One thing did not escape my notice, though. Graham played a hard-ass defensive game. He was everywhere tonight, slamming the enemy into the boards when they had the puck, and tripping them when they tried to get away. Since coming to Harkness, I’d been surprised by just how aggressive he was during games. Tonight you could argue that he was a little too aggressive. By the end of the second quarter, he’d already drawn penalties for both hooking and slashing.
He skatedangry. He skated as if he had something to prove.
Don’t we all.
—Graham
We tied the game. Believe it or not, that was progress. Last year we’d lost to that team twice.
In the locker room, I sat down on the bench and peeled off my sweaty pads. My contribution was dubious tonight, because I couldn’t stay out of the sin bin. When the other team turned up the heat, I got a little crazy. I dug deep and I hit hard, and I wasn’t subtle about it. I drew three two-minute penalties, which was two more than Coach had liked.
“A bulldozer uses more finesse,” Coach barked at me the second time I forced the team to fend off a power play.
“I’m trying,” I said. But it wasn’t really accurate. The two days with my parents — and all their well-intentioned questions — had made me crazy. I’d spent the past forty-eight hours feeling raw and transparent. So I was already a little nuts before that slur on Rikker’s whiteboard freaked me out. And just when I thought I couldn’t take any more drama, he had to go and make that crack about guys with baseball bats.
I’m not proud of what happened next.
The room had just become too claustrophobic for me to take. I’d tried to zone out a little, to relax. But it was no good. That awful day was fiveyearsago. More, actually. But whenever something jogged me back to that ugly moment, I could always feel the pounding feet and the shouting, right down to my guts. And there was no fighting it. So I’d walked into a bathroom stall and puked, covering the sound with a flush of the toilet.
Pussy of the Year, right here, people. Just engrave my name on the fricking trophy.
By the time we got out on the ice, I was angry enough at myself that it helped me get my mojo back. Tonight, a couple of guys on the opposing team would be icing their ribs, thanks to me. But this was hockey, not intramural Frisbee. They basically had it coming just for showing up.
Of course, now I felt pretty busted up, too.
I stowed my helmet and gloves. It was time to shower, but I was feeling too wrecked to do anything about it. I skated hard during the overtime period, but we couldn’t sink one. So our win song wasn’t blasting tonight. It was quiet enough to hear all the conversations going on around me.
“Whatcha up to tonight?” Bella asked Rikker and Hartley.
“Eh,” Rikker said. “I was trying to decide whether or not to dress up for the Drag Ball.”
There was an awkward silence, while everyone tried to decide if he was serious.
Only Bella laughed. “Very funny.”
“Right?” Rikker grinned. “My night is going to be a bag of Doritos and catching up on Sports Center. And I should probably order a set of wiper blades for my grandmother’s truck. She always buys the wrong size.”
Hartley slapped him on the shoulder. “Capri’s first?”
“I can probably fit it in.”
“Don’t spend too much primping, boys,” Bella prodded. “I’m starving. Graham, you coming to Capri’s?”
“Maybe,” I said, my voice hoarse from growling at the competition all night. I wasn’t feeling social, and was therefore on the fence about Capri’s. But at least it would give me an excuse to say goodbye to my parents. They were on a morning flight out tomorrow.
And I was starved, too. Because when you freak out and then puke up your dinner, that happens.
The ambiance of Capri’s was reassuring to my jangled nerves. There was something about the same old sticky floor and the familiar thirty-minute wait for a pie that soothed a guy. The beer flowed, and the music was loud enough so that nobody really noticed that I said barely a word to anyone.
A few slices of pizza evened me out enough that I could focus on getting my buzz on. Bella kept refilling my beer glass, because she was under the mistaken impression that I wouldn’t be able to get the job done on Capri’s piss-water. But whenever she got up to refill a pitcher or stroke one of my teammates’ asses, I took a nip from the flask in my pocket.
Since most of the student body was still away for Thanksgiving, the team had Capri’s to ourselves. That meant that I didn’t even have to decide whether or not I should try to hook up. The pickings were so slim that nobody would wonder why I didn’t bother. Just sitting there like a lump in that booth, breathing in my teammates’ chatter, was as close to peaceful as my life ever got these days.
Fast forward three hours or so, and I’d drunk the last of the Johnnie Walker in my pocket. Across the room, Bella was busy putting the moves on Frenchie, and so she wasn’t going to notice my stagger.
That was my cue to go home.
With a half a wave to Hartley, I angled my tired body out the back door. I stopped to pee on the nearest secret society, as usual. The cold air was just what I needed. But even so, my drunk-guy homing device was flickering a bit. Instead of heading home, I just stood there awhile, holding up the granite wall with my shoulders. The whiskey was hitting me hard, and I needed some time to collect myself.
