The new kid, Raz, is hunched over his phone, thumb flying, probably sexting his girlfriend or calling his bookie or both.
“Heard D called in with ‘personal fucking stuff,’” Raz says, like he knows I’m looking.
He doesn’t look up from his phone, but he smirks, like this is the juiciest thing that’s happened all season.
I grunt, keep pulling at my laces. “Hope he gets the gold star for mental health awareness.”
Nobody laughs. That’s fine. I don’t tell jokes for the response; I do it because the silence otherwise swells until it crushes my lungs.
The blood on my face is mostly dry now, crusted up from eyebrow to chin, brown and ugly.
I peel off the pads, piece by piece, and try not to think about how much they stink.
If you ever want to know true humiliation, get a nose full of your own post-game gear. You could bottle this shit and sell it as birth control.
The rest of the guys file out, either heading for the parking lot or the bar across the street.
I lag behind, partly because I don’t want to get home, partly because I’m not in the mood to talk about the loss with anyone who’d care.
Nobody’s waiting for me, not like back home, not like Tacoma.
The only thing in my fridge is expired yogurt and a single Bud Light, and I don’t even like Bud Light.
But the thought of sitting in my apartment, hearing the hum of the mini-fridge and the silence, is worse.
I clean up the cut at the sink, staring at my own reflection in the warped metal.
For a second I look like a stranger, some mutant version of myself cobbled together from old headshots and injury reports.
The scar on my chin is newish, maybe six months old. This one above the eye is deeper. A keepsake.
One assist tonight, and that only because O’Doul can’t take a pass to save his life and the puck rebounded off his shin.
Plus/minus still in the shitter. I can hear the coach’s voice already, monotone but lethal, telling me I “need to find another gear.” Like I’m hiding one under the hood, just waiting for the right moment to not suck.
The truth is, I’m not a “find another gear” guy.
I’m not even a “gear” guy. I’m the one who keeps the goddamn machine running when everyone else flakes out, because I don’t know how to quit.
I sit back down and stare at the lockers for a while, running the numbers in my head, fifteen games left, two points out of the playoffs, contract review in May.
If I bomb, I go back to Tacoma.
Dad will say “at least you gave it a real shot,” and Mom will hug me so hard my ribs hurt, and Maya, she’s a sophomore at UW now, studying psychology so she can fix people like me for a living, will ask if I want to see a therapist.
I do, actually. I just don’t want anyone to know how badly.
For some reason, I start thinking about ninth grade.
JV locker room, the walls painted yellow like that would make it less of a dungeon.
I remember changing after practice, seeing Jake Halpern in the mirror, shirtless, just… beautiful, like no one else in that whole fucking city. It hit me hard, the way you don’t have words for at that age.
I stared so long I thought he’d call me out, but he never even noticed. Nobody did. Not even me, not for real, not until much later.
I learned to stop looking. I learned to make jokes about everyone else, so nobody would make jokes about me.
I snap out of it, shake the memory off like sweat. It’s dumb. It’s old. I’m over it.
