The Light That Wraps You

I don’t know where I went. For hours, I wandered alone through the streets of Raleigh, not looking at street signs, not looking in specific directions, just walking, one foot in front of the other to avoid breaking down in a motionless heap. If I kept moving, maybe that would mean I could get through this.

I didn’t want to believe what Lux had told me. Nothing felt more difficult than that, than wrapping my mind around the inevitable truth. A piece of me knew it, believed her even despite the improbability, but I just couldn’t fathom that this beautiful, wonderful woman, had shouldered this secret for months without telling me.

Was this what had drawn me to her? Did my soul recognize a piece of you in her, and did you unintentionally pull me in? She said she didn’t know until she saw my tattoo, but what if she had? Was everything I had felt for this woman based on a lie?

Oh god, I can’t do this.

I couldn’t think past the pain. Somehow, blind to the lights of the city and where my feet were taking me, I ended up back at the hotel, outside of Flower’s door. By then, the sun had fallen and night lay upon the city, blanketing everything in moonless dark. I was shivering.

Fleury opened his door before I could knock. Without saying a word, he yanked me inside by my crooked tie. In one hazy instant, he slammed the door shut, locked it, and then pulled me into a tight hug. I could barely breathe. I didn’t ask how he had known it was me or why he was hugging me like this, but suddenly none of it mattered as I was crying into his shoulder.

This was not manly. For those who play it, hockey is often an unforgiving sport, almost cruel in what it can do to the body and to the mind. There was no room for crying, not over the bad things. If you got a stick to the ribs or a puck to the mouth, you swallowed those aches and pains and dealt with it. Hockey players were a different breed, and we played in the throes of battle, swimming through blood and sweat, but tears? Tears were another story altogether.

We were supposed to be the toughest of them all, yet even then, tears had been shed. After all, we were only human. Scoring your first professional goal, winning the Cup, those were enough to make anyone cry, even us. But to cry over a girl? To be wrapped in Fleury’s long arms, to have him comforting me as I practically sobbed against his shoulder? It was foreign to me as a hockey player, and as a man. I didn’t want it to be like this and yet… I couldn’t bring myself to pull away from him. I didn’t have the strength to hold myself up on my own, not anymore.

After a few minutes of blinding breathlessness, Fleury gently sat me down on the edge of his bed. He handed me a hotel box of tissues, and I quietly wiped my face clean. My eyes hurt from all the strain, and my lungs ached. If it became too much for my to body to bear the emotional pain, could I just waste away here?

“You didn’t miss much,” Fleury said. “Eric Staal and an actress from that medical show that Vero likes did something with their diaper charity, but that was about it.” He paused, eyeing my face hesitantly like he was afraid what he might find there. “Vero went to find--”

“Don’t,” I croaked. “Don’t say her name.”

His look was pitying, but he honored my demand. “She called me from here, and said she was flying back with uh, her, and that she would call me when they got into Pittsburgh.”

So that was it. She had left Raleigh. What did I expect her to do? Did I even want her to stay anymore? I couldn’t even think her name, much less hear it aloud, so how could I face seeing her again?

“Kris.”

I looked up. My head was heavy.

Fleury’s dark eyes were sad. “Je sais.”

So he knew. She had told Vero, and in turn, she had informed Fleury. But what could he know? Yes, the facts, but did he know the feelings? No. I was sure that it was impossible for him to fully grasp the situation. He didn’t understand what I was feeling right now. He didn’t know that in one afternoon, she had managed to tear apart my entire world. He didn’t know that I loved her, that I wanted her, that I had envisioned our life together, that I was confused and scared of what this all meant. He didn’t know that she was too selfish to even tell me that the one remaining link to you was standing right in front of me and had been for months.

An image of her chest gaping open, empty save for her lungs, filled my mind. Heartless.

“No,” I said softly. “You don’t.”



The All-Star Game was a blur. I went through the motions, playing the game but not feeling for it as I might have originally. All I know is that my team lost. I tried to be happy for Fleury and the rest of the guys on Team Lidstrom, but it was hard when all I could think of was you and Lux.

Ryan Kesler tried to make it better, but he had already made it worse. He stopped me before the game, waiting until all the other guys were out of the dressing room before he spoke.

“I’m really, really sorry.”

I didn’t answer. I just narrowed my eyes and waited for what else he was going to say.

“I had no idea that you didn’t know. I just saw her, and…I wasn’t thinking.” He shook his head. “It’s just amazing. Of all the people, she finds you.”

