My Hockey Nemesis

May 1, 2023 LENA The ring was still on my finger when everything shattered. I remember staring at it under the harsh arena lights, twisting my hand just enough to watch the diamond catch the glare and scatter it across the glass. It didn’t feel real yet. None of it did. Ethan had proposed just that morning. There was no grand gesture. No crowd. Just him standing in my cramped kitchen, his hair still messy from sleep, holding out a ring with hands so shaky you’d think he was facing a breakaway instead of just me. I’d said yes before he could even finish the question. Hours later, I was still saying it in my head, replaying the moment and smiling like an i***t. That was the good part of the day. The part I wish I could freeze in time. Because by nightfall, I was on my feet in a suffocating crowd, my heart lodged in my throat as I watched the man I loved lie motionless on the ice. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not to him. Not like this. The sound came first. A sharp, sickening c***k that cut clean through the roar of ten thousand people. I felt the vibration in my chest before my brain could process it. Then came the silence—a heavy, unnatural quiet that didn’t belong in a hockey arena. My stomach dropped into a bottomless pit. “No…” I whispered, already shaking my head before I even saw him. “No, no, no—” But I knew. I knew before my eyes found his jersey. Before I saw the terrifying stillness of his body. Before the crimson started pooling on the white ice. “Ethan!” I don’t remember hitting the stairs. One second, I was trapped in my seat, the next I was tearing through the crowd, shoving past hands that tried to grab me and ignoring the blurred voices calling my name. All I could see was him. All I could hear was the frantic, breaking sound of my own voice screaming for him. And then, I saw him. Arthur Pearson. He was standing just a few feet away, looking down as if he hadn’t just destroyed my entire universe. His helmet was off. His chest rose and fell in slow, even measures. His eyes were locked on the body on the ground, but there was no panic in them. No shock. He was just… watching. Like this was routine. Like a predator admiring a clean kill. A violent chill slid down my spine. This wasn’t an accident. Not really. Not when it came from Arthur and his team, the Redwoods greatest rival, a player who didn’t just cross lines, but erased them. He hit like he had something to prove. Or something to punish. Someone who gets away with everything. My hands trembled violently as I dropped to my knees on the ice beside Ethan, terrified to touch him, terrified not to. “Stay with me,” I choked out, pressing my hands to his cold jersey. “Ethan, please—just stay with me.” He didn’t move. He didn’t blink. The transition from the blinding arena lights to the sterile, pulsing red of the ambulance was a blur of noise and motion. The paramedic's hands were a flurry of movement, checking vitals, shouting over the wail of the siren. I sat in the corner, my knees pulled to my chest, staring at Ethan’s pale face beneath the oxygen mask. My ring, the one he had slipped onto my finger just hours ago, pressed hard against my skin as I gripped my own hand to stop the shaking. The scent of sweat and ice was replaced by the sharp, metallic tang of blood and isopropyl alcohol. “Stay with us, Ethan,” the paramedic muttered, a tense rhythm to his movements that terrified me more than the siren ever could. When the doors slammed open at the hospital, the world exploded into chaos. A trauma team was already waiting, a wall of blue scrubs rushing forward to wheel the gurney through the sliding glass doors. The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed like angry hornets, flickering past in a dizzying sequence as we sprinted down the hallway. Nurses shouted vitals, words like intracranial pressure and unresponsive, bouncing off the walls. I tried to keep up, my sneakers skidding on the polished floor, my hand desperately reaching out to hold onto a piece of his jersey. “Ma’am, you have to stay here!” A firm hand caught my shoulder, stopping me at a set of heavy double doors. “No, please, I need to go with him!” I begged, my voice breaking. “You can't go any further,” the nurse said, her eyes filled with a practiced, heavy empathy. “We're taking him in now.” Through the small glass window of the double doors, I watched them wheel him into the operating theater. Doctors moved with terrifying precision, scrubbing in, snapping on latex gloves, prepping the instruments that would try to piece his life back together. The heavy doors swung shut, cutting off the sound, leaving me alone in the quiet corridor. Behind that glass, they were fighting for his survival. And all I could do was sit on the vinyl chairs, staring at the ring on my finger, wondering if the man who gave it to me would ever wake up to see it. And behind me, I could still feel it. Arthur's eyes. Heavy. Unmoving. Utterly unapologetic. That was the exact second my life split in two. There was the Before, and there was the After. And no matter how many years have passed since that night, no matter how hard I’ve tried to rebuild the pieces, one truth remains absolute: If Arthur hadn’t been on the ice that night, my world would still be whole.