On Thin Ice 3

by Victoria Villeneuve

  I rolled my eyes at her and passed her a menu.

  “I can always de-invite you to the game later,” I threatened.

  “You wouldn’t! How will I find a sexy hockey player of my own if you do that?”

  Daniel laughed.

  “Well, Sabrina, I have to admit you’re exactly how Kylie described you to me.”

  “Sexy and intelligent?” she asked with a wink.

  “Flirty and honest with a healthy dose of crazy.”

  “Well, that’s close enough I guess. Kylie’s been keeping her cards close to the chest. I want to know everything. How did you two meet? How did you get together?”

  “Well, we met in rehab, as I’m sure you know. I thought Kylie was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, so I sat down with her at dinner. We hung out together the next day, and found we liked each other, but because of the rules of the place we weren’t allowed dating.”

  I blushed as I listened to Daniel tell the story of how we met. It seemed so romantic when he said it.

  “Then Kylie motivated me to get surgery on my knee, I did so, and we started dating when we got back into the real world.”

  “Oh my God, that’s the type of story that they turn into movies!” Sabrina exclaimed. “That’s SO romantic, like holy shit!”

  Just then the waitress came by with our food. We stared at the triple patty Daniel had ordered.

  “What?” he asked, looking at us both. “I have a strict diet to adhere to, I’m playing a game tonight.”

  “You’re single handedly eating more than the two of us put together,” I replied, motioning at Sabrina and my plate.

  “Yeah, well, neither one of you are expending as many calories as I am,” he retorted, as Sabrina grabbed the ketchup and we dug into our food.

  Over dinner we spoke about banalities. Daniel got to know Sabrina, who acted exactly like her usual self, until it was time for us to head over to the arena. We were so early, Sabrina and I, but they still let us into the suite. We were by ourselves, with an open bar and a whole bunch of hors d’oeuvres sitting on a giant table, making me regret the fact that we’d just eaten lunch.

  Sabrina immediately went over to the bar and poured herself a drink.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not offering you one,” she told me over her shoulder, and I settled onto a barstool overlooking the rink. A minute later, Sabrina joined me.

  “So?” I started.

  “So, what?”

  “So, what did you think of Daniel?”

  “Honestly, he’s pretty cool. I like him. Down to earth sort of guy, not up his own ass like you expect with a bunch of athletes. Plus he seems to really like you, so yeah, I think he’s a good thing.”

  I smiled. I was glad Sabrina approved. Not that I would have broken up with Daniel or anything if she didn’t, but it certainly made me happy that the people I spent the most time with liked each other.

  We kept chatting for a while, about our classes, about boys, about everything until finally the room we were in started to fill up with other friends and family of the players. When the warm up started, Sabrina and I went down to our seats, looking at the players as they skated around. Even though he was a lot smaller from up here in the box, I could instantly tell who Daniel was. More than that, I was amazed at how he looked.

  I was never a huge hockey fan. I knew the basics of the game, but that was about it. Still, when I saw Daniel skate for the first time since his injury, I could tell he wasn’t as strong a skater as most of the rest of the players. But now, after an extra month of rehab, he was by far and away the best.

  Every time Daniel moved, every time his leg muscles tensed and he pushed away from the ice, it was obvious his drive was generating so much more power than everyone else’s. Despite the pure power, the raw force involved with his every stride on the ice, he was also by far the most agile player. It was like everyone else on the ice skated in slow motion when Daniel was around. He dangled the puck one second, then deftly skated around one of his teammates and fired a rocket past the goalie.

  “He’s so good, isn’t he?” Sabrina said softly, obviously captivated by Daniel’s skill as well.

  “Yeah. Yeah, he’s incredible. In every single way.”

  I watched in awe as Daniel warmed up, stood and sang along with the crowd as a local celebrity sang The Star Spangled Banner, then cheered along with the rest of the crowd as for the first time that season, the Sea Lions played hockey.

  Daniel took the first faceoff, sliding it back to one of his defensemen. The defenseman passed the puck to the right wing, who slid past the defender and into the zone. Daniel was in front of the net, the winger passed to him, but a last second check from the King’s defenseman stopped him from scoring.

