, and I didn’t answer. I was with Vanessa. I thought you were being dramatic.”
I stayed very still.
His eyes reddened. “You died saying my name.”
I could not make myself speak.
Cole staggered back a step when he saw my face.
“It was real,” he whispered.
I looked away.
He pressed both hands over his mouth. For a second, he looked twelve again, standing on the dock after my father died, soaked and shaking while everyone told him he was lucky to be alive.
“Mia,” he said. “God. I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t want to know.”
“I would have come.”
“No,” I said quietly. “You didn’t.”
His shoulders folded like the words had broken something inside him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
I had imagined those words for years. In my last life, I would have traded anything for them. A text, a call, a hospital visit, one sign that the boy I loved had noticed I was gone.
Now they were here.
They did not heal me.
They only arrived too late to matter.
“You can be sorry,” I said. “But you can’t come with me.”
Easton came out then. He saw Cole and moved immediately to my side.
Cole looked at him, then at me, and for once did not argue.
He left in the rain without another word.
After that, Cole began to fall apart.
At first, only the team noticed. He missed morning workouts. He came late to practice. He snapped at freshmen and forgot plays he had known for years. Then he started showing up hungover.
The coaches warned him.
His teammates complained.
Cole did not listen.
He broke up with Vanessa in the middle of the dining hall.
I was not there, but everyone talked about it by dinner.
Apparently, Vanessa had tried to take his hand. Cole had pulled away like she had burned him.
“This is your fault,” he said.
Vanessa’s face went white. “My fault?”
“You locked her in.”
No one understood what he meant.
Vanessa did.
She denied it at first. Then she cried. Then she said Cole was scaring her.
Cole only laughed.
“You ruined everything.”
Vanessa slapped him.
He did not react.
From that day on, her perfect image cracked too. People started whispering that something had happened. That Cole knew a secret. That Vanessa was not as sweet as she looked.
She blamed me.
I saw it in practice. In the way she watched from the sidelines after losing captain. In the way her friends stopped laughing when I entered the room. In the way she looked at Easton whenever he came to pick me up.
She was not finished.
Neither was Cole.
The next home game was against Westbridge, our biggest rival. Lakeview needed the win to make the postseason. The arena was packed. The cheer squad lined up near the rink, and for the first time, I stood at the front as captain.
Easton looked over before warm-ups.
I smiled.
He lifted two fingers against his stick. Our quiet signal.
Cole skated past him without looking.
Something was wrong.
His movements were too sharp. His eyes too bright. He kept rolling his shoulders, flexing his hands, breathing like he could not get enough air.
Easton noticed too.
During the first period, Cole played recklessly. He checked too hard, ignored passes, and nearly took out his own defenseman twice. The coach shouted from the bench. Cole did not seem to hear.
Vanessa stood near the tunnel in a cheer jacket, though she was not performing that night.
Her face was unreadable.
Midway through the second period, Easton stole the puck and broke toward the goal.
Cole should have covered left.
Instead, he turned and slammed straight into Easton.
The sound was brutal.
Easton hit the ice.
My heart stopped.