“I don’t need to be psychoanalyzed by Benny’s bartender,” I said gruffly without making eye contact with her. I regretted the words as I’d said them. Paige was not trying to be mean to me, but I needed her to leave me alone.
She looked taken aback. I pushed out of my chair and walked out of my house with my friends sitting around my kitchen.
I didn’t even reach for my keys because I knew I wasn’t in a good place.
I took the short walk down the street into Northfield’s downtown. I’d always loved downtown.
I wandered around town until I found myself at Scores- the old barber shop I’d gone to hundreds of times as a teen. The girl working there kept asking me questions and looked nervous. She could probably tell how intoxicated I was. I didn’t want to listen to her so I told her to buzz it all and be done with it. Jules hated it buzzed. Good, I thought bitterly to myself. I shook my head to physically jar her out of it.
As weird as it sounded, a head massage was what I craved. It made me feel relaxed. Honestly, it was my only human touch I’d had in a while. Pathetic. I had zero game.
But barbershop drunk- interesting experience… I’d probably regret it. I hadn’t had a buzz since college when we all decided to bleach our hair during a tournament. Mine was too dark and we had no clue what the word toner even meant, so it ended up orange. After the tournament win, I had to get rid of it all and start over in fear of looking like a clown forever. Smitty buzzed it close to the scalp to get rid of all the orange.
Jules had been so mad about it and I had laughed in her face over it because I really didn’t think it was a big deal. But when she felt my head with a cute pout on her face, she made me regret it. She was the only person who had ever cared about my damn hair. She punched Smitty in the gut- her hardest- but definitely laughable- for being the one to do it. She even threatened him over it, saying if it didn’t grow back the same, he’d be sorry. Thinking of how she’d been my tiny defender going up against a hulking division 1 defenseman over my hair brought a smile to my face, which I quickly wiped off.
I needed to remember she wasn’t mine. I needed to push these memories, good and bad, back into the box I’d shoved them in years ago. I wondered yet again if I’d made a horrible mistake in coming back. She was someone else’s defender now.
“Dude, what happened to your head?” Smitty asked me as soon as I opened my front door. He was glancing quickly back and forth from me and the new NHL game he was playing on my tv.
“Little short there bud, we are going into the fall,” Max teased, but looked at me with unease.
Whatever, I didn’t care. I just wanted it gone.
I eased my hat back on, wanting them to stop looking at me.
“I’m best-looking coach now,” Smitty bragged and I rolled my eyes.
I thought they would’ve left my house, but it looked like they’d just made themselves more comfortable, having moved to the living room.
“Pizza will be here soon,” Max told me. He paused the game then and looked at me. “Paige is pissed. Fix that before I take her home,” he said plainly.
I knew I had to go fix things with her but being demanded like that irked me. I had to swallow my pride though. Max and Paige were the only ones looking out for me this past spring when I had no idea what to do or where to go. They were my family.
I exited my living room and made it back to the kitchen to find Paige gathering plates and cups for dinner.
“You have any pop or water in this house or just beer?” She asked in an even tone, looking into my sorry excuse for a fridge. I think I only had beer and eggs.
“I’m sorry,” I forced myself to push out a rare apology.
She slowly rose to look at me and stood with her hands on her hips and pursed lips. She needed to be a mom someday, she’d already perfected the disappointed mom glare. That brought a smirk to my face.
“Something funny young man?” She asked, making me crack a smile.
“You’ve got the mom look down,” I told her.
“I should by now. I’m basically a mom to all three of you,” she shook her head and I could see a small smile pulling at her lips. “I can’t stay too mad at you when you look like a poor little boy that’s gotten his toy taken away.” She sighed and plopped onto one of the kitchen barstool chairs. I took a seat next to her waiting for the lecture she’d surely give me.
“You haven’t had closure,” she began. “You’ve been stewing over questions for years. We have too. We all grew up together and we were all friends.”
Her words made me want to throw up arms, but I knew I was overreacting. I drew a breath in, “Don’t you dare compare, Paige. What if Max did that to you?” I asked quietly.
“I’m not comparing,” she urged. “But this is what I’m saying- we don’t even know what she did to you. And if we have questions when it comes to her, you definitely do. You’re not the same person you used to be. You used to be happy-go-lucky, light-up-every-room, and love-your-life-hockey-guy. That summer you turned into an angry hockey monster- which worked for you for a while. You had a place to put your anger I suppose. But now you’re kinda just an angry shell that moves through the day. And you need to fix it. You can’t keep going like this… you’re going to waste your life being stuck in this fog.”
I knew she was right. I did have questions and if I was honest with myself, I would say I was stuck. I couldn’t let anyone in because of her. I hadn’t made a single new relationship in the last decade.
“If it makes you feel better, I think she’s been stuck in a different kind of situation for the past nine years and she just recently got out of it.”
That snapped my eyes to hers, “How would you-?”