  My heart pounded every second that Daniel was on the ice. I had eyes for only him. Every time he stepped onto the ice the momentum went towards the Sea Lions. He attacked hard, he made sure to come back and play defense, and the more I saw of him, the more impressed I was.

  Midway through the third period, the score tied at one, a Sea Lions defenseman passed the puck to Daniel, who immediately made his way up the ice with it. He was so far ahead of the other two forwards that there was no chance they were going to catch up. Daniel banked the puck off the boards and with a single quick movement of his legs sped past the other team’s defense, getting the puck back and charging towards the net.

  I was sure Daniel was going too fast, that he was going to go right into the goalie, and I got ready to cover my eyes, not wanting to see the collision. But, at the last second, Daniel edged his skates and flew to the right, the goalie unable to stay with him, and Daniel easily slid the puck into the open net on the far side of the goal.

  It took a second or so before I realized what had happened. The entire stadium completely exploded. I jumped and screamed and hugged Sabrina as we celebrated with everyone else. Daniel had scored! We watched on the Jumbotron as they replayed the goal. My voice was getting hoarse I’d been cheering so much. I couldn’t believe it. Daniel had done it. He’d scored his first goal in his first game back after the injury. I was so proud of him, I couldn’t wait to see him after the game and kiss his perfect face, telling him how proud I was of him.

  As it turned out, that was the goal which won the game.

  “You’re amazing!” I cried out when Daniel came up to Sabrina and I as we waited for him in the hallway outside the Sea Lion’s dressing room. I ran into his arms and wrapped them around his shoulders, jumping up to reach them. He held me, a few inches off the ground, spinning me around.

  “Did you like that? I got you this,” he replied with a grin, handing me a puck. My mouth dropped open.

  “Is this the puck you scored with?”

  “Yup. I want you to have it. I wouldn’t have scored that goal if it wasn’t for you.”

  “That’s so sweet,” Sabrina said in the background, looking like she wanted to melt. I wouldn’t have blamed her, I wanted to melt too. It was incredibly sweet, such a thoughtful gesture.

  “I love you so much,” I whispered into his ear.

  “I love you too.”

  Suddenly, our touching moment was broken when one of Daniel’s teammates walked by.

  “Hi, I’m Sabrina,” I heard my best friend saying behind me. “I’m a friend of Daniel’s. Hey Daniel, you should properly introduce me to your teammate here.”

  I smiled to myself, rolling my eyes as Daniel introduced Sabrina to the team’s goalie, Sami Lahtinen. I could tell she was immediately captivated by the Finnish accent, and she quickly had him wrapped around her little finger, slipping her arm inside of his and walking out with him.

  “Thanks for tonight, Daniel. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Kylie!” she yelled back as she left, waving at us.

  I burst out laughing as soon as she was out of sight.

  “That girl is impossible. I swear, at least she never pays money to get back to her place. I love her but by God she’ll flirt with anything with a puls
e.”

  “Well, she’ll love Sami then. He’s a bit of a player himself, so they’ll have some fun.”

  “Hey, thanks for inviting her. I know she probably won’t say it, but it means a lot to her, and it means a lot to me that you met her as well.”

  “No problem. I wanted to meet her, and I knew she wanted to get her teeth into someone on the team, so I figured two birds, one stone.”

  We walked slowly out towards Daniel’s car in the underground parking lot.

  “So how did it feel, playing tonight?”

  “Amazing, honestly. The adrenaline rush just took away any pain I might have felt, I think I played twelve minutes, and that was with the coach limiting me. I felt like I could have played thirty. There’s nothing like being out there on the ice, playing hockey. It’s my life.”

  “I guess scoring the game winner is pretty nice, too.”

  “It was a good bonus,” he added, smiling as he opened the car door for me.

  As we headed home, I felt warm and happy. Everything was going perfectly. The season had just started, Daniel was doing really well in his comeback, and the first few weeks of my study had gone better than I had expected. It almost seemed too good in a way. I knew something had to happen, I just didn’t know when.

