7. Ryan
Ryan
My emotions were a kaleidoscope of shifting colors.
To be honest, it was a little overwhelming.
Jubilation, fear, guilt, worry, desire, excitement.
Reds, blues, purples, greens. A rainbow of feelings churned inside me as I pulled on a coat—found online, half-price Vivian Hu gray check knee-length with red piping, only slightly worn—as Gideon waited for me, his blue eyes still sad.
And no wonder. Losing your brother had to be a horrid loss.
Any family member passing is a gut-wrenching experience, but a kid?
That had to be the worst pain imaginable.
We all sort of know our parents are going to go before us generally, so while it still hurts terribly, it’s the nature of things.
But a teenager just stepping into his true self with his whole life before him?
That must be an eviscerating agony. And I had no clue how to speak to him about it, so I opted to let it lie quietly off to the side.
If he wanted to discuss his brother over noodles, we would.
If not, then we wouldn’t. I got it. Any time I mentioned my mom dying when I was a kid, people were shoving sympathy at me.
Sometimes that felt heavy enough to buckle your knees.
One guy who came to group used dark humor to deal with his mother’s death, also from a drug overdose, when he was a toddler. We all dealt in our own ways.
“That’s a nice coat,” Gideon said, jarring me from my mental meander into dead mothers and morbid humor.
“Thanks.” I tied the sash around my middle.
“It was only fifty bucks. There’s a small stain on the hem in the back, but no one sees that.
It was the only one listed. Size ten for women, so I knew it would fit me since I wear a men’s small.
I have this smoke gray dress which would look amazing under it, but I’ve not worn the dress anywhere other than in my house. ”
“I bet it would look really pretty,” he replied, his gaze lingering on my face. “You have glitter on your eyelids. Just a little. Copper.”
“Shit, yeah. I ran out of cold cream, so I had to use soap,” I whispered in reply as we stepped out into a bright October day. “I was hoping no one would notice.”
“Probably only I did,” he rushed to say then waved at a truck parked among a slew of other macho rides. “This is mine.”
“Nice.” The compliment was real. The truck was nice. He and I stood there at the passenger side door like two ninnies.
“I don’t want to be inconsiderate. Should I open the door for you?”
Oh my gods, how sweet was he? My tiny crush was growing larger with each darling thing he did or said.
I glanced around. “You don’t have to be here,” I said with a motion of my hand to indicate the parking lot of the arena.
“How about if I want to?”
He seemed sincere. “Then sure, if you want.”
So, he did. He tugged the door open and held it for me as I climbed in, something that I found incredibly endearing.
When he closed the door, I took a moment to breathe in then exhale slowly.
My heart was tripping double time, and we’d not left the parking lot.
I had to dial it down. Slow this roll and confess about my transgression with his hoodie.
Now. So he had time to toss me out of this truck and squeal off in horror.
He opened his door, climbed in, and I turned slightly in my seat to drop the bomb on him.
“I smelled your hoodie when I put your skates away.” I gripped the black satin lapels of my coat then tugged them together to shield me from…
I didn’t know what. Something bad. It was always something bad.
He tipped his head slightly. “I know it was a huge breach of personal space. I feel terrible. I knew it was terrible, that I was terrible, and I told my sponsor that I would make amends to you about it as soon as I could, so here I am making my apology. If you want to cancel our noodle date. No, not a date! No, not that, just a talk over noodles, then I will understand totally and—”
“Ryan, hey, I don’t care that you sniffed my hoodie.”
I blinked stupidly. “You don’t?”
“No, it’s kind of… well, it’s kind of… I don’t know what it is, but I like it.”
“You do?”
He nodded. “I mean, sure, if you liked how it smelled. I like your scent. I’d probably sneak a sniff of your coat because it’s… you always… uhm, it’s okay.” His cheeks were rosy now, as were mine. We sat there gawking at each other for so long it was bordering on goofy.
“Well, I won’t do it again. I don’t smell anyone else’s stuff or touch anything left behind. I just… well, that one time with your hoodie. But never again. I need this job, so you have my word: no hoodie sniffing.”
“Okay. That’s fine. And I promise I won’t sniff your pretty checkered coat if I see it hanging somewhere.”
