Van Halen guitar riffs flood the arena while I sit on the ice in butterfly pose.

The sound comes through the speakers too hard. It runs over my arms and neck and hits inside my chest until the drumbeat and my heartbeat stop being separate things. Behind me, skates cut, pucks crack off the glass, and the student section pounds on the boards even though warmups are not over.

Paul loves Van Halen, especially "Panama." When he is home, we take his old boombox onto my pond and turn it up while we shoot pucks and fight each other for possession. Mom stands on the bank and tells us not to roughhouse.

We ignore her even though ignoring her is also against the rules.

Paul catches me in a headlock and scrapes his glove over the top of my helmet. I laugh so hard my skates slide out from under me. We fall onto the ice together, and he pins my arms while I twist beneath him and try to kick his skates.

"Surrender," he says.

"No."

"Say it, kid."

I keep fighting until I cannot breathe from laughing.

"I surrender!"

Then he lets me up, and Mom yells that one of us is going to crack our head open. Paul tells her we are wearing helmets, which does not make her less angry.

"Lemhurst!" Coach Harrow barks from the bench. "You planning to stretch until graduation?"

"No."

Josh Fortuna glides past me. "He might. He's communing with the ice."

"I am stretching. That is different."

He laughs and steals the puck sitting near my stick.

I let him, because I have to finish my warmups. Frog stretch comes before puck handling. That is the order. Warmups are routine. Routine is butterfly pose, hamstrings, frog stretch. I put my stick in front of me and lay stomach-side down on the ice, moving my legs out and in like a frog moving in water.

The rink lights are white on white on white. Three pieces of shaved ice cling to the black tape at the toe of my left skate. The air smells like rubber, sweat, popcorn, and Zamboni water. A girl behind the glass screams my name.

"Eric!"

I do not look.

Looking is a trap during warmups. Warmups are for getting my hips loose and finding the defenseman who cheats when he turns.

Moorehead's Number Six cheats left.

Tall. Red laces. Bad backward crossover. He thinks long legs make him fast, but his feet take too long to settle after a pivot. If I make him open his hips at the blue line, he will reach.

People always reach when they are afraid they have already lost you.

The buzzer sounds. I push up, and the instant my blades bite, everything gets better.

Standing is better.

Moving is best.

I catch a puck off the boards without looking because I hear it first, drag it around Josh's stick, and snap it top left. The puck hits the crossbar and drops behind Scott Becker before he turns his head.

"You're annoying," Scott says.

"I know."

I skate half a circle and look into the stands before I can stop myself.

Mom is there. Dad is there. Annabelle and Clara are there in matching green earmuffs and Westview jerseys with LEMHURST across the backs. Annie waves both hands. Clara waves her stuffed rabbit.

The aisle seat beside Dad is empty.

Paul's seat.

He is on the other side of the world. Forward operating base. Bad internet. Dust storms. Orders. Words Mom uses during worried phone calls and Dad turns into silence when I enter a room.

Paul said he would try to watch the stream.

Try is a bad word because it means maybe.

Maybe is worse than no because it makes you wait.

Coach Harrow taps the back of my helmet when I reach the bench. "They're going to hit you early. Keep your hands loose."

I open and close my fingers inside my gloves. "They are already loose."

He studies me for a second. "Go win us a hockey game."

The anthem starts. I stand at the blue line with my stick blade flat on the ice and count the stripes on the flag instead of singing.

Seven red. Six white.

Paul's seat stays empty.

I imagine him hunched over a laptop somewhere hot and ugly, his face lit blue by the screen.

When the puck drops, I decide not to think about him.

That lasts four seconds.

Josh wins the draw back to Michael Leavenworth. Michael sends it across to Evan Nadeau, and Moorehead sends two forecheckers deep.

Too aggressive.

The puck comes to me at the half-wall. Number Six closes fast, shoulder low, weight already committed to the outside edge of his right skate. He thinks I am going up the boards.

I am not.

The rink separates into pieces.

Josh is covered now, but he will not be. Their center is too high. The weak-side defenseman is drifting backward with locked knees. The goalie has his glove ready because he thinks I like top corner.

I do like top corner.

That is why he will believe it.

The open is not empty ice. Empty ice is only space nobody has claimed yet. The open starts before space exists. It begins in the turn of a defenseman's skate, the angle of a stick, the breath before a goalie drops. It waits inside what everybody is about to become.

I see it before they do.

I do not know why.

I just can.

I pull the puck back and let Number Six believe I am trapped. He drives his shoulder into the glass where my chest used to be. The boards boom. The crowd yells.

I am already gone.

