Late September 2016

I stared at the red jersey, the fabric soft between my fingers, the smell was so familiar, like musk and sweat had been through the wash but the fabric softener could never quite erase the history in its fibres.

The smell was knocking on memories door. It was firing off sensors and begging to be let in. How I came into possession of this clothing though, was a total mystery.

"Maverick," I whispered the name across the back, the letters and number seven in big white block font. "Who the—"

"I know," Sadie said, walking into the room in a matching jersey and loose jeans with the ankles rolled. "It took me a while to come around too."

"Why did we switch up?"

She sighed, looking out of the window, dusk was settling. "That's something you'll have to rediscover, Kins."

My arms dropped, holding the jersey at my side.

"No, I'm serious," Sadie said. "Remember when you said that's too much, too soon. Information over load sort of thing."

Nodding reluctantly, I tried to relax the accusing stare.

"It'd be too much, too soon," she said. "You need to go through the motions with this one. Trust me."

She hadn't let me down so far. She'd figured out when to back off and when to fill in the blanks. If she thought I needed to rediscover this one on my own, I believed her. That didn't ease the anxiety I felt over it though.

"What the hell are those jeans by the way?" I slumped onto the end of her bed and watched her sift through the pile of shoes on the bottom of her closet floor. My fingers twisted the ring in my nose, something I didn't remember getting but I kind of liked it.

"These are mom jeans," she said. "We don't wear skinnies anymore."

Since I'd come home from the hospital, all I'd seen her in was pyjama pants or active wear. Which she wore a lot of for someone who didn't work out more than once a month.

"We don't?" I winced, feeling the uncomfortable dread of uncertainty climbing up my chest. It pushed the air out of my lungs and became a pressure that made me feel winded.

"No, thank goodness. I never suited those jeans. I never felt like I had the ass for them."

"Bullshit," I said. "You loved getting your ass into a size two before we went to that traffic light night in Ottawa."

She sat on the floor and started pulling on a pair of white adidas sneakers. "I don't remember that."

Sadie always had one complaint or another about her body but she'd been skinnier than me our entire lives. She used to tease me about the size of my ass and now she complimented it all the time.

It was bizarre but the the wounds felt fresh, even though I was sure we'd both grown in the last six years, the damage was still done and it felt like no time had passed since she'd bragged about her size two.

Admittedly, I felt lighter than I used to. Apparently a vegan diet will do that. Sadie told me I work out and I eat well but I'm still not walking a runway and all of those insecurities that I had in college, keep me from feeling as confident as I've been told I am now.

                The arena was crowded but not like it was when we went to playoffs. Or even regular season games.

It was different, in a way I couldn't grasp. The atmosphere was excited but people were less . . . engaged. There weren't enough faces among the crowd as we weaved through the lobby.

Sadie pointed at the bar. "Do we want a drink or something to eat?"

"Everyone's on their phones," I scanned the space around me. Almost everyone was looking at their phones or holding them in front of their faces for a photo or just holding them in their hands while they talked.

"Oh," Sadie linked her arm through mine. "You'll get used to it."

Someone shoulder bumped me as he moved past, his head down on the little screen. I had a cellphone in college. We all did. But they had buttons and lived in our pockets unless we got a text or call. It wasn't like this. Touch screens existed but the regular person didn't own one.

My cellphone was lost during the injury and I hadn't bothered to get a new one. It didn't seem important right now.

"Let's go get a beer. Or a soda or something."

We ordered a beer each, one sip of mine and I knew I wouldn't finish it, but I slipped it into the cup holder and watched the two teams in the rink.

Some were talking, twisting their sticks in their hand. Some were snapping the puck back and forth and one of them was watching me.

No, he couldn't be.

He lifted his helmet and I could see the slight part in his lips.

"Does he—" I said turning to Sadie to find she was already watching me. "What? What's going on?"

"Nothing."

Looking back at the player, he was now talking to one of his team mates, both of them in red Flame attire.

He was tall with stubble on his jaw and dark brown licks of hair curling around his neck. There wasn't much to be said about his build considering the players were hidden under all of that protective gear.

"Maverick," I read his jersey and looked down at mine. It was the same name. "Sadie, who is he?"

"Your favourite player," she said, grinning with the straw between her lips. She refused to look at me.

"Well why does it look like he knows me?"

"You leave an impression."

"You're being super vague right now."

She set her beer back in the cup holder and finally turned to me. The noise in the arena became dull in comparison to my heart and how fast and hard it was beating.

"Is he the new man?" I gaped. "A flame? Am I dating a flame?"

"Go with the motion of the ocean, Kins."

"Sadie!" I felt like exploding. "Just tell me who he is and what he is to me. He must be . . . important. But he hasn't come to see me since I left the hospital. He can't be that important. So is—"

"Kinsley," she said, holding my shoulder. "It would be too much to explain right now. You said you would trust me. Trust me."

I slumped back in the hard plastic seat and pinched my leggings, letting the fabric slap my leg. Pinch. Slap. Pinch. Slap.

"Don't sulk. You'll enjoy going with the motions on this one more than me overloading information on you."