  * * *

  My time of perfect bliss lasted until early April. I mean, it’s not like our relationship didn’t have its problems. For one thing, there was Daniel’s hectic travel schedule. He was constantly on the road, and because I was so busy, I usually couldn’t join him. Sometimes I’d get lucky and they’d go to Vancouver and Calgary for the weekend or something, and I’d hop on a flight and join him, but usually I would just say goodbye to him as he headed off to the airport, wish him well, and watch the game on TV while trying to study.

  I wasn’t exactly a lady of leisure either. My courses were getting more and more difficult, and I found it hard to keep up with the increasingly challenging coursework. Nonetheless, I really realized that I absolutely loved it. There wasn’t a single class that I didn’t enjoy. Everything about the human body fascinated me, and as I put more and more puzzle pieces together learning about how it worked, I was thrilled.

  Whenever I needed a friend, Sabrina was there. I mean, she couldn’t help with a lot of the deeper issues I was dealing with. No, those were reserved for Daniel only. But if I wanted to complain about our courses, bitch about profs being terrible, or anything, Sabrina was totally on my side.

  The first week of April things were getting stressful for all of us. Exams were coming up in May, and so I had to start studying for those. As I went back over my course notes from September, I felt like all the information had gone in one ear and out the other. I attended study groups with other students, tutorials, I spent late nights up late reading and a whole lot more.

  I know Daniel was feeling the pressure as well. The regular season had just finished, the playoffs were starting the next day. The Sea Lions didn’t do as well in the regular season as they hoped, but I knew they were on a hot streak. Even though they didn’t have home ice advantage, I wasn’t worried. But I knew that wasn’t enough for Daniel, to be in the playoffs. He wanted to slay the demons that haunted him from the year before. He didn’t just want to make the playoffs, he wanted to win them.

  I knew he was spending longer and longer in the gym, and sometimes when we ate dinner he would drift off into space and I knew he was thinking about hockey. I never interrupted him when he did it. I knew how important this was to him. I knew how much he wanted this, and I wanted to do everything I could to make sure he got there.

  The letter that changed everything came via registered mail. I had to sign for the it, and as the courier dropped it off, I remembered thinking it was weird. After all, I wasn’t expecting anything. This was a letter sized envelope, which I ripped open and found a letter from a law firm.

  I read the letter, then read it again. Surely I was dreaming. Surely I wasn’t actually reading these words right. The letter was from a law firm purporting to represent the family of Jeb Kerr, the classmate of Suzette’s who had driven into my car and killed my sister.

  And it looked, it looked like they were suing me.

  Surely I wasn’t reading this right. There was no way. But yes, that’s what the letter said. The family wanted to sue me for damages resulting from the mental anguish they suffered from the loss of their son.

  The mental anguish they suffered? I dropped the letter to the floor. All the memories of that night came flooding back. All the emotions I felt, the sheer terror as I sat in the ambulance, the sinking feeling when I saw the look on my parent’s face, the feeling that I wanted to throw up, that I wanted to die. It all came back. Tears streamed down my face and I clutched at my eyes, desperately trying to forget.

  I thought I was going to throw up all over again. I collapsed onto the floor. I sat there for a while and sobbed. I was so glad that Daniel had promised me not to leave any alcohol in the house. I knew if there had been, I would have drank it. I eventually got up and went to my room, where I collapsed into my bed in a fit of tears and cried until I couldn’t cry anymore.

  I wanted to speak to Daniel more than anything. I was desperate to talk to him, to call him. He would know what to do. He would know what to say. I had the phone in my hand when I stopped. He was twenty four hours away from one of the most important games in his life. He was gone, he had left this morning for Chicago, and wouldn’t be back until they had played the first two games.

  I knew if I called, Daniel would talk to me. I knew he would do everything he could for me. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it to him. I didn’t want to distract him. I was going to have to deal with this by myself.

  The problem was, I didn’t know how.

  I wanted to call Sabrina, but I knew she wouldn’t understand. No one would understand, except Daniel, and I couldn’t bother him. I was alone for now.