“Cool.” The boulder of worry eased off my back. “We should probably go.” I glanced out my side window to find Arnaud staring at us with a crooked smile on his handsome face. “Your friends are starting to think something is wrong.”
“Flip him off.” I shook my head. So, Gideon gave our gregarious goalie the finger before starting his truck. We left Arnaud laughing in our dust. “He’s the nosiest person I’ve ever met. Tomorrow he’ll be busting my balls about us riding off together.”
I twisted around in my seat, the belt keeping me in place for the most part, to stare at the arena growing smaller and smaller. Then I looked right at Gideon.
“Will there be issues with us having soup?” I didn’t want him to be caught up in whatever future drama may take place if anyone ever found out I was gender fluid.
“No, not a one. If he starts flapping his lips, I’ll tell them about the time I saw him shaving a goat at a county fair in Flint when we were there for a game.
He says it was for ‘helping a wee fan who had no experience with udders,’ but I then asked how he had udder experience and got a reply in French. ”
I snickered. “I could actually see Arnaud clipping a goat.” Nothing our prankster of a net minder did would surprise me or anyone else on the Copperheads.
“Yeah, I can too, and that’s the scary part.
” We crept into traffic, slowing to a snail’s crawl due to construction.
He shot me a glance, then another, and then another.
“You said you told your sponsor about the hoodie thing.” I bobbed my head, shame making me squeamish.
“Uhm, so do you talk to him all the time or when something upsetting happens?”
“Mostly during group. I’ve been pretty solid in my recovery, but when I did that with your hoodie, I fell into a pit of self-hate that was the darkest, deepest hole I’ve encountered since I left rehab.
There’s this voice.” I paused to try to find the words to describe what my devil sounds like to someone who’s never experienced that voice of addiction.
“It’s like a demon, or I call it that, because it always leads me to hell.
It’s always there in the back of your mind, right?
There’s no eradicating it. When things are going well, it’s whispering in your ear that you need to celebrate with just a short high.
Then when things are bad, or we fuck up, that whisper turns into a shout.
A terrible, guttural, hellish entity pushing us to deaden the pain.
It says it has a better way to deal. I guess, to me, and this is just me, since one girl in group says her abusive father’s voice is what she hears telling her to do bad things, my Abaddon sounds a lot like Jigsaw in the horror movies.
Dad says that’s because I watched it as a kid when Mom was not paying attention like she should have been, and it scarred me.
Could be.” I shrugged, my shoulders rising slightly then dropping.
“You probably think that’s freaky. Having a voice in your head. ”
“No, no, I don’t.” He looked at me as we waited for the flagger to flip his sign from STOP to SLOW. “I have my own shadow. The black dog of depression.”
“Oh, shit. I’m sorry you’re dealing with that.”
“Thanks. And I’m sorry you’re dealing with your troubles.”
“Guess we’re a good pair.”
That made him smile gently. “Yeah, guess we are.” His gaze caught and held mine.
The car behind us honked. We both jumped.
The flagger was shaking his SLOW sign at us.
Gideon blushed bright red as we crept through the roadwork, then eased around a busy corner to find a parking garage.
Once we had our spot, we walked half a block then ducked into a small side street, our conversation lighter now.
Mostly hockey, which was safe ground. Maybe we’d already purged our dark secrets, so chitchat was all that was left.
The Shared Bowl was quiet this afternoon, but we had missed the lunch rush.
We were escorted to a small table near a beautiful silk screen with painted tigers and smiling dragons.
They brought tea quickly, along with a bowl of pickled radishes.
The interior was warm, the air humid and rich with the smells of garlic, ginger, and boiled meats.
It was a tiny restaurant with perhaps ten tables.
Another couple was across the dining room from us, enjoying some black sesame ice cream, whispering as they spoon-fed each other.
Above them, the panda logo was painted in bright colors on the dark red brick wall.
“I need protein and carbs. Do you know what you want?” Gideon asked as he lowered the menu, resting on our paper placemats.
“Yeah, I come here a lot. I love the shio ramen with some strawberry mochi for dessert.” I poured some green tea into our cups as his smile widened.
“Same here, but I like the chocolate mochi instead.”
“We’ll get both then.”