Chapter 13 Maybe Your Laugh, Maybe Your Smile—Whatever It Was, It Made Me Fall Pretty Damn Hard #2
“No idea,” I respond curtly.
He drops onto the bench and begins kneading his thighs. “Right. That was your ex, man.”
I don’t say anything. While Caden keeps on casting me glances, Owen just keeps on respectfully playing with his puck.
Xander comes over and leans against my locker. “Tell us. Are we a team, or what? What was up between you two?” Xander asks. “She hook up with someone else at some point, or…”
“SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH!”
Xander retreats, but, as all that’s behind him is the wall, he runs into it with his back and flinches when I grab his jersey with my good hand. “Shut your fucking mouth, Xander, or I swear I’m going to fuck you up.”
He raises his arms right as Samuel appears next to me and puts a hand on my bad shoulder. And pushes. Hard. I let out a tortured sound. He immediately lets go but keeps his eyes fixed on me. “Sorry. But let it go, Lopez. He got the picture.”
“Yeah, sorry, man,” Xander says as I let go of him, snorting. “I didn’t know it was so close to you.”
You have no idea.
“Just don’t ever mention her name again.” My eyes sweep the whole locker room, taking in every single one of my teammates. “Any one of you.”
All of them nod and mumble something like “Of course,” “No worries,” and “Okay,” and I really pray that they stick to it.
Aria’s scent is still in my nose, and I think I’m about to freak out because she’s just outside the door, just a few feet away, and I can smell her, just like in the past, and shit, I’m not going to lie, that just screws me up, that just really screws me up.
Suddenly Coach Jefferson comes into the room.
He claps his hands once and then leans his shoulder against the iron struts of the locker benches.
“Listen up, guys. The ganging-up stuff was good, but there were a couple of things that bothered me. Xander, whenever Wyatt moves to go through the middle, you look overwhelmed. Why?”
Xander shrugs and avoids my glance. He’s pissed. “No idea.”
“You feel comfortable on the boards because you know how to box in your opponent and get the puck away from him. That’s cool. But I get the impression that if you have to cut him off in the open lane, you have no idea how. You let him through every time.”
“I’m not as quick,” Xander mumbles.
Caden shakes his head. “It’s got nothing to do with speed, man. You can’t let him pass you in the first place. If he comes through the middle, cut him off. If he tries to pass you, maneuver and get ahead of him.”
Owen laughs. “My mom runs a dance school, Xan. If you ask her real nicely, she’ll show you some smooth left-right moves.”
Xander pulls one of his shoes out of his locker and throws it at Owen’s head. He rubs his forehead. Samuel bursts out laughing.
Jefferson snaps in my direction. “Wyatt, your puck handling was flawless. But keep an eye on the ice as a whole. I get the feeling all you play is what’s in front of you, and everything beyond that is a surprise.”
I lean back on the bench and raise a leg. “Could be. But I manage with the game situation all the same, Jeff.”
Samuel beats Jefferson to the punch. “Of course. Otherwise you wouldn’t be in the NHL. But sooner or later there’s going to be a game where, thanks to you not paying attention to the formation of our rivals, we lose.”
Paxton nods. “We know you’re good, Lopez, but don’t get complacent. Play with foresight, got it?”
“Yeah, I get it.”
“Okay, good.” Jefferson glances at his watch and waves us along.
“It’s time. We’re about to change distribution.
Wyatt, you’re going to go with Owen to the center.
Xander, Caden, Paxton, and Gray on defense.
” His eyes meet every player in the room.
“Wy and Owen, bring the puck into the other third of the ice and pass.” He looks around the substitutes, pausing on the faces that he’s most likely to send out on the ice.
“Pass to Lewis, Sanders, Trevor, or Blewitt.”
We leave the changing room and walk down the corridor until we reach the players’ entrance.
The flashes of the bloggers and reporters who need our pictures for their next articles light up.
My gaze automatically slides to the right.
Aria and Harper are still there. Harper keeps poking my ex in the side and stretching her neck to look at Paxton, while Aria just stares out at the ice, her arms crossed.
I want to put my lips on those goose-pimply arms of hers, kiss her warmly inch by inch, and feel her tremble, not with cold, but with love, before wrapping my arms around her body and holding her close so that I can feel her heartbeat and know what happiness means again. Her heart is happiness. That’s it.
I don’t do anything of the kind. Instead, I press my teeth together and ignore the sharp pain that’s been spreading through my arm since we started warming up, attempting to paralyze it. But I’ve got to get through this. I can’t afford to get booted. Literally.
I glide behind Samuel onto the ice and take up my position next to Owen on the left side of the reduced playing field. Owen looks at me and wags his fingers to suggest a route.
I shake my head and draw imaginary lines in the air. “We’ll get through better this way!” I call out.
Owen nods and gives me a thumbs-up. The players set up in front of us, ready to check us and take the puck away, and then Coach Jefferson blows his whistle.
Owen skates halfway up the center line. He waits for Blewitt to attack and thrust his stick forward, then shoots the puck skillfully past him and through his legs to me.
It’s a quick shot, a little too diagonal.
At first I think I can’t get it, impossible, but I’m fast, I’m agile, and I’m a hell of a hockey player.
With a deft right turn, I put my stick out and take the puck, but just as I’m about to reposition myself and push forward, I feel a sharp pain followed by a smash.
Seconds pass, maybe hours; no idea. I feel dizzy, but then I blink, and then once again, three more times, and only now does it dawn on me that the bright neon lights of the rink are making it impossible to see.
I’m on my back. But it’s not that bad. What’s bad is the sharp, all-enveloping pain that’s wandering up my arm to my shoulder and streaming into my head.
