I could smell the cigarette smoke that was absorbed into the walls of our trailer and feel the freezing, wet air from the night I slept on a bench near the Riverwalk. Cool nights in New Orleans aren’t easy to come by, but that night, I’ll never forget it. I can still taste the stale bread I pieced together for a PB and J after not eating for three days, and how much my stomach felt like it was trying to tear itself out of me.
“I’m here,” Maisie says, and it hauls me back to the present.
I nod. “I guess I start with how I ended up back here.” My throat works as unease ripples through me.
“I told you that I was in the system until I aged out. And when I walked out of that home, the only thing I had was… hockey. I think the only reason I even survived was because I poured everything inside of me into it. It was the only outlet I had. I wasn’t this sad little boy anymore; I was a man who was pissed at the world. That sadness had morphed into anger that consumed me, and hockey was the one place where it felt like my temper helped me instead of hurt me. Fuck, I guess I thought so at first.”
I pause to take a slow, steady breath so I’m able to get this shit out, to keep going. Maisie’s hand curves around my jaw, and she keeps it there, stroking her fingers back and forth until my heart begins to slow.
“At first… the coaching staff, the owners, they loved that I was like a powder keg, that I was aggressive on the ice and not afraid to do the dirty work. That’s what they wanted. But then they realized they couldn’t control me, and I became a liability. I was getting in fights off the ice, putting myself in situations that reflected badly not just on me but on the team. And then I got in a fight with one of my teammates. We’d been at each other’s throats for months. Tension was high. One day, after a particularly bad game, I just… fucking lost it.” I stop, shaking my head when my temper surges at the thought of him.
He was always such a fucking prick. “I fucked up. There’s no sugarcoating it or calling it something it isn’t. All of the shit from the last few months came to a head in the locker room that night. My adrenaline from the game did nothing to help. I broke his jaw, put him in the hospital. He provoked me, yeah, but I shouldn’t have snapped the way I did. It took me until… recently to come to that conclusion. I wanted to blame him for all of mybullshit, and he had a part in it, but at the end of the day, I should’ve walked away.”
I’ve never said that out loud until today. Hell, I never even admitted it to myself until as of late.
Until I started to understand that as much as I wanted to be pissed at my team like they did something to me, I’m the only person responsible for my actions.
“I’m proud of you for realizing that,” Maisie says, offering me a soft, reassuring smile that pulls directly on my heart.
“Thanks, baby.” As much as I wish that was the end of the fucked-up parts of my life, it’s really only the beginning. Or, well, the end since I’m going backward. “I tried to talk to my coach and the owners after it happened, but it was too late. I was already deemed the liability at that point. They’d decided at that point I was no longer worth the hassle, the PR nightmare that I’d become over the last few years. Especially because I’m close to retirement age. Just like that… my career was over.”
“I’m so sorry, Wilder. God, I’m just so sorry,” Maisie whispers thickly.
Ignoring the swell in my chest, the tightness manifesting there, I keep going to the hardest part of all.
The part that I’m dreading with every fiber of my goddamn being to tell her.
“That’s how I ended up back here in NOLA. Back where I ran from the moment I got drafted. More so, who I was running from.”
Her brow furrows with confusion, and I reach up, smoothing it with my thumb.
I swallow hard, forcing the heavy lump of emotion clogging my throat away.
“My mother was a drug addict. I think she was actively using even while pregnant with me. Probably a miracle that I wasn’t born with any issues from it. If she wasn’t shooting up while shewas pregnant, it might be the one and only unselfish thing she ever did.” I’m fighting for air because of the lump of emotion that’s the size of a fist pressing against my windpipe.
I squeeze my eyes shut, willing myself to continue, to get the shit out so I don’t have to think of it again.
One time, and then maybe I’ll suddenly be healed from lifelong trauma.
I know that’s bullshit, but fuck, maybe if I repeat it enough, it’ll actually happen.
I feel Maisie’s hand curling at my jaw, along my cheek, and I lean into her touch. “My first memory that I have is of her passed out on our couch after pumping herself full of drugs and the smell of burnt macaroni and cheese choking me. To this day, I can’t smell it, or I’ll vomit. It’s one of those triggering memories that just fucking cripples me.”
One of many.
But I don’t say that out loud.
I just push forward, the contents of my life spilling out of me.
“I was in fifteen different foster homes from the ages of six to twelve. Before I was put in Crescent House. They gave her temporary custody back six times, and every time, I left a little more fucked in the head than I was before.” I flex my fingers along Maisie’s back, trying to ground myself. “I remember being a kid and wishing that family services would show up. Wishing they’d take me away and never bring me back. And then I felt guilty for feeling that way. Fuck, she was my mom, but that’s not a title she ever deserved.” I shake my head. “It wasn’t the group home that triggered me as much as it was the physical representation of all the fucked-up shit I endured as a child. Walking back in there for the first time was like I was stepping right back into the shoes of a seven-year-old kid who was ripped away from the only parent he’d ever known, even if she was his abuser, not a true mother. I was too young to realize how badit was because it was the only reality I ever knew. She was all I knew.”
When I peel my eyes open, I find tears tracking Maisie’s cheeks, mixing with the spray from the shower, and I brush them away. I fucking hate that I put them there.
I hate exposing her to this fucked-up side of the world. An ugly, dark place in the world I hope she never has to experience.
She never will if she stays with me.
But I have to keep going. I can’t give her half of me any longer. I need her to hear it all.
