26. Hunter

Tyler Riley is gone.

The sentence flashed in my mind like an emergency broadcast, over and over. I wasn't sure what broke my heart more: the look in his eyes, or watching him walk away. The moment his phone rang, I knew something was wrong. We never talked about family. I didn't even know his dad died, much less how on top of it, his mom was fighting cancer and possibly dying. One thing was clear: I never wanted to see his face broken like that again. Ever.

Confused murmurs circulated through the team as we headed to the rink.

"Where's Aussie?" Mouse whispered to me.

I shook my head. It wasn't my place to say. I only dodged more questions once we got to the locker room. My stall didn't feel the same without him beside me. I had been playing for years, many of them with the same teammates, but I had never felt so disjointed in my time in hockey without my Aussie beside me. He gave hockey a whole new life— a whole new meaning.

Coach cleared his throat, dragging me from my somber thoughts. "Okay, boys. I'm sure you've noticed we're down a team member. Tyler had to fly back home to Australia. His mum had a stroke, and due to his family circumstances, he needed to be with them."

Rumbles went through the room. I looked around at the faces that mirrored my own. Aussie had no idea who he had become to all of us. He was more than a teammate: he was the glue that held this team together.

"Is he coming back?" Mouse asked a slight quiver in his voice.

"I would love to say yes, but the truth is: I don't know. His family circumstances are unfortunate. He may need to look after his brother."

"What about their dad?" Mouse asked, not reading between the lines.

Jarman put his hand on Mouse's shoulder. "His dad died two years ago."

I tried not to let the fact that Jarman knew this over me affect me. I was too busy trying to shake the fact that I may never see my Aussie again.

But it was all-consuming. Tyler"s absence was evident both on and off the ice. It affected the whole team. We weren't connecting our plays, weren't communicating right, and it led us to our first loss of the season. We silently retreated to the locker room and prepared for the journey home without a word. No one needed to talk because we were all wondering the same thing: how we were supposed to pull the season off without him.

I tried calling him on our way home, but his number was disconnected. It suddenly dawned on me that he may have a different number in Australia. The rest of the trip home involved me trying to cyber-stalk him, and I wondered why I had never done this before. He was a hockey legend. I didn't find a Facebook, but I did find an Instagram. There were multiple videos of him and his team in Australia with the same few guys showing their face in his photos. The most recent picture was posted over two years ago. Hesitantly, I opened up a direct message thread.

Hey baby. How's everything?

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Is there anything I can do?

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Hope everything is okay

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If he was reading the messages, it meant he was okay, right?

He had to be.