Chapter 30
Iscored the winning goal. Duped Trent into handing it to me, and, for my first full game back, the shoulder has held up really well, and could honestly do with a little ice and rest.
So yes, there is sweet fuck all wrong with me. I require no treatment. No taping.
What I am sorely in need of is Doc Plum anywhere in my vicinity, but preferably looming over me with his hands anywhere on my body.
Or inside me. I’m not fussy.
All week he’s looked through me like I’m a sheet of glass, and I can’t take it a second longer.
He has to forgive me. I have to make him see that I’m sorry.
Jamie is good at his job. Great even. Which means he’s going to take one look at me and know nothing is wrong. I have to work quickly. Since he’s a writer, I figured the written word might have more luck in winning him over.
I look down at the note I scribbled on a take out napkin I found in my bag, and wince.
James. It’s only been a week, and I’ve seen you almost every day, but I miss you.
If I could go back in time and not say anything about us I would, but I can’t.
I understand why you’re mad. And how much you have to risk, and if you give me a second chance at friendship, I swear I won’t let you down.
Like you said, life seems to keep tossing (no pun intended) us together. I’d really like the opportunity to find out why.
Yours, Cubby
The Yours at the end is risky and deliberate. James doesn’t have a lot of people in his life. I want him to know he has me. In whatever form he wants.
When the door finally swings open, and the face and body that keep me awake at night saunters through it, I lose my breath. He’s so fucking handsome.
“Even after you dunked me, you’re still angry.” I don’t want that to be the first thing I say, but it is.
“I’m not angry.”
“Your face, your mustache in particular, says otherwise. It twitches when you’re pissed, and that thing is jumping around like a coked-up squirrel.
” He talks all snooty too, but I decide to leave that out for fear he may implode.
Adorably, he purses his lips. I think it’s an attempt to control the quiver.
“My mustache does not twitch, and I am not angry. One has to care to remain affected by another’s betrayal, and since I don’t, I’m not.
” After dropping his satchel bag by the bed, he washes and dries his hands at the tiny basin he dwarfs, moves the row of stainless steel draws holding medical supplies and pulls out some tape and scissors, I think he’s done.
He is not. “If I was angry I might have spent hours pondering how you could risk my career so thoughtlessly, or how out of all the people you could discuss things you promised never to discuss, you chose your teammates. The people I have to work with and treat everyday.” James turns and approaches, eyes trained to the floor, which is disappointing since I’ve already removed my gear in the hopes the nips might win him over before I needed the note.
A roll of tape is deposited beside me and he stands between my spread legs.
He smells amazing. It’s agony. “But I haven’t. Not a single moment.”
Twitching must be contagious, as maintaining a solemn expression is killing me. “Glad to hear it, Jamie.”
Eye’s falling shut, he does the other thing I’ve noticed him doing a lot, a slow puffed cheek inhale, then exhalation. “Good.”
“Great.”
“Okay then.”
In silence, he takes hold of me and manipulates my shoulder, testing its range of movement. It’s the wrong shoulder, but I don’t correct him ‘cause he’s got the cutest frowny face on and he’s touching me, and that’s all that really matters. “How does that feel? No pain?”
“Feels great. Movement feels like nothing happened. I think you’ve cured me, Doc.” His eyes close again, and I’m treated to another puffed cheek breath.
“I’m on the wrong arm aren’t I?”
“Yep. But in all honesty, there’s nothing wrong with the other one, either.”
“For fuck’s sake, Cory.” The roll of tape is picked up and tossed across the room. “I have other people to treat, you know. My humble job may be an insignificant joke to a big time, soon to be NHL-er like you, but this is my life, not some childish game.”
“I know that, and it’s not insignificant.
You’re not insig—” I stop short, knowing there is nothing I can say that will break through his stubbornness.
Since he’s now hunched over the basin again, gripping the bridge of his nose like his brain might explode out his nostrils, I slip off the bed.
With the note in my trembling hand, I pad over to the door and drop it into his open bag, saying a little prayer he reads it before it’s tossed.
“I just … I miss you, and this was the only way I knew you’d see me. It won’t happen again.”
Carrying the weight of the world on my perfectly healthy shoulders, I stumble through the still broken door and collapse onto the sofa.
Miffy’s there as usual, barking at me like I don’t feed her scraps from my plate at every meal.