"Fine," I said, desperately clutching at any shred of peace I had left in me. I wanted to have a good time and spend an evening doing something other than sitting on Sadie's couch watching 90210 reruns.

The game turned out to be just what I needed. The further into it we went, the more weight lifted off my shoulders. We were standing from our seats, screaming and cheering.

Half the time I didn't know who I was cheering for. The confusion over wearing an entirely new teams colours was giving me brain fog but regardless, I found myself watching Maverick and clapping for him the hardest. It made no sense.

The people on either side of us were just as enthusiastic, we ended up sharing bags of chips with them and losing our minds whenever there was a fight. This was the most normal I'd felt since the injury. I was no longer in this state of continuous confusion but I was doing something that felt normal, a part of who I am, or was. It didn't matter because it was euphoric.

               After the game, we shuffled through the aisles toward the exit, sandwiched together with hundreds of other people. My hair was damp and my cheeks were hot but I couldn't stop smiling.

"I'll order an Uber," Sadie said, leaning against the wall in the lobby.

Uber, another weird concept I couldn't help but giggle about now that I was in a better mood. We used to hail a cab and now she was tapping her thumbs over her touch screen to summon transport.

I scanned the moving crowd, looking at the red faces and the excited children.

"Marissa," I mumbled when I saw my best friend standing at the merch shop with a group of girls. She looked so different. Her once long red hair was sitting at her shoulders. She'd filled out, womanly curves and a confident posture.

"Ugh," Sadie scoffed.

I'd asked about Marissa, where she was, why she hadn't been to see me. Sadie said we hadn't been friends for four years.

"I know we hate each other," I said, still watching her laugh with another girl. "But I look at her and see someone I love, Sadie."

"She slept with your fiancé," Sadie slid her phone into her back pocket. "Your best friend fucked your fiancé at your graduation party."

"I know," I sighed. Another wild fact I don't remember. I was engaged to a man I'd been dating for eighteen months. "But I don't remember that. Or him. It seems like—"

"Doesn't matter," Sadie interrupted me before I could suggest a fresh start. "She had no remorse. She wasn't apologetic. Not really. She continued to date him until he cheated on her as well. It's not about whether you remember her. It's about her character. You didn't deserve that and you knew it. You cut her off because she wasn't worth your time or peace. You told me that, Kins. You taught me so much about self worth and I'm not going to let you undo the person you became."

Deep down, I knew she was right. If someone could do that to me, chances are, they weren't the sort of person I wanted to befriend. It didn't make the loss any less hurtful. From where I stood, I saw my high school best friend. I saw a bond full of trust and secrets and shared experiences.

It was like grief. Full blown grief over the loss of a loved one I could never get back. I didn't want to let go, I just didn't have a choice.

"Let's go to the bathroom," Sadie said. "The uber is ten minutes out."

"You said it never took more than two," I argued as she dragged me toward the corridor.

"Yeah but it's busy," she said. "Everyone is ordering them right now."

As we wandered through the wide corridor, moving through groups and around people talking on their cellphones, Sadie took a left and I hesitated. Where the heck was this woman taking me?

"Sadie," I sighed. "This is not the way to the bathroom. I do remember how to get to the bathroom in an arena I've visited since I was an infant."

I turned around, sick of her mysterious antics and collided straight into a solid wall of red coming out of a side door.

"Oh I'm—" I stilled, looking up at Maverick. He'd lost his helmet and skates, standing just in his big baggy pants and a fitted red hoodie.

"Hi," he said, his voice not much more than a whisper as he stared at me with wonder.

If Sadie was still with me, I had no idea and I wasn't sure if I cared because the sense of calm I felt when I looked at this man was enrapturing and somewhat frightening.

"Shit," he sounded breathless as he ran a hand across his face and palmed his jaw. "Hi. Hey."

"Hi," I smiled.

"Hi."

I lightly laughed. "You said that."

"I don't know what to say," he murmured, his warm brown gaze travelling my features. Each place they landed felt like a feather light phantom kiss on my skin. "I'm just— I'm so fucking relieved to see you."

We knew each other. We had to.

"I'm Kinsley," I said. There wasn't much else I could do apart from pretend like we'd never met before. As far as my mind was concerned, we hadn't.

My body though, it responded to him in a way that was more than familiar.

"Phoenix," he said, jaw tight and a glimmer of pain in his eyes.

"So uh—"

"Can I take you out sometime, Kinsley?"

My heart fluttered and my stomach knotted. He was stunning. An actual masterpiece with thick dark lashes, a soft stare and an inviting mouth.

"Take me out?" I swallowed. "I'm— I don't know you, or even myself. I mean, what are we?"

"I could stand here and tell you things, Kins," he said, leaning in so he was close enough I could smell that familiar scent from the jersey earlier. "I could tell you so much. Or I could show you and give you the experiences all over again. I'd rather win you back than tell you you're mine."

"Okay," I was in a daze and dangerously close to making out with a total stranger. "Yeah. We can. . . go out."

He smiled, leaned in and pressed a soft kiss against my forehead.