I also knew it wouldn't be much longer before we finally had sex. The thought was both comforting and terrifying.
Dave Keller, our old teammate, stepped inside the locker room, the same high that always surrounded him present. No one knew the reason why he was traded, and if you asked him, he didn't know either. He never got along with O'Brien, though, so it was understandable for the most part.
"What's up, Mase?" I gave Dave a nod, my focus on my stick.
"So what's with you and Natalie the other night?" Leo asked Dave, knowing he'd taken out the pediatrician from Northwestern. Pretty much all of us had bagged her at one time or another. "She let you take a dip?"
"Fuck yeah, she wanted it." Remy chuckled beside me. Dave was always bragging. I smiled too, missing the banter between all of us. "Oh yeah, she was fucking pretty, eh? She liked it rough, too."
For a moment, those words meant nothing from Dave. He always said shit like that. Then, though, the words really meant something to me.
Until my mind went back to what Ami remembered about that night.
"You want it, don't you? I bet you like it rough."
A flash of remembrance came to mind as I looked into his dark eyes. Dave stared back at me. He was still talking, his mouth was moving, but I couldn't hear anything else.
We exchanged a look. I never noticed how black his eyes were. Maybe it was my mind trying to place him as the guy?
Feelings of dread washed over me and left me shaking. What if he was the guy?
That was when moments from the past came back, things he said, the way Ami reacted to him the first time she met him. It was nothing she said, just a confused look. I didn't even think she was conscious of it. Then there was his appearance before we left for Nashville, right after Ami's attack. He had scratches he hadn't gotten in the game.
The phrase jolted me like an electric current.
"How are you and the ballerina doin'?"
I ran out of the locker room and into the hall, half-dressed, gasping for breath. When I got near the wall, my hands splayed out supporting me as my head hung, staring at the floor.
I tried to breathe and swallow and…just fucking breathe...but it hurt. "Come on, man…" I told myself, shaking my head. "Get it together. You don't know that it's him."
But I did know. I felt it.
I heard my voice break apart when I spoke, the pain, the guilt, breaking me apart. I gripped my hands tighter, struggling, straining every raw nerve ending just to hold on.
And then I thought of Ami, sweet Ami and those starry blue eyes and innocent smile, and my fucking heart skipped a beat, and I felt her in every beat.
He was my fucking friend, and he did this.
A thousand different memories and visions flashed before my eyes, from the moment I found her to right before the game; the doctors doing the rape kit on her, taking pictures of every cut, scratch and bruise; the look of her lying in that bed, unconscious, supported by a machine; the look on her face when I first officially met her; our first kiss; watching her at my first game.
All these memories, all these visions of what our life had been like for five months. What this girl went through and what she overcame in five short months.
But the thing was, the part that made me physically ill was that none of that shit would have happened if he hadn't done this to her.
Suddenly, I could barely breathe.
I didn't want to believe it was Dave.
"Dude..." Leo came into the hall when I vomited into the trash can. "You pregnant or something?"
I didn't have time to answer him before I was throwing up again. I was a fucking mess.
When I was finally on the ice for warm-up, my skates felt constraining, like they were shackles. Leo kept asking me what was wrong, but every time my voice caught in my throat, the fight in me raging. Two sides of me warred against each other, each one with their own distinct voice.
There was the moral side, the one my parents raised to do the right thing, and then there was the less noble side. The side that saw firsthand what he had done to her and the side that wanted to kill that motherfucker for ever laying a hand on her.
The less noble side was very convincing.
I turned my head to the right to see who was beside me. Leo. His face frozen with apprehension.
Circling around during warm-ups, I saw Dave coming at me. He gave me a head nod, as if to say "Hey," but I didn't look up. Instead, I dropped my shoulder and checked him right on the red line. He knew that was my warning.
I skated past without a look, let alone a word. Not acknowledging him was easy. It was not laying his fucking ass out, beating him senseless, and jerking the truth out of him that was difficult. That side won out.
The sports broadcasting station and fans were all over that.
Honestly, though, it was my only way of getting away from him. I thought for sure if I was out of the game I couldn't act on what I so desperately wanted to do.
I wanted to kill him.