Killing Britney by Sean Olin

her.”
    The way Bobby said this, with such gravity, such conviction, almost convinced Adam that he believed it.
    “You’re protecting her from what?”
    Bobby’s bottom lip curled into a frown. He seemed to be struggling with some dark urge inside himself. “From herself,” he said. “Just forget it, okay? There’s no way you’d understand.”
    Adam had had enough of this. He stood up. The wind was picking up again, and he shoved his hands into the inner pockets of his coat to keep his fingers warm.
    “Go home, Bobby,” he said.
    Without looking back, he began to walk toward the house.
    “Wait,” Bobby called after him. “You’re not going to tell her, are you?”
    Adam ignored him and kept walking. He wasn’t sure if he’d tell Britney or not, but he figured it was best to keep Bobby scared. For a while at least.

fifteen
    This was unheard of: the mighty Rabid Raccoons, the undefeated state champs, usually so vicious, so pitiless and awesome, were playing as though they’d just learned how to skate. Their shots were wild, nowhere near the goal. Their passes were slow and obvious—easy to pick off. Their defense just wasn’t there. On the day when they should have come storming onto the ice, full of unquenchable bloodlust, focused like cruise missiles on showing the world that Ricky’s death had not been in vain, they were playing like they had no heart at all.
    The Portage Possums, the worst team in the league—their record was the mirror opposite of the Raccoons’—had scored first and second and third. Now they were into the final period, and the Raccoons still hadn’t retaliated.
    The fans had grown restless and angry. Deafening boos and shouts of “You guys suck!” circled the rink like thunder. During a time-out near the end of the second period, someone had thrown a Big Gulp of Pepsi over the glass at Digger; it missed him, but the brown liquid had splattered everywhere.
    In the front row, the hockey wives huddled together, their shoulders slumped, glum expressions on their faces. They were in shock. Erin had roused them into leading a few cheers early in the game, but as the clock clicked forward, they found inspiration harder and harder to come by. Now they watched morosely, elbows on knees, frowning faces embedded deep in their fists, as their men threw their pride away.
    Britney felt like it was all her fault. If she had just kept Ricky with her for five more minutes that night—even if it had meant five more minutes of fighting—he wouldn’t have been at that gas station at that precise instant. All of history would have been altered.
    As she sat there brooding, she obsessively fingered the hockey pin on Ricky’s letter jacket. Except for the funeral, she’d worn the jacket every day since his death. Like a badge of fidelity.
    Cindy said, “To think I turned down the Tomlinsons for this. They pay fifteen dollars an hour, and their baby just lies there and sleeps. I could have watched American Idol and walked away with forty-five bucks tonight.”
    Usually someone would have responded to this. Jodi would have said, “Yeah, but you’d have to change diapers. You’d have to touch nasty baby butt.” Or Erin would have told her that she should have taken the job anyway. “What you should have done is wait there until the Tomlinsons were off to dinner and then pack the baby up and bring him here with you.” But they were all too unhappy for this kind of patter.
    Britney was worried about her place in the group. Now that Ricky was gone, she feared the other girls might gradually distance themselves from her. They’d all been friends forever, since freshman year at least, and she knew from experience—from all those times before she’d been accepted when Erin had seen her in the halls and called out to her mockingly, “Hey, I love your blouse. Where’d you get it? Wal-Mart?”—how cruel they could be if they wanted to.
    “Well, it looks like Troy’s not getting any perks