He looks miserable, which is weird, because Marcus could bench-press a Vespa and not break a sweat. “That’s it,” he says. “Just…don’t let me be an asshole by accident.”
I want to make a joke. I want to say something that cuts the tension. But I just nod, because it’s the only honest thing left.
He claps my arm, the weight of his hand solid as a pledge, and heads into the showers.
Back in the locker room, it’s a zoo. Guys in towels, guys half-naked, someone blasting Beyoncé from a Bluetooth speaker.
At the far end, one of the defensemen is quietly packing up his gear, every move deliberate. He doesn’t say goodbye.
Doesn’t make a scene. Just zips up his bag, tugs the duffel over his shoulder, and leaves.
Nobody stops him. Nobody looks up.
His stall is empty by the time I sit down again.
I wonder if he’ll come back.
Probably not.
I start to pull my shirt on, arms barely working, when I see it: the empty space next to my stall. Darius’s spot.
Neat, orderly, untouched since the last game. No tape, no loose laces, no wet towel thrown haphazard on the bench.
He’s been showering after everyone else leaves. Avoiding the room. Avoiding me.
I’m supposed to feel grateful. The team, the league, even the assholes online, nobody’s run me out of town yet. Instead, it just feels hollow. Like everyone agreed to play along, but nobody wants to look too close at the details.
I sit there for a long time, staring at the empty stall next to mine, wondering if the guy who used to fill it will ever walk in and take his place again.
Because that’s the only apology I really want.
And I don’t think I’m ever going to get it.
———
Dr. Sharma’s office smells like cardamom and Wite-Out. She'd offered to refer me to a colleague once things with Darius became whatever they are, "ethical boundaries," she said, but I asked her to stay on.
She agreed, on the condition that she'd never discuss one of us with the other. I trusted that more than starting over with a stranger.
Every surface is beige or tan or the color of an uncooked biscuit.
There’s a little desk clock that ticks so quietly it’s like the threat of a ticking, and a row of degrees in matching frames, Stanford and Johns Hopkins and some place in Mumbai I can’t pronounce.
I sit on the couch, knees wide, hands busy untwisting the hem of my t-shirt.
I’ve already spotted the camera in the fake smoke detector, which means I’m probably on some therapist TikTok right now, “Watch this gay hockey player dissociate for forty-five minutes, no cuts.”
She waits, always. Lets me fill the air.
So I do.
“Did you see what they did to my car?” I say, because starting at the surface is always safer than going for the artery. “They spelled it wrong, which, I don’t know, is that better or worse?”
She just nods, eyebrows up, no judgment. “Did it hurt you?”
The question is so gentle I almost laugh. “Everything hurts, Doc. That’s the gig.”
She gives a half-smile. “Does that make it easier, to expect pain?”
