Chapter 9 I Try, but I Fall, Close My Mind, Turn It Off
I Try, but I Fall, Close My Mind, Turn It Off
Wyatt
The press conference is taking place in one of the mega-modern rooms on the top floor of the training center.
Rounded walls of glass that look right out onto Snowmass Mountain, its tips kissing the sky.
A whole horde of journalists has already arrived.
They’re all making their final preparations, sitting around on the extravagant lounge chairs, which, as far as I’m concerned, are way too expensive for this kind of conference room.
A few are messing around with their cameras, and others are scribbling onto their clipboards—questions they don’t want to forget, probably.
It’d be terrible for them not to figure out what was going on with the Lopez kid.
I’d like to tell them, “Hey, you all see that? Yeah, exactly, that’s my private life,” but all they’d do was laugh.
There are a lot of us on the team, but today they’re just interviewing those who are regularly sent out on the ice—well, and me.
Because the press conference is supposed to inform the journalists as to when the Aspen Snowdogs’ rookie NHL talent, who’d been bought over the summer, can finally get out there.
They all think I can’t do a thing, and that, secretly, I’m supposed to get transferred so that no one finds out that I’m the biggest mistake the team ever made.
I’m sure Aria thinks so, too. That I’m the biggest mistake of her life, I mean.
Suddenly my throat closes up, my pulse starts to race, and I wonder why I’m always the one who gunks up the machine.
To distract myself, I let my eyes wander over the crowd.
Stay cool, Wyatt. Just breathe slowly from your stomach, and then everything’ll be cool.
My crap replacement forward is here, too.
Gray. How he made it to the big leagues is a mystery.
Next to me, Owen, our left forward, is bouncing his leg.
He’s the youngest, just turned eighteen, and he gets the shits whenever there are people hovering about with cameras.
In the fifteen minutes we’ve been sitting here, he’s gone to the toilet three times, and I know he’s got to go again because he keeps lifting up his ass like he wants to stand up but doesn’t trust himself.
“Owen,” I whisper. “Stay here, man.”
“I’m shitting myself.”
“We’re about to start.”
Samuel, our goalie, is on his other side. He lowers his head so that he can halfway see Owen’s face and raises an eyebrow. “Give us a heads-up before you explode. I’ve got a date afterward.”
At that moment the door opens and Coach Jefferson strides in, followed by our spokesperson, Carl.
They sit down at the other end of the table, on either side of Xander.
Carl looks at Paxton, who’s sitting in the middle and, as captain, is supposed to take the questions. He nods at Carl to get started.
“Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, we decided to hold this press conference today to answer all the questions you have regarding our new forward, Wyatt Lopez. We want to allow you the opportunity to ask questions, and we’ll do our best to answer them.
As always, we ask you to handle this knowledge in a collegial and responsible manner.
It would be a shame to see slander or gossip show up in the headlines over the next few days, when we all know that there isn’t any truth to any of it. We’ll take your questions now.”
The room fills with flashes along with the collective sound of cameras clicking away. And then we’re off.
“Why has Lopez still not been used?”
“Are the rumors that he’s been traded again true?”
“What’s with his injury? How did it happen?”
“Does he have a girlfriend?”
“He always looks so sad. Why? What’s up?”
Normally I’m self-confident and quick on my toes.
I’m usually the one to get the last word.
It’s tough for me not to have an answer ready.
But this is screwing me up. Hearing these questions is like getting knifed, over and over.
It’s not enough to just get me in the stomach; nope, it’s got to hurt, and with every stab I’ve got to think about things I don’t want to remember.
I just want to be out of here, even if that makes me a wuss.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Paxton clears his throat, and I know that I’ve got to say something.
I open my eyes and catch Paxton raising his massive arm to point at a journalist in the first row who’s been shouting his questions the whole time, a dude with a long forehead and thinning hair, even a bit receding, now that I look a little more closely.
“You were drafted during the last transfer period. That was months ago. When are you going to play?”
If only I knew.
“Umm.” Out of the corner of my eye, I see Carl’s eyes turn into slits. We had three meetings to prepare me for this conference, two of them with a professional speaker. He compared filler words to big old pimples. No shit. He said they keep coming back, and no one wants them.
