One minute you're at the top of your game, and the next, you receive a hit that knocks your skates out from underneath you.
Still reeling after an unexpected loss, Ryan Nyberg not only finds himself back in his beachside hometown of Neptune Bay, bu...
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I was exhausted. Feeling as though I'd just been plowed down by an opponent trying to sneak the puck passed me, when really, Bowen had simply tired me out. Or maybe it hadn't been Bowen. I'd babysat plenty of times in the last six years when I visited Neptune Bay, and while he was certainly a bundle of energy, I'd never felt this run down after putting him to bed.
The fatigue was more internal. As though the stress of taking care of Bowen, the grief I had for my brother, and the adrenaline getting me through each day were getting tired of coexisting in my head. Instead, they were fighting one another, and I was feeling the consequences. My limbs felt twice the weight they normally did. My chest stung with residual heartbreak. A pounding pulse had manifested between my temples. It was slowly building towards a point of being too much.
After all, it was barely nine and I was ready to follow in Bowen's footsteps and climb into bed, but I restrained myself. Instead, I found myself slumped on the sofa in front of the television, beer in hand, with a baseball game at low volume. An effort to drown everything else out.
Sports had always done that for me. From a young age, if an object could be kicked, thrown, or hit, it stood no chance against me. I came alive in a team setting, whether that be tee ball, soccer, football, or hockey, but as I grew up, my focus began centering around the latter. I worked out my body and mind, training hard off and on the ice, and being a goalie in the NHL meant becoming hyper focused on the puck as well as the players in front of you. Your teammates and opponents. It meant leaving every other worry that ever popped into my head in the locker room, starting a blank canvas each time I stepped foot on the ice.
Except the nearest ice rink was towns away—I knew, because my parents had made the drive five times a week with me once I made the AAA team—so watching the slower paced baseball game would have to do.
The game itself was a good one—tied 5-5 at the bottom of the seventh—and normally, I would've been enthralled by the action on the screen. The expert pitches, the fake runs, the impossible bats and nearly as impossible catches. But with my beer drained, I began to feel the tiredness sink into my bones. Nearly lulling me to sleep as my eyes began to droop.
Until I heard a loud cry from upstairs.
Bolting up off the sofa, I took the stairs two at a time, my heart pounding as barks of worry joined into the sounds coming from Bowen's room.
Pushing open the door with enough force that it thudded loudly off the wall, I was met with a scene that tore my heart in two. Bowen was sat up in bed, clutching at his stuffed penguin tightly as tears streamed down his face and wails of distress left his mouth.
Scout, who'd hopped up onto the bed next to him, looked at me with a frantic face as I burst into the room, waiting for me to do something.
Walking over to the bed, I sank down next to my nephew. "What's wrong, Bowen?" I asked, wrapping one arm around him as I smoothed my free hand over his hair. "Did you have a nightmare?"