If it was only the pain, I’d say, Fuck it, but, no, I’m starting to panic.
What’s going to happen now? I wonder every second, just like I always do when I feel this kind of pain.
When the physiotherapist wants to work on me, I tuck in my proverbial tail like a dog out of the fear of having to experience what I want to forget forever.
That’s how memories go; they show up anytime, anywhere, especially at those moments you’re least expecting them, and that’s when they start tearing and scratching and pulling you apart until nothing’s left.
The neon light turns into dazzling dots. I start to see black. All the sounds around me begin to fade, replaced by screams, by rattling, by a loud bang.
There’s blood. Nausea. Hate. I hate myself so much because things are the way they are, and yet I should hate myself even more than I do.
Something is digging into my chest. A boring pain. Memory itself, maybe. Or maybe it’s wolves digging their claws into my skin. It sure feels that way. Who knows?
Someone’s pushing my hip. I have no idea in what reality it’s happening, until Owen’s voice makes its way through.
“Wyatt, hey, Wyatt, come on, man, everything’s cool. Everything’s cool. Can you hear me?”
The darkness disappears. Gold dots saturate the black until my head begins to perceive the blurry image of the present. The whole team is standing around me and looking down in concern, led by Coach Jefferson.
Great.
The audience is looking down from the stands. Flashes. The clicking of cameras echoing off the high walls.
And then there’s Aria. Her green eyes boring into mine. I realize that I’m in shock and that I’m afraid, but I also feel unstable and suspicious. Her fingers are digging into Harper’s upper arm as if they were looking for some kind of support.
I’m only starting to register what just happened. Xander’s elbow managed to tag me during a check. In my bad arm. I fell. Then…the flashback.
Que merda!
I scramble to my feet, push Owen to the side, and make my way past Paxton and Samuel, enduring the reporters clicking away with their cameras—click, click, click—so that they can show the world how shitty I’m doing at my worst moment and the public can lick it up.
I elbow open the doors to the players’ area and make my way down the tunnel, without looking at anyone.
I disappear into the locker room, tear my helmet off, followed by my jersey and pads. I pull my Aspen Snowdogs hoodie over my head, grab my bag, and walk out.
I’m almost in the lobby when I suddenly hear someone calling out my name. “Wyatt!” Everything in me freezes because nothing, and I mean nothing, would have given me the hope of ever being approached by her again.
I turn. Aria is standing there looking at me, rubbing one hand up and down her naked upper arm. She looks like she regrets being here. But here we are. An ocean of feelings between us, each on their respective side and no bridge in sight.
Shit sandwich, right? What can you do?
Nothing.
You just stare at each other and hope that a bridge will appear. But of course nothing like that will ever happen. Whatever bridges there were collapsed years ago.
Aria digs her nails into her arm. There are dark-red half-moons on white skin.
“I hate what you did to me,” she says. “I hate that it cuts into my heart every time, every second that I think of you. I mean, fuck you, Wyatt, really, fuck you for making me think of you fucking her every day, making me think of how I was sitting at home baking a vanilla cake even though I can’t bake while she had your fucking dick in her mouth, and, yeah, the fact that I’m standing here is ill, simply ill, and I hate myself for it.
I hate myself so fucking much for the fact that my feelings are so obviously disturbed, that I’m so clearly disturbed.
But I have to do what I’m doing right now because I know that, if I don’t, I’m going to die inside, and that would just make everything worse…
” She catches her breath. “Are you okay, Wyatt? Is…everything okay?”
High hopes, I think. This here, her green eyes, her blotchy face, the longing she’s hiding behind her rage, the sparkle in her eyes as they dart across my upper body, her tongue slowly and unconsciously moistening her lower lip—all of this belongs to my high hopes.
Somewhere there’s hope. Deep down inside me.
If I go looking for it, maybe I’ll find it.
Fuck the bridge. I’m going swimming. My footsteps echo off the walls.
“What are you doing?” she asks, softly, barely a whisper, as I come closer. “Wyatt, what are you doing? Don’t come over here. Don’t come over here, I’m serious. Just tell me if…”
I put my hands to her face and kiss her. Our lips touch, intensely, warmly, and longingly, as if they’d gotten lost and given a bit of their soul away every day in order to find themselves again.
These are her lips, I think. Soft, heart-like, just for me. She’s the one I love, and she always will be. It doesn’t matter if she moves on; it doesn’t matter if she decides she wants me again. None of that matters. She’ll remain my number one, forever and always.
Aria returns the kiss, and that’s dynamite for my brain; everything explodes. All I see are colors, pure light, and there it is, that thing we call love.
Our caresses aren’t gentle. This isn’t a gentle encounter, but the satisfying of a desire, the downing of a drink after years of thirst, a free fall into a time that’s long since passed, and because we know this, we do everything we can to avoid the ground.
But it’s there. Right beneath us. Aria knows it. She was always the one who couldn’t ignore the obvious. Her palms touch my chest as she pushes me away and denies our lips what they have been begging for forever.
Aria struggles to catch her breath, but she doesn’t say anything. She just stares at me. And suddenly I can’t stand her standing there, in her thin top, goosebumps across her arms.
I pull off my hoodie and pull it down over her head. Confused, she slips into its sleeves, which are far too large for her tiny arms. She disappears into my sweatshirt, and the beauty of the moment takes my breath away.
“I’m good, Aria,” I mumble. “Everything’s okay as long as you’re here.”
Before she can say anything, I turn and go, her face still in my head, those green eyes. And all I can think is that the feeling in my chest, this warmth when I feel her lips on mine, is poetry.
That’s it.