CHASE
The front door closing behind me felt like the airlock sealing on a submarine. I was escaping. The duffel bag slung over my shoulder wasn’t just full of skates, sticks, and workout gear; it was full of distance. A full week of it.
The drive to the camp facility—three hours north, tucked into a pine-scented corner of the state—was supposed to be a reset. Time to clear my head. Time to focus on the only thing that mattered: hockey.
For the first hour, it worked. I cranked the stereo—some aggressive punk band I hadn’t listened to since high school—and let the noise drown out everything else. The memory of her mouth. The taste of her skin. The hollow, defeated way she’d said, “Yeah. A truce.”
By the second hour, the music faded into background static. The silence rushed back in, loud
