The Accident

ALICIA'S POV

"—and CALLOWAY takes it off the boards! Junior Calloway steals the puck, and here he comes!"

The commentator's voice boomed through the arena, and eighteen thousand people came off their seats at once.

I was one of them.

"GO!" I screamed, even though there was no way Junior could hear me. "Go, go, GO!"

My twin brother flew down the ice like it was burning behind him. Number 11. Halvorsen College's freshman star. National championship final, two minutes left in the third period, tied at two.

He crossed the blue line, faked left, split two defenders, and slid a blind pass to the far post.

Silas Varga was already there. One-timer.

The red light flashed.

"VARGA SCORES! Halvorsen takes the lead, three to two! The Calloway-Varga connection strikes again, folks. Those two have been reading each other's minds all season!"

The arena exploded. Drums. Horns. Somebody behind me spilled an entire cup of soda down my back, and I didn't care.

I was in row D, right behind the Halvorsen bench, still wearing my high school hockey jacket with the captain's patch on the shoulder. National team trials were in two weeks. My coach had told me to stay home and rest.

But Junior had made me promise. You watch my final, I watch your trials. That was always the deal.

We were eighteen. He was eleven minutes older and had never let me forget it.

During the timeout, Junior skated to the bench and searched the crowd. He found me in two seconds. He always did.

Two taps on his chest. A glove pointed straight at me.

Our signal since we were six. I see you. Watch this.

I tapped my chest twice and pointed back, grinning so hard my face hurt.

Then my smile slipped.

Junior didn't sit with the team. He stood at the end of the bench, bent over his stick, gasping.

Junior never leaned on his stick. Never. When we were ten, he told me that was what losers did when they wanted the other team to know they were tired.

Sweat poured from under his helmet. His face had gone a strange gray under the arena lights.

The trainer reached for his shoulder. Junior waved him off, grabbed a water bottle from the bench, and drank.

Beside him, Silas Varga stopped and watched him. Frowning.

He's fine, I told myself. It's the final. Everyone's exhausted.

The other team scored right off the faceoff. Three, three.

Forty seconds later, Junior broke away and got hooked from behind. Penalty shot.

My brother had not missed a penalty shot all season. He'd practiced them on our frozen backyard pond every winter for twelve years, in the dark, once with a broken finger.

He picked up the puck at center ice, took a quick stride, and shot.

Wide. It didn't even come close to the net.

The arena groaned. "He MISSES! Junior Calloway hasn't missed one all season! The pressure of the final might be getting to the young man!"

It wasn't pressure.

As he skated back, I saw his right glove. It kept slipping on his stick, opening and closing, like he couldn't feel his fingers.

“Something's wrong,” I said out loud. Nobody heard me.

Nineteen seconds left. The game was tied.

The whole arena counted down with the clock. The coach was screaming from the bench: "JUNIOR! JUNIOR!"

They wanted the puck on his stick. They always did.

Junior picked up a loose puck near his own blue line. Twelve seconds left. The ice was open. He glanced at the goalie, then, for half a second, up at me.

And then he took off.

"Calloway's got a step, he's alone, he's going for the win, he's going—"

He went down.

Nobody touched him. His legs stopped working mid-stride, like someone had flipped a switch inside him. His body folded, and his speed threw him headfirst into the boards beside the net.

The puck slid harmlessly into the corner.

The horn sounded.

Overtime.

"Oh! And Calloway goes down hard! That might be the most expensive fall of the season..."

Some of the opposing fans started laughing. Someone near the top yelled, "DIVER! Get up!"

"He'll shake that off," the commentator said. "He's a tough kid."

The referee waved for the trainer like it was nothing.

But Junior wasn't getting up, he wasn't moving at all.

I don't remember deciding to run. I remember the stairs under my feet. I remember climbing over the bench door. I remember a security guard grabbing my jacket.

"Ma'am! You can't go on the ice!"

"That's my BROTHER!"

I twisted out of the jacket and left it in his hands.

I ran across the ice in sneakers, fell, got up, fell again. The players had formed a circle around the net. I shoved through them.

Silas was already on his knees beside Junior, tearing off his helmet.

"Get the trainer! He's not breathing right! Get the doctor NOW!"

I dropped down on Junior's other side.

His eyes were open, but they weren't looking at anything. His lips had turned a pale, terrible blue. His chest jerked in short, broken gasps.

"Junior. Hey. Look at me." I grabbed his face. His skin was cold and wet. "Licia's here. Look at me."

His eyes found me. Slowly.

His glove closed weakly around my wrist.

"Licia," he breathed. "Wasn't..."

"Don't talk. Just breathe."

"Wasn't... mine."

"What wasn't yours? Junior—"

His grip loosened. His eyes rolled back, and his chest stopped rising.

"No. No, no, no. JUNIOR!"

Silas put both hands on my brother's chest and started compressions, counting through gritted teeth.

Eighteen thousand people, and the only sound was Silas counting and the medics' boots on the ice.

They pushed me back. Someone cut through his jersey and pads while another medic placed the defibrillator pads on his chest.

“Clear!”

Junior's body jerked. A gasp rippled through the arena.

“Nothing. Again. Clear!”

“We've got a rhythm. It's weak. Move! Move!”

They rushed him off the ice on a stretcher. A paramedic blocked me at the ambulance doors.

"Family only!"

"I'm his twin!" I climbed in before he could argue.

The college clinic's emergency unit was five minutes away but the drive felt like five years. The monitor above Junior's head beeped, stopped, and beeped again.

I held his hand the whole way and kept talking, because I couldn't stand the silence.

"You still owe me new skates. You lost that bet, remember? You said I'd never make captain, and I did. You don't get to skip out on a bet, Junior. You hear me?"

The monitor let out a long, flat tone.

"He's in V-fib again! Charge it!"

The doors flew open. Bright white lights. Doctors in blue. They took his hand out of mine.

"Miss, you have to wait outside."

"Please—"

The doors swung shut in my face.

————————

  The clock above the waiting room door said 6:47 p.m.

At 6:50, the hallway doors burst open. Coach. Two assistant coaches. And Silas Varga, still in his skates with the blade guards on, like he'd forgotten he was wearing them.

He sat across from me and stared at his own hands. They were shaking.

"Silas." My voice rose. "What do you think happened to him?"

"He told me he felt off," he said quietly. "At the second intermission. His heart was racing and his fingers were numb." He swallowed. "I told him it was nerves. I told him to drink some water and shake it off."

I was on my feet before I knew it. I shoved him so hard his chair scraped back against the wall.

"You KNEW? You knew something was wrong and you let him keep playing?"

"Alicia—" Coach grabbed my arm.

"You were his best friend!"

Silas didn't defend himself. He just looked at me with red eyes and took it.

6:55.

6:57.

6:59.

At exactly 7:00 p.m., the emergency doors opened.

The doctor walked out, slowly pulling off her gloves. I rushed towards her.

"I'm very sorry. Despite our best efforts, we were unable to restore his heartbeat. We performed resuscitation for as long as we could, but he didn't respond. His time of death was recorded as 6:59 p.m."

The floor tilted beneath my feet.

"No. That's not possible. He trained for three hours yesterday. He had a full heart screening in August. His heart was perfect."

"Sometimes there can be an undiagnosed condition that—"

"His heart was PERFECT!"

My scream echoed down the hallway. Junior's coach covered his face.

I looked at the clock again.

Twelve minutes.

Less than thirteen minutes, and my brother was gone. Less than an hour ago, he was flying down the ice in front of eighteen thousand people.

A healthy eighteen-year-old's heart doesn't just stop. What could have gone wrong?