Despite the jovial mood after a great win, the ride back to campus blew chunks.
James refused to acknowledge me once again and I got stuck sitting next to Kyle Larsson, whose motion sickness had him vomiting three times in a twenty minute trip.
“Is that you, Cory?” Mom calls from the kitchen a second before she appears, Billie on her hip tugging at the strings on the front of her apron.
“Hey, Ma. Your Royal Cutie,” I reply, not raising my head.
Plopping Billie on the carpet near her ever-growing pile of toys, she squishes into the tiny free space, rustles my hair then presses a kiss to the top of my head.
“You’re spreading yourself thin, my boy.
School, hockey, that job. It’s too much. ”
“It’s not, Ma. I swear I’m fine. First game back always hits hard.
” Which is true. Not quite this hard, but hard.
“Besides, I like working at Green Line. Brady and Lotte are amazing and the clients are so much fun. It’s good for me.
And after this weekend, I’ll have enough wages to pay half this month’s mortgage. We’ll catch up in no time.”
“It’s not right.” She tuts, shaking her head. “Children shouldn’t be taking on a mother’s responsibility.”
I roll to my side, and grasp Ma’s hands.
“We’re your children, but we’re not children, Ma.
You’ve worked your ass off for years to pay for my hockey and for Cherry’s school, it’s about time we gave you something back other than a headache.
Now, will you tell me how far behind you are.
” Smiling, she kisses me again, this time on the only part of my forehead that’s accessible.
“No, but you’re a good boy, Cory. Now come and eat. I made you mac and cheese.”
“With chicken and bacon?”
“With extra chicken and enough bacon to clog all of your arteries. There’s garlic bread, too.” Before she can slide away, I wriggle my hands free and wrap them around her. She feels thinner than usual, frail, even. So much so I’m conscious not to squeeze her too tight.
“See, that’s why me and Cherry want to help. You’re the best.”
With a grunt, she stands. “I am pretty amazing.”
I beat her over to Billie and carry her back into the kitchen, sliding her roly-poly legs into her highchair where she immediately starts smooshing her pasta between her equally chubby fingers.
My stomach rumbles as Ma fills a bowl with pasta then slides a whole plate of cheesy bread before me, watching as I shovel it into my mouth.
“Something else is wrong. You’re not eating. ”
“I literally have my mouth full,” I mutter around a chuck of chicken. “How am I not eating?”
“You’re slower than normal. Tell me what’s wrong. I know there’s something. Billie does too. Don’t you, Bill?” I turn to my left. Billie’s currently licking the sauce from the tray in front of her, blonde locks trailing behind tongue.
“Yeah. She looks super stressed.”
“She’s comfort-eating. Now tell me.”
Knowing full well she’s distracting me from the money thing, but also that she could hound me over this for hours, days even, I yield. “There’s this guy—”
Grasping her chest, she slides into the seat beside me. “There’s a guy? There’s never been a guy. I mean, there’s a lot of them if the damn Grindr notifications and midnight disappearing acts are anything to go by, but there’s never been a guy guy.”
“You know that Grindr sound?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, of course I do. When you first came out I heard it more than I heard my own voice, now shut up and tell me about him.”
A short on detail, long on whining retelling follows, Mom’s face morphing between, Aww, what the, and you didn’t. The overwhelming expression though is sympathy which makes me feel equally seen, sad and pathetic.
“Honestly, I had no idea. I can’t believe you never told me you were getting teased at school, or that you felt so insecure you arrived early to practice, just to change.
And why?” She grabs my chin and shakes my head.
“Look at this face! Glasses or no glasses, ten feet tall or five, you’re so cute I could eat you up. What put that notion into your head?”
How do I reply to that?
I don’t know what caused it. Was it the lifetime of being the smallest in every grade?
Of being the last one picked in sports even though I was often the best. Of being a target.
Was it a faulty father figure? The church’s blatant homophobia mixing with my own internalized version, and the fear of being me caused me to live in for years?
All I know is that I hated me before I could learn which me I was, and after a summer spent fucking everything that moved, seeking approval from random faces then rejecting them before I could get rejected, I finally see it.
That James has helped me see it.
The it being that I don’t need to be who people want or expect me to be. That I am okay with me. Just as I am.
What a shame I had to lose something I wanted, but never really had, to see it.