Their center lunges. I shift outside his reach. Josh cuts through the middle, and the open moves with him.

I fake the shot.

The goalie drops.

I slide the puck through the defenseman's triangle, exactly where the lane is becoming a lane, and Josh buries it before the goalie can move sideways.

The horn goes off. The building explodes.

Josh slams into me. "You beautiful freak!"

"Do not call me that."

"One-zero," he yells. "Twenty-eight seconds!"

The game turns mean after that.

Moorehead hits everything that moves and several things that do not. Number Six drives me into the glass in our zone. The sound comes before the pain. My teeth knock together, and the referee's arm goes up.

Finally.

Number Six glides beside me while the whistle blows. "You good, superstar?"

I look at his skates.

Red laces. Left cheat. Bad pivot.

"I am going to score on you."

He laughs. "Sure, special needs. Whatever you say."

My fingers close too tightly around my stick.

Special needs is not a hockey fact. It does not tell him where I will go or how quickly I will get there. It does not improve his backward crossover.

But the words still get through.

I open my fingers once.

Then again.

"Watch," I tell him.

On the power play, Evan feeds me at the left circle. Number Six rushes out to block, but his left knee turns inward before his stick gets there.

There.

I drag the puck six inches and fire through him.

The goalie never sees it.

Two-zero.

As I skate past Number Six, I look directly at him.

"I told you."

He does not laugh this time.

I look into the stands.

Mom is clapping. Dad is on his feet. The twins are jumping.

Paul's seat is still empty.

I imagine him yelling, That's my kid, even though I am his brother. He calls me that when he is proud.

That helps.

It hurts too.

Both things happen.

By the third period, Moorehead has tied the game and my wrist burns from a slash the referee missed. Number Six follows me everywhere. Every time I stop, he arrives half a second late because his edges are bad. Every time he hits me, the rink gets brighter around the edges.

My hands tighten.

When my hands tighten, the open shrinks.

Coach catches my shoulder when I reach the bench. "Hands."

"They are on my stick."

"Loose hands, Lemhurst."

I open my fingers. Close them. Open them again.

Paul says the same thing when we shoot pucks on my pond.

Loose hands, kid. Don't strangle it. Ask nicely.

Paul thinks he is funny.

Sometimes he is.

Moorehead scores with five minutes left.

Three-four.

Josh ties it with two minutes left by digging the puck out from under the goalie while two defensemen try to cross-check his spine through his chest.

Four-four.

There are forty-two seconds left when I go over the boards.

Josh traps the center's stick on the draw. The puck sits loose between their skates for half a second.

Half a second is a long time in hockey.

I scoop it free and accelerate.

The rink opens in layers.

First: Number Six. His left hip turns before the rest of him commits.

Wrong.

Second: their other defenseman. Too far inside. Stick reaching. Feet dead.

Third: the goalie. Good hands. Good angle. Too much confidence in my shot.

The open is not big when the game matters. It is a seam beside the goalie's left pad. Half an inch. A door that exists only if I make everyone believe I am going somewhere else.

Number Six opens left.

I go right.

The second defenseman steps toward me. Too far. I slip the puck under his stick and catch it on the other side. The goalie comes high because everyone in the building thinks I am shooting.

I shift to my backhand.

He drops.

I pull the puck back to my forehand.

He reaches.

The door opens.

I put the puck through it.

The red light comes on.

For one second, I hear nothing.

Then the sound hits me like a check. The horn. The crowd. The bench emptying. Gloves pounding my helmet and shoulders.

Five-four. Seventeen seconds left.

I look at the stands.

Mom is crying. Dad has his hands around his mouth. The twins jump so hard their earmuffs slip crooked.

Paul's seat is empty.

I point at it with my stick.

The crowd gets louder because they think I am pointing at them.

I am not.

We win seventeen seconds later.

In the locker room, everyone chants my number while I peel my glove from my injured wrist.

Seventeen. Seventeen. Seventeen.

My phone is in my bag.

I should not check it yet.

But my phone is in my bag.

There are no new messages.

I stare at the screen while water sprays and somebody dumps a bottle over Josh's head.

I scored the winning goal.

Paul might not know.

Both facts sit inside me, side by side, and I do not know which one is heavier.

Then my phone buzzes.

Paul: Saw it.

My chest opens so fast it almost hurts worse than my wrist.

Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again.

Paul: Holy shit, kid.

Then:

Paul: Seventeen looks good on you.

I read it three times.

Me: I pointed at your seat.

The dots do not return.

Around me, the room keeps celebrating. Someone starts the chant again.

Seventeen. Seventeen. Seventeen.

Paul saw the goal.

Paul is still not here.

Both things are true.