Shadows on the Ice

Prologue

"I killed him."

My hands betray me immediately, trembling in my lap as I sit cross-legged in the leather chair across from my therapist. The chair creaks softly beneath my weight, the sound too loud in the otherwise quiet room. I drag my palms down the seams of my pants, trying to ground myself, feeling the rough, torn fabric scrape against my skin. It doesn't help.

Across from me, the man doesn't react right away. He lowers his gaze and writes something in his notebook, the scratch of his pen filling the silence. Then he stills. The pen hovers above the page, suspended, as if even he isn't sure how to move forward. When he looks up, his expression is careful—measured—but his eyes don't flinch.

"Why do you think you killed him?" he asks at last.

My throat tightens, and I swallow against the burn. "If it wasn't for me," I whisper, my voice fracturing under the weight of the words, "he'd still be here." My breath stutters. Tears blur my vision, spilling over before I can stop them, trailing hot and silent down my cheeks. "Honestly," I add, barely audible now, "I wish it had been me."

He nods slowly, as if acknowledging a truth I've carried alone for too long. "Do you think he would blame you?"

That makes me pause. I tilt my head, staring past him to the corner of the room where the paint is chipped and uneven. I've sat in offices like this one more times than I can count. I've told this story in fragments, in half-truths, in carefully edited versions—but no one has ever asked me that.

"Do I think he would blame me?" I repeat, testing the words. My voice grows sharper, edged with frustration. "Do I think he would blame—" I cut myself off, shaking my head. "Of course he would."

The dam breaks.

"I took everything from him," I say, the words tumbling out between sobs. "His chance at playing professional hockey. His future. The life he was supposed to have." My chest aches as I struggle to breathe. "I stole the possibility of him meeting his future wife. Of him having the family he always talked about, the one he wanted more than anything."

I fold forward, burying my face in my hands as the grief finally overwhelms me. My shoulders shake violently. "I am responsible," I choke out, "for killing the only person who ever loved me."

The pen starts moving again, quick and deliberate. After a moment, my therapist speaks, his voice quiet but insistent.

"Tell me about that night," he says. "The night he died."