  I got back up and found the letter where I’d dropped it. I hadn’t noticed I’d stained it with a tear drop that must have fallen on it earlier.

  I took a few deep breaths, took it over to my desk, sat down and gave it a good read through. I definitely hadn’t misunderstood the words. I was being sued, for “pain and suffering”. I couldn’t believe it. What had brought this on? The accident was almost two years ago now. Why were they reopening the wounds I worked so hard to close?

  When I finally calmed down I decided I was going to call a lawyer. I had no idea how to find a lawyer for this, or what it would cost. Although with the fortune I was paying in medical school fees, an extra ten thousand dollars here or there certainly wasn’t going to destroy me. I was already going to be paying back loans for most of the rest of my life.

  I managed to calm myself down eventually. I had no idea what was going on, but I would soon. I’d get a lawyer to fight this. I just hoped it wouldn’t take everything out of me.

  From the first I had to fight the urge to drink. Every time I thought about the accident, every time I relived it, my body craved alcohol. It craved the forgetfulness that came with it. I relived all of the pain, the anguish I felt that night every time I thought about it, and I knew alcohol took that pain away. My hands shook, and I grabbed my pants with them. No. I wasn’t going to do that. I wasn’t going to succumb to alcohol. I was going to be stronger than that. I had to be stronger than that.

  My first step was to get onto the internet and call some lawyers and make appointments. I made three appointments, but the earliest was going to be three days away. There was nothing I could do until then except read the letter over and over.

  No matter what I tried to do to take my mind off things, it didn’t work. I tried to study. I tried to watch TV. I tried to read. But I found that no matter what, my mind wasn’t on things. My mind only thought about this lawsuit, thought about the accident.

  Eventually I forced myself to go to bed. It was early, maybe 8 o’clock, but I thought the safest thing for me right now was to sleep. At least w
hen I was asleep my body wasn’t going to think about where the nearest drink might be.

  I felt relief sweep over me as I sensed my body falling asleep. When I woke up, things would be better.

  My dreams were fitful. For the first time in a long time, I relived that night. I dreamed of dropping Suzette off. I dreamed about coming back to pick her up. I saw her smile, her hair.

  Then we were driving. I saw the car. I saw it coming at us. I kept trying to swerve, but the steering wheel wouldn’t work. Suzette was screaming.

  “SAVE ME, KYLIE! PLEASE!”

  I wrenched the wheel around. Nothing. I slammed on the brakes, but the car only went faster. I was screaming.

  “SUZETTE! NO, SUZETTE!”

  The other car came closer. I screamed.

  I woke up to my cries resonating across the room. I was sweating, panting and crying all at once. I had failed her. I had killed her. I had killed Suzette. I had killed her. Oh God, what had I done?

  I was shaking. Trembling. I was still wearing my clothes from the night before. I climbed out of bed, went to the toilet and threw up. I needed a drink so bad. What was one little drink going to do? It wouldn’t be that bad, it would just help me forget.

  No. You can’t. You absolutely can’t. I reached for my phone to call Daniel, then remembered. It was just after midnight. That meant it would be just after two in the morning in Chicago, the night before his big game. No, I couldn’t call Daniel.

  Maybe one little drink wouldn’t be so bad. I wouldn’t have more than one. I could stop myself. I needed it so badly.

  I grabbed my purse and headed out into the night. It was somewhat chilly, and I half walked, half jogged until I reached the nearest bar and restaurant, about ten blocks away.

  Sitting up at the bar, the man at the counter took one look at my appearance before going “rough night?” This was your typical sports bar, with a brick counter, various pieces of sports memorabilia, a bunch of big screen TVs and a half-decent kitchen out the back.

  Nodding, I ordered a vodka and orange juice. He brought it to me and I downed it in a single gulp before ordering another. I needed this. The instant the smooth liquid went down my throat, it was like something inside of me was ignited. I needed this. It would make me forget. The last time I did this, I forgot. I wouldn’t remember Suzette’s terrified eyes. I wouldn’t remember her screams. I wouldn’t remember that I had killed her, that I had done this to her.