There’s a ton of chatter between teammates as I get into the showers. This camaraderie is something I never want to give up. I don’t know if it’s the competitiveness in me or the Alpha side of me that craves this. I crave the competition, the revelry, the support of my teammates. Hockey is in my blood, and I’ll do anything to hold on to this as long as possible. It’s the one place I can let my anger out in a healthy way, where I can skate so fucking hard my lungs hurt. I’m sure there are more important things in life than a sport. But for me, this is it, and that includes the people that come along with it.
Chapter three
“Honey,canyoutakeHank out?” my mom hollers from her bedroom. Hank is already lying on the bed with me, so I kiss his massive head and scratch behind his thick, floppy ears.
“You wanna go outside?” I ask him, and he does that cute thing where he tilts his head, his tongue lolling out of his mouth as he rises from the bed and heads toward the backdoor. I put on my boots, hat, gloves, and jacket. As soon as I slide open the door, he barrels into the snow on the ground. Little balls of snow and ice gather into his deep black fur.
I inhale deeply, the fresh air filling my lungs, and release the breath I was holding. It smells like home here, and I’m finding it harder every day to find the will to go back to school with only three more weeks left of winter break. Being here has cleared my head. I don’t want to miss time away from my mom, or my dog. I’m tired of the overwhelming scents in the Omega dorms, and the overconfident Alphas who think they run the University. I’m planning on bringing it up with my mom. I know I can’t let my education go to waste, but I don’t know how much longer I can stay somewhere that I clearly don’t belong.
The air is so crisp and fresh; I take another deep inhale and hum, Hank trotting proudly over to me with his big Kong ball in his mouth.
“Ready?” I ask him as I take the drool-covered red ball and toss it over the snow. He chases happily after it and brings it back quickly. He might be over a hundred and fifty pounds, but he’s still just a baby to me. His first birthday is coming up in February. I don’t know what charged my mom to get a massive dog with no help, but she said she missed me and needed company around the house. I guess the fact that he’s so big can make him feel like a human presence.
Hank drags his nose around the snow, rooting around the ground for something. The yard is completely fenced, so I feel comfortable leaving him outside. “Do you want to go in, boy? Or stay out here?” He plops down into the snow and lies on his side, giving me his answer. “All right then,” I say, smiling at him and going back inside.
My mom keeps the house warm, and it smells like campfires and pine in the house. It’s always smelled this way. It’s one of my comfort scents. We aren’t allowed to have candles in the dorms, so I use wax melts to try to recreate the scents. Our home is small but cozy. A simple ranch-style home with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a small living room, and an eat-in kitchen. Not much has changed in the decor since I was a child. It’s simple with the kitchen having pine-colored cabinets and green laminate countertops and two shaky wooden stools under the island. The living room still has wood paneling, the original fireplace works, but we don’t use it often. There’s family pictures everywhere. Sometimes it hurts to look at them. To see my dad happy and smiling and remembering that he isn’t here.
I worry about my mom being here alone. Her health problems always make me worry, not to mention she’s close to seventy. She’s diabetic and tends to forget to take care of herself. Every time I’m home, I do my best to make sure she sets appointments for herself. It also feels like every time I come home, I see how much further she’s slipping away from me.
I sigh, blowing warm air into my hands as I make myself a coffee. “Mom, do you want a coffee?” I shout down the hall.
“No thanks, hun,” she says. I can hear a low hum of whatever show she’s watching. I put my favorite hazelnut coffee into the Keurig and feel relief when it doles out the hot substance. There isn’t sugar on the counter, so I tug on the first drawer under the coffee maker. It doesn’t give right away. But when I tug hard enough, it opens. The drawer is stuffed with envelopes, so full that I can see that documents are even jammed behind the drawer.
Taking the first letter in my hands, addressed to my mother, it’s already been read. I probably shouldn’t read her mail, but something about how many letters in here is worrisome to me. I blink a few times, wetting my contacts as I read the page. The first words are diabetic retinopathy and diabetic neuropathy. I read further, seeing that her primary care is referring her to different experts in these fields and that this was sent two months ago. I pull out the next envelope. It’s a payment from my dad’s social security that is signed, saying she deposited it into her account. The next envelope is from my school, stating that my tuition is still being covered until I reach my first heat. I roll my eyes and put the envelopes back in the drawer.
I need to make sure my mom made those appointments, and as much as I want to leave school, I can’t. There’s no way I can afford to get my degree from Mercy without getting the scholarship funds. I need to at the very least finish out this year, and then maybe I can transfer to an online option.
I can do that, finish out this year and then come home. That way I can have a degree, bring in money, and take care of mom. No way am I waiting for the pack of my dreams to sweep me off my feet and solve all these fucking problems for me. That would be nice though, wouldn’t it?
I find sugar in the pantry and add creamer to my coffee, letting the warm liquid take off some of the chill. I’m meeting Piper tonight, but as I scroll through my phone, I look at the weather for tomorrow. Mostly sunny and around forty degrees. I make a plan to get Hank up early in the morning, so I can go for an early skate. I’ve been going almost every other day to the lake to skate, let out some frustration, and get some much needed exercise. While I tend to stay in my dorm room at school, being at home makes me feel like I have so much more freedom.
My feet pad along the soft beige carpet that my mom is hyper diligent about vacuuming. As I get to her door, I knock on the frame. “Yeah, hun?” she says as she folds her laundry. I watch her fold the shirt and wonder if that’s what I’ll look like in nearly fifty years. I’ve seen pictures of my mom in her twenties and thirties. I might be more petite, but we share the same face shape and bright blonde hair. I hate to say it, but sometimes I hate my mom for having me at nearly fifty. Not that I was planned, but I’ll always feel like I never got enough time with my parents. Like I’ll be alone. My parents are Betas, tried to have kids for forever, and at the ages of forty-nine and fifty, they had me. It would mean more to me if she took care of herself better so that we had more time. I need more time.
“I found the letters in the drawer. Have you made those appointments?”
She huffs, irritated that I looked at the drawer, but doesn’t stop folding. “Yes, it’s just all the way in Burlington. Soonest I could get in is the spring,” she says. I’m at least happy that she’s taking this seriously.
“How are your eyes doing?”
“They’re fine, honey. How about yours?”
“They’re good. The new contacts work great. I just need to do better about taking them out at night and wearing my glasses.”
“No headaches?”
“Only sometimes.” I shrug. I’ve worn glasses or contacts my whole life. My vision is basically shit. I had laser surgery when I was four to try to mitigate some of the retinopathy. But luckily the new contacts help, and there are always my glasses.
“You’ll let me know if that changes.”
“Yes, but you’ll also let me know if anything changes with you.”
She stops folding her laundry and wraps me up in a warm hug. My mom might be a Beta, but she smells like home to me. It’s probably a combination of our home scents and the fresh air. I cling to it, wrapping my arms around her body.
“I’m happy to have you home,” she whispers against the top of my head, and I squeeze her tighter.
“I’m happy to be home.”
“You’re my special girl, you know that?” I nod my head against my chest and sigh, hating myself for my thoughts earlier. My mom might have been the oldest on the playground and got mistaken for a grandma, but fuck, if I didn’t have the best mom anyone could have asked for. She’s always protected me, always made sure I was first, and she always let me know how well loved I was. I cling against her, smelling her scent that warms my blood and makes me feel loved and whole. I don’t know how I can let this go. Surely nothing else, no one else, could ever make me feel a fraction of cared for as she does.