I exhale, and my shaky breath brushes the microphone. “It won’t be long now.”
Weak sauce. You can see it on everyone’s faces.
Several journalists roll their eyes and make no effort to hide how pissed off they are, having expected a lot more, a real highlight.
I should open my mouth and say something that knocks their socks off, makes them go DAY-AMN, but, well, surprise, that’s me.
I’m a disappointment, even for journalists.
Paxton casts me a glance. I nod, and he points to the next journalist. A woman this time, blond bob, cat-eye glasses with deep shadows underneath, totally overworked.
She looks like one of those people who wants a career at all costs, so she works when others work and works when others sleep, too.
She adjusts her glasses, sits up, and starts tapping her pencil against her notebook.
“According to rumors, your ex-girlfriend is back in Aspen. You’re said to have cheated on her. Is that true?”
For a moment I’m so stunned, I can’t answer. I mean, what the hell? Is she fucking with me? I start to open my lips to say just that when Paxon interrupts. He seems to be able to read my expression.
“Our players’ private lives aren’t what this press conference is about.”
An exaggerated smile appears on her lips. She clucks her tongue, strangely satisfied with my reaction. Her hand literally flies across the paper. It distracts me so much that I don’t catch Paxton pointing to yet another person.
“Is it true that the Snowdogs are thinking of sending Lopez back to the minors?”
As if. What a fucking question. I actually have to snicker and hold back a laugh.
I cast a glance at Caden, our right forward, to share it with him—Can you believe this asshole thinks I’m going to be sent back down, Caden?
—but he’s not laughing. He’s staring into the glass of water he’s clutching in his hands.
My glance wanders to Xander, but he’s messing with the buttons of his shirt and ignores me.
This is turning into the disaster of the century. Why the fuck are the guys on my team acting like this dude hit the mark?
And then it dawns on me. This guy must have gotten some kind of secret info that wasn’t supposed to come out today. And this info was something everyone else on the team must have been aware of. Everyone but me.
I look over at Carl, but he’s a chickenshit and won’t look at me.
He’s looking at the ceiling instead, thinking about how beautiful it is, I’m sure, so white and minimal, simply irresistible.
Coach Jefferson alone returns my glance.
And he looks exactly like how I feel. Devoured and puked up again.
He was my coach back in high school. Just for a few weeks, before I made it to the NHL.
It’s thanks to him that I got my spot. He’s the one who suggested me to the Snowdogs’ head, Zayne Callahan.
And now he’s looking at me all tortured and shit, like he really was sorry, like he would trade places with me if he could so I wouldn’t have to go through what I’m going through, but that’s bullshit.
People always say that, but it’s something they’d never do.
What they really mean is just, “Too bad Wyatt’s broken.” My arm, not my head. They have no idea my head is way more broken.
But me? I’d be sorry, really. I’d be sorry for me, for my sister, and for Mom and Dad, who are up there somewhere, floating over those cotton candy–like clouds and proud of the only thing they can be proud of as far as their son’s concerned.
I’d be sorry for my past, for my hope, that one percent of hope that’s held up because who knows why.
I’d be sorry for everything I ever believed in, everything I ever fought for.
And I’d be sorry for Aria, who always said that I’d make it all the way to the top and that she’d always believe in me.
But here, now, I’d destroy that last little bit of belief, whatever image she still had of me.
And then I’d be gone, right? There’d be nothing left at all of the Wyatt she once loved.
I can’t let that happen. I mean, if I did, then that’d be the end of the last little flame that’s still inside me.
And what would be left?
“No one’s trading me.” My reply is quick, anxiety and panic in every syllable; my lips even brush the mic and fill the room with a screech of feedback.
Everyone makes a collective face before—after an uncomfortable two seconds—they register what I’ve just said.
A few sit up, then a volley of voices rings out.
“Are you sure?”
“What makes you think so?”
“That’s not what we’ve heard.”
Panic.
Carl’s eyes are almost popping out of his head. Sure. Everything that’s being said here will show up somewhere or other. So if I say that the Snowdogs aren’t going to trade me, although that seems exactly to be the plan, that doesn’t make them look too good.
Only then does it really hit me.