All Chapters of The Hockey Star Regret : Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

HAYDEN I didn’t leave her dorm room that night. I tried to but I just couldn’t find it in me to leave her alone when she was feeling so down. Mark got home late at night and we all ordered take-out for dinner but I didn’t leave when it was getting late. Not because anything happened. No,we didn’t cross that line and I respected her too much to take advantage of her while she was in a vulnerable state. But because when someone finally trusts you with the weight they’ve been carrying for years, you don’t just hand it back and walk away. You sit with them. In it, through it, even if all you’re doing is breathing beside them in the quiet. Coleen was curled up on her bed, legs tucked under the blanket, hair still slightly damp from the shower she took after crying. Her eyes weren’t red anymore, but they still held that raw, aching vulnerability. I was sitting on the floor, back against her dresser, arms resting loosely on my knees. She had offered the bed. I had declined. Sharing a

HAYDEN One thing that we dreaded as a team was being called to the Coach's office for a private conversation because more often than not, it means you've fucked up. Coach’s office was where you went to get your ass handed to you and now it seemed like I might be next victim. I racked my brain but I couldn't think of anythng I'd done that would warrant a private conversation in the head coach's office. I was still in my jersey and I could feel the sweat drying cold on my body. The game hadn’t even ended thirty minutes ago, and now I was sitting in the same chair I’d used when Coach once benched me for skipping film study. Only this time, I wasn’t sure what I'd done. “I bet you're wondering why I wanted to see you,” Coach said. Yeah, he had no idea how bad I wanted to know. I didn't have it in me to say anything so I just nodded and he handed me a folded piece of paper. “What’s this?” I asked, though I already had a feeling. He didn’t answer. He just pointed at the paper in my

COLEENThe silence was the loudest part.Hayden had been gone three days, and already my body had fallen into the rhythm of waiting.I was checking my phone without realizing it, listening for a buzz that never came, convincing myself I wasn’t anxious while counting the hours since his last message.The last thing he’d sent was a blurry photo from the airport shuttle with the caption: “Coach looks like he’s about to murder us all and it’s only Day 1.”I’d laughed.And then spent twenty minutes wondering if I should reply with something funny or meaningful or nothing at all.I chose a simple: “You’ve got this. Be nice to the coach. He has the power to murder you.”He never replied which I understood because he needed some time to settle in and establish a routing for the next few weeks.And now it was Day 3.I tried to distract myself.Mark and I did a movie marathon and ran through a d

COLEENIt’s ridiculous how something as simple as a phone buzz could stir hope inside me.Every time my screen lit up, even if it was just Alicia sending me a meme or a notification about an assignment, I had that tiny flicker of anticipation in my chest. Like maybe, just maybe, it would be him.Sometimes it was.Sometimes it wasn’t.I tried not to let it get to me. I told myself I was being mature, realistic. I told myself that three weeks wasn’t forever, and that I had survived worse things than silence.But no one tells you how loud a little bit of silence can be.Especially when it comes from someone whose voice started to feel like a home you weren’t ready to lose.It had been almost two weeks since Hayden left for camp. Winter break was just a few days away, and most people on campus had either already gone home or were packing up to leave. The dorms were quieter. The hallways colder. And the food options on campus had dropped down to suspicious vending machine snacks and one de

COLEENI stood at the shuttle stop outside campus like I wasn’t freezing to death.The early January chill crept into my boots and bit at my ankles, but I didn’t move. I just kept refreshing the screen of my phone, checking the last message Hayden sent.Hayden: Just landed. I’m on my way back to school.That was the best text I’d gotten since he left. He was finally back.My heart had been racing since he texted that. That was how much I’ve missed him. It felt funny to even admit that to myself. Who would have thought that the man who used to terrorize me in high school would keep on torturing me in college but in the best way. A way I never would have imagined.It had been three weeks.Three weeks without hearing his voice in real life.Three weeks of short messages, tired video calls, and his occasional late night calls and sad attempts at making jokes. He even tried downplaying how serious the program was but I didn’t fall for it. Everyday he was away felt like an eternity. Now,