Yes, of all the people. Like I needed him to remind me what I’d had, and what I’d lost. “How did you know that it was her?”

“Oh. She sent a letter to Charlene and Suzanne, to thank them, you know? Charlene showed it to me and the guys, and we were the ones who told her to write back, to invite her up so maybe we could do a tribute or something, but nobody was really ready for that. They talked a few more times, and she sent a picture of herself, told us her name and what she did. I never thought I would actually ever meet her, though.”

So he hadn’t known before Raleigh either. Walking away from that situation, it all felt too set-up, like I was the only one not in on the scheme. But now I knew. The only one who had been in on it was Lux, and she tricked us all.

Fleury and I took a flight back to Pittsburgh late Sunday night, deciding only to attend one party before leaving early. Though Fleury had been a part of the winning team, neither of us had any desire to celebrate. We just wanted to go home. I wanted to break open the window to the plane and get sucked out into space, but I didn’t tell him that.

He called Vero when we were on the plane and waiting for it to depart. I only caught some of the conversation as I was pretending to be dead in my window seat, but he didn’t intend on leaving me hanging.

He poked my elbow. “Hey. Tanger. Hey. Wake up.”

Ugh. I sat up, looking over at him with tired eyes. “What?”

“Vero says that she’s sorry.”

Fascinating. “And?” I couldn’t deny the way my heart was galloping in my chest at the idea that she might have passed on a message from her. I was terrified and hopeful and furious all at once.

“And that nobody else knows about what happened on Friday. Apparently Doctor Burke is back. Flew in yesterday. He’ll be taking over again tomorrow.”

“So…”

“So that’s why everyone thinks she’s leaving.”

I sat straight up like I’d just been shocked. “Wait, she’s leaving? Leaving Pittsburgh?”

Fleury shook his head. “Not leaving, gone. Vero took her to the airport earlier today."

Somehow, that was even worse. The fact that she could just leave like that, without waiting for me to get my bearings straight, without either of us talking. It was like she ran past me in a crowded place, hand in hand with you, both of you saying hello before vanishing into the crowd. She had just entered my life, screwed it up, and then left. I wanted to be happy that she was gone so this could be a clean break, but after everything, there was no way for this to be easy. It had to be hard; it had to hurt.

“Kris?”

I didn’t answer him. Instead, I turned away, put my head to the window, and pretended to be dead again. There was really nothing else for me to do. You were gone, she was gone, and everything we’d had was gone. It was over.



“It’s sad, Sid. I don’t know what to do.” Marc-André Fleury looked over at one of his best friends. Kris was asleep, his face pillowed on his arm against the window, but Fleury couldn’t sleep. Too much had happened over the weekend, and with his girlfriend currently unavailable, he had to talk it out with someone, even if that meant calling Sidney Crosby at midnight on a Sunday night.

“He just ran out on her? Just like that?”

“Well what would you do if you had just found that out?”

Sid let out a breath. “Oh man. I don’t even know. It’s just so hard to imagine.”

“Yeah. I don’t know what to say.”

“He’d probably prefer it if you didn’t say anything. He probably feels like an idiot, and I’m sure this hurts way worse than anything he’s ever felt.”

Fleury shook his head. “I just can’t believe it. Lux and Luc. Who would have known?”

There was a silence on the other end, and Fleury suddenly understood. “Someone like you, maybe?” When Sid didn’t deny, Fleury groaned. “Please tell me you’re joking…”

“She told me after I got hit. I dunno, I guess she thought it would make me feel better. I mean, it did, sort of. But I swore I wouldn’t tell!”

“Obviously. But if Kris finds out you knew--”

Sid swiftly cut him off. “He won’t. Right? This is going to stay between us.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“It’s for the best.”

“It really is.” If Kris ever found out, that would be the end, of both their friendship and their hockey team. He would probably ask for a trade and go somewhere far across the country, and they would never hear from him again. Kris was dramatic enough--and hurt enough--to actually do it. “Merde. We are all in a mess, yeah? All of us caught up here.” Caught in this tangled web.

Sid sighed. “You can say that again.”

Fleury looked over at Kris as he frowned in his sleep. He muttered her name, shifting against the window before lying still again. For one of the first times in his life, Fleury felt unsure. How can you fix something that’s been broken one too many times?

“So what do we do?”

It took Sid a long time to answer. “What can we do?”

Nothing.