“I’ll wait,” I whisper when our mouths break apart.
“I can’t?—”
“Ask.I know.So don’t.”I lean back because I need distance to get my head to stop spinning and my heart to stop fluttering.I want to be clear-headed when I speak next.“I can’t say I can wait forever, but I can wait for now.I don’t want someone else.If that changes, that changes.We’ll discuss it.But for now… I want to wait until you figure out how to like yourself.So you can like me.”
“I like you.”
I laugh.“You know what I mean.”
He nods.“God, you are…”
I stick out my hand.“Lola Casco.You’re new best friend.With zero benefits.Not a single one.”
He laughs and shakes my hand.
When he walks me to my car, and I drive off, I’m feeling lighter and happier, even though we aren’t together.We will be one day.And for the first time in a very long time, I can’t wait for the future.
Chapter29
Theo
April…
Irub my palms against my jeans.It’s a nervous tic, but I’m not nervous.Not the way I used to be when I started coming here.After a couple of months of seeing a psychologist, I feel calm coming here.Even though sometimes I leave the session feeling like my guts are still on the couch.I don’t think she’ll find something unfixable about me and tell my family and my coach to give up on me because I’m a lost cause.I did think that at first.And I also felt like a bit of a failure.My parents are very well-rounded, grounded people.My whole family is.But not a lot of them talk about mental health, and other than a sports psychologist, no one has gotten help—that I know of.Maybe one or two have, but if they have, they don’t talk about it.My mom, especially, has been through some shit.Lots of shit, but I only know from secondhand stories my uncles murmur about very occasionally.The thing is, when your family is perfect, even the extended one, any whispers of imperfect times pique your interest, so I held onto those stories.Filed them away.
“What does your week look like?”my therapist asks me as the session is about to end.
“Last game of the regular season tomorrow night,” I say.“And tonight there’s a birthday gathering for my teammate Callan and his sister.”
“The woman you’re…”
“In love with?Yeah.Lola.”It’s probably fucking weird that I’ve told my therapist I love Lola but I haven’t told Lola.
I’ve seen her enough to tell her.Since that event at the Art Collective where we went for hot chocolate and she said she would wait for me, we’ve seen each other a lot—platonically.Sometimes we meet for dinner after she finishes at the gallery.Sometimes I go out with her, Callan, Landon, and Grady after a game.Once she invited me over to her and Callan’s place to use their hot tub because my quads were killing me from a particularly grueling week on the ice.That was probably the hardest time I’ve had staying platonic because Lola was in a bikini and my dick was half hard the whole damn time.But I managed it.
And sure I miss sex, and touching her, and being touched, but the fact is I’m getting so much out of spending time with her that it’s worth the torture.She makes me laugh.She challenges me to think harder or differently about things.She’s teaching me about art, and I’m teaching her to cook.We spent last Sunday, a day with no games or practice, making vegetarian chili, and last night I took one of the art classes at the collective.My acrylic painting didn’t turn out half bad, actually.I mean, it was nothing compared to the forest landscape Lola did ,but I wasn’t embarrassed.And I kept sneaking glances at her at the easel beside mine, just letting myself drown in how beautiful she looked and how her whole body relaxed as she painted, even though her eyes were literally glowing with focus and concentration.I wonder if that’s how I look playing hockey.
“You going to let her in on your feelings sometime soon?”she asks, bringing me back to the present.
“Maybe.I was hoping to hit the one-year mark,” I say.
“Of sobriety?You hit that back in February, Theo.”She’s not wrong.I mean, technically, my last drink was the night I fell off the roof.
“I was thinking more of, like, one year since I got my second chance,” I explain, and the words feel hollow as I say them.Like I’m trying to shove some meaning into them that doesn’t exist.But yet, I keep talking, like over-explaining gives them the weight I’m searching for.“Here in Portland.With hockey.With my life.”
“She isn’t hockey, Theo,” she reminds me softly in that tone she has that makes me feel less like a dumbass even though she’s calling out my dumbassery.“She also isn’t something that you have to earn.You’ve already earned her respect and her affection, or else she wouldn’t have told you she would wait.And she wouldn’t be waiting.”
I nod.“I’m scared I will fuck it up again if we try again.And there’s probably no more chances left.”
“You might fuck it up, sure.She might fuck it up.But then again, you might not.”She smiles.“You haven’t fucked up hockey.You guys are second in the division.”
“Yeah.”Even if we lose tomorrow night, the last game of the season, we won’t drop a spot in the standings.We’re guaranteed a playoff run, and it feels both daunting and exciting.
The timer she sets at the beginning of every session goes off, and she clasps her hands and stands up from her chair across from mine.“So, next week?”
I nod.“Yeah, I’ll have to call and book something once the playoff schedule is released.”
“Okay.And?—”
