I crossed over to him and set my mug down before reaching for his hands. They were both whole now, the right one wrapped in healing scars.
I held on as I spoke. "I think you're the guy who came back and kept showing up, even when it hurt. Especially when it hurt."
He didn't flinch when I touched his jaw and when I kissed him.
When we pulled apart, he whispered, "We're fucked up, you know that?"
"Yeah, but we're fucked up together."
"Then maybe we've got a shot."
Epilogue - Micah
The noise didn't bother me anymore.
It used to. There was the echo of skates, sharp whistles, and the shriek of a metal goalpost scraping across ice—I used to feel it all in my teeth. My flinches were bone-deep like my body bracing for another hit I couldn't see coming.
Now, I simply stood there, arms crossed, shoulder pressed to the plexiglass, and watched.
Noah was out on the ice with the kids, knees bent in that easy crouch that made him look half-wild and half-weightless. It was October, nearly a year since Noah showed up on my porch. His team was hosting a fundraiser for local Marquette hockey.
He skated backward with one hand outstretched, guiding a little girl in a glitter-pink helmet whose jersey hung off her like it had been made for someone twice her size. Her stick dragged behind her like an afterthought, but she was smiling so hard it didn't matter.
Noah winked at her, then peeled away, calling out something I didn't catch. The sound blurred with everything else—the slap of pucks against the boards, the squeak of cheap rental skates, andthe voice of some parent asking if hot dogs were still on sale at the concessions.
I liked watching him like this. Loose. Loud. Alive in a way I could never match. He didn't have to think about being gentle—he justwas.
My breath fogged the glass in front of me. I let it sit there. Let it cloud the view for a second and then blinked past it.
The smell of the rink still hit me in waves—old rubber, dried sweat, and ice shavings melting into the seams of the concrete floor—but it wasn't the only thing rattling around in my head.
There was another kind of cold still stuck to the inside of me.
Memories of a lake. Not Superior, the big one. It was the one by the little cabin halfway up the bluff with a stove that smoked no matter how we rigged the flue. We spent one weekend at the end of spring and three weekends over the summer there—only us and a cooler full of whatever we didn't forget.
We skated there in late spring on a patch of thaw-softened lake that shouldn't have held me. On the last day, it didn't.
Noah didn't scream when I went under. He moved. Fast. Sure. Swearing at me the entire time.
Later, dripping and shaking on the porch with towels over both our heads, he pointed out, "You didn't even panic."
I didn't. That was the strange part. I trusted the lake. Or maybe I merely trusted Noah.
A scuffed puck tapped against the boards by my foot. I looked down.
A kid stood there. Eight, maybe nine. His helmet sat crooked, and the laces on one skate were barely looped. He had ink smudges on his fingers and held a puck out like he wasn't sure if it was a peace offering or part of a dare.
"You're the guy from the video, right?" he asked.
I didn't have to ask which video. Only one lived in the minds of hockey fans all over.
"Yeah." I took the puck, pulled a marker from my jacket pocket, and signed it. Block letters. No flourish.
He stared like he expected more. A nod. A smile. Something human.
Noah skated past and ruffled the kid's helmet.
"He's cooler than he looks," he said, grinning over his shoulder.
