Chapter 3 The Wrong Side of the Glass (Tyler)

I make it to my truck before I throw up.

It comes out hard and fast, my body folding over itself like it’s trying to expel something poisonous. My hands brace on my knees, breath burning, stomach heaving until there’s nothing left but bile and the taste of copper. I stay there longer than necessary, forehead against cold metal, waiting for the world to steady.

Not from the hit.

Not from the guilt.

From her.

Sofia Martinez. Five-foot-nothing, maybe a hundred and ten pounds, dark eyes sharp enough to cut through armor. She looked at me like I was everything wrong with the world.

And the worst part? She was right.

I’ve been doing everything wrong. Have been since Diego died. Maybe before that. Hockey just gave me a place to hide it. Gave me rules. Gave me permission.

My phone won’t stop buzzing. Coach. Carter. Marcus. Jan from the training staff. Everyone checking in, wanting to know if I’m okay, where I am, and what the hell I was thinking standing in the hospital waiting room like I belonged there.

I ignore all of them.

The drive back to Roanoke is supposed to take ninety minutes. I make it in sixty, doing eighty the whole way, daring some cop to pull me over so I have something simple to focus on. Something with clear rules and consequences.

Anything but the look on her face.

That little girl. Sofia’s daughter. Emma.

Couldn’t have been more than six. Pink jacket zipped to her chin. Stuffed rabbit clutched to her chest. She stared at me like I was a monster, and why wouldn’t she?

I probably am.

Diego was nineteen when he died. Just a kid. Same age as some of the rookies I’m supposed to protect on the ice. Would he recognize me now, or would he see what Sofia Martinez saw? A thug. A weapon. A man who hurts people for a living.

I pull into my apartment complex when my phone rings again. Not a text this time. An actual call.

Carter Hayes.

I almost don’t answer. But Carter doesn’t call unless it matters. And if anyone understands living with ghosts, it’s him.

“Yeah.”

“Where are you?” His voice is careful. The voice he uses with rookies after a bad game.

“Home.”

“You shouldn’t be alone right now.”

“I’m fine.”

“Tyler.” He sighs. “I’ve watched the replay. It was clean. League isn’t even going to look at it. You did your job.”

My job. The thing I’ve done for six years. The thing that pays my bills and gives me purpose and lets me hit people legally so I don’t do it illegally.

The job that just put a twenty-four-year-old kid into brain surgery.

“How is he?” I ask.

“In surgery. Still. They won’t know anything for hours.” A pause. “His sister seemed intense.”

That’s one word for it. Fierce works too. Terrifying.

Beautiful, my brain supplies, and I crush the thought immediately.

“She has a kid,” I say instead.

“I saw. Cute girl.” Another pause. “She looked scared.”

Of me.

“Tyler, you need to talk to someone. Dr. Quinn has office hours tomorrow. Avery’s expecting you.”

Avery Quinn-Hayes. Carter’s wife. The team psychologist. The woman who helped him come back from death, PTSD, and everything else that tried to break him.

I should say yes. Should do what Carter did.

“I’m good.”

“You’re not. And that’s okay. But you can’t wait until you’re drowning before you ask for help.”

“I’m not you.”

“No,” he says. Then firmer. “You’re worse. You’re carrying Diego, and now you’re carrying this kid too. How much longer before the weight crushes you?”

I hang up.

The silence afterward is heavy.

I sit in my truck and think about Diego’s funeral. The closed casket. How they wouldn’t let me see him because the accident had been that bad. I think about the promise I made to myself that day—that I’d never let anyone down again.

And how badly I just broke it.

My knuckles are still split from the fight in the second period. Morrison came at me after the hit, and I let him. Didn’t dodge. Didn’t defend. Let him land punches wherever he wanted because I deserved them.

The ref pulled us apart too soon.

Part of me wishes he hadn’t.

I reach for my door handle.

And then I see her.

Sofia Martinez.

She pulls into the lot in a beat-up Honda Civic, parking three spots away like the universe is daring me to look. Emma is asleep in the backseat. Sofia lifts her carefully, like she’s made of glass. The way you hold things you’re terrified of breaking.

She hasn’t seen me yet. I should leave. Should go inside. Should not watch her juggle a sleeping child and a diaper bag while she looks like she’s barely holding together.

But I don’t move.

Then she looks up.

For a moment, we just stare at each other across the dark parking lot, like opponents waiting for the whistle.

She moves first.

“I need to talk to you.”

Her voice is steady. Her hands aren’t.

“How did you—”

“Marcus Chen,” she says. “He said you’d want to know about Danny.”

My stomach drops. “Is he—”

“He’s alive. Out of surgery. Stable.” She adjusts Emma on her hip. “But there’s damage. They don’t know how much yet.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want your apology.” She steps closer. “I want you to understand what you’ve done.”

“My name is Sofia,” she says. “And this is my daughter, Emma. She’s six. She’s terrified of violent men because her father was one.”

The words hit harder than any punch.

“Danny is the reason we’re alive,” she continues, voice cracking. “He helped me escape. Helped me rebuild. He’s everything to us. And you almost took him from me.”

“It was legal,” I say, then hate myself.

“I don’t care if it was legal,” she snaps, lowering her voice when Emma stirs. “I care that my brother might never be the same. I care that your job could have destroyed the only good man in my daughter’s life.”

Tears slide down her face.

“What do you want from me?” I ask.

She studies me for a long moment.

“I want you to remember this,” she says. “Every day. I want you to feel it. Because consequences don’t show up on a stat sheet.”

“Why come here?”

“Because hating you from a distance is easy,” she says. “And because Danny would want me to be fair.”

She turns back to her car, then pauses.

“He asked about you,” she says softly. “‘Tell Rodriguez it wasn’t his fault.’”

The words crush me.

She drives away.

I stand in the parking lot, watching her taillights disappear, realizing two things with absolute certainty:

I just met the most terrifying woman of my life.

And I will never forget her.