The space is acceptable, but even our away locker room is nicer than this. Wood is chipped and the metal hook holding up my team bag is missing two of three screws. And it smells like Jaxon came a week early to plant his socks in the air duct—dude has got to learn how to do laundry before we graduate.
My gloves are off. Tossed aside on the metal bench. I grab my bag, shaking the entire hook loose from the wood. Unzipping it quickly and violently, it startles Chase and Dawson, who are on either side of me.
I curse. Curse again and run a hand through my hair. “Where is it?”
I rummage around the main cavity of the bag. Checking each pocket twice and taking out every article of clothing. I shake out my shirt and sweats. Stick my hands into the pockets. Unfold my three extra pairs of socks and underwear.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
“What are you looking for?” Chase asks. They lean into my space.
“Nothing,” I grunt.
“Are you sure?” Dawson chimes in. “You’ve checked that pocket four…five times now.”
“It has to be in here. Has to be. I couldn’t have lost it.”
“What does?”
“Her—my bracelet.”
They look at each other. Then look at me.
“Like a bracelet Madeline made you? She’ll probably make you another. Here, I’ll ask Be?—”
“No.” I clench my jaw and squeeze my eyes shut. “It’s Sutton’s bracelet.”
I toss my bag back into the cubby. Turn around and sink on the bench and fold over. My elbows resting on my knees, forehead cupped in my hands.
“We can help you find it,” Chase reassures me. “Did you have it at the start of the game? Maybe you took it off and dropped it in the wrong bag. We all have the exact same one.”
“If I had it with me, I wouldn’t suck right now. We wouldn’t be losing.”
“We aren’t losing because of you, Cap.”
“I suck. I suck. I suck,” I repeat the negative affirmation. Quiet enough not to alert my teammates. The dark cavity of the lockers is becoming more enticing. I wonder if I could disappearinto it. No one would even notice. Not at least until they needed something.
“Stop.” Beckett is hovering over me.
I glare up at him. He glares back at me. Fierce, scary, beady blue eyes saying a thousand words. A voice pops up in my head, another bout of words that I let settle deep in my bones. It’s Sutton.
“I don’t suck,” I tell myself and him. I’m more upset with myself for losing her bracelet than my playing; and I know there isn’t anything correlating the two.
He helps pull me up from the bench. Hands me my gloves, leveling me with another look.
“It’s just a bracelet.”
It’s not, and that’s the thing.
We win in overtime.Miraculously somehow.
Tied it up in the third quickly with two freshmen scoring their first goals of the season.
But my playing never got better, and I’m pissed at myself because we almost lost when I missed a pass and their team scored. The refs called back the goal because the other team’s player kicked the puck.
Where are you?
Any chance you can come over?
