5. Christopher
Iturn in to the parking garage, taking off my pass before scanning it, and the white barriers go up as the black garage door slowly opens. Moving down the slated underground parking garage, I make my way over to my parking spot.
I toss the pass on the passenger seat before I turn the truck off. I grab my keys and phone, then step out. As I look around, the garage is half empty, but my eyes automatically go to Benji’s spot behind mine. It sits empty, though the nameplate on the concrete wall with his name and number is still mounted there. I exhale the deep breath I didn’t know I was holding before turning and walking toward the silver door.
Stepping into the arena, I hear people talking and look into the offices that have their doors open. “Hey,” I say to a couple of the office staff.
It’s been my home for the past eleven years. Drafted second overall when I was eighteen, I thought I was the king of the world. Until I realized we were a club that was on a rebuild. Not going to lie, it fucking sucked in the beginning. We sucked. Period. We finished at the bottom of the standings every year for three years straight. It was all the new up-and-coming kids. The few veterans didn’t give a shit about anything since they had a contract and were going to retire. We were a bunch of rookies who looked amazing on paper, but when put together, we each wanted to be the hero. It took a while to see that in order for one of us to be the hero of the game, we had to play like a team.
The pictures lining the hallway toward the locker room show the last seven years of learning how you find success working as a team. Pictures of different game moments through the years. My eyes almost want to avoid the picture of Benji and me during our rookie year. It’s the night we both got our names on the score sheet. Me for my first goal, and Benji for the assist on the goal. I stop in the hallway as if I just walked into a wall. My eyes are on the picture; both of us have the same picture in our house. But this one is blown up to the size of the whole wall.
It”s me about four feet off the ice, jumping to celebrate the goal with Benji skating to me. You can barely see my face, and all you see of Benji is his back. But that moment is a moment we’ll never forget. It’s when Benji and I bonded. We were line mates and roommates. We shared an apartment and even hotel rooms until we could get our own.
“How are you doing?” someone says, and I look over at Cole who walks toward me. He’s wearing the same thing I’m wearing. Black gym shorts with the matching T-shirt. Only difference is I have my baseball hat on—backward of course.
“I’m good.” I lie to him because what the fuck can I say to him. “You?”
“I’m still in fucking shock,” he admits, looking at the picture. “Fucking asshole.” He shakes his head. Looking down, he slaps my shoulder, then moves on to the locker room.
“Yeah,” I whisper, putting my head down and following him toward our locker room.
When I walk into the locker room, the black carpet looks freshly washed, the team logo of a factory, buildings with a bridge over it in the middle in white, black, and gold. The same logo on the ceiling lights up. “Hey.” I look around the room and see a couple of the rookies already here. The wooden bench sits in a half circle around the room. Each cubby has our jersey hanging there, with our name in gold on the shelf on top with our number. Another shelf on top of that has our helmet with our number on it, and then above that is a picture of us. Four words go around the top of all the pictures—accountability, passion, one goal.
“Yo,” a couple of them call to me as I make my way over to my stall.
I place my phone and keys on the top next to my gloves. “I can’t believe summer is over already,” Andreas, our goalie, whines. “It was gone in a blink of an eye.”
“Did you go home?” Connor, a defenseman, asks. Andreas came from Sweden and was drafted a little over five years ago.
“For a bit,” he says, “then came back.” He looks over at me and then looks down. The whole team came back for the funeral. There wasn’t one player, one coach, one member of the team who wasn’t there for the funeral.
I sit here almost like I’m not here, which is the weirdest thing I’ve ever done. Usually, I’d be in here, undressed and ready to hit the ice in fifteen minutes. A couple of minutes of chitchatting but my ass would be on the ice. But now it’s like I am stuck to this seat and have no motivation to get the fuck up.
It’s been over a month since Benji died. Thirty-seven days, to be exact. Thirty-fucking-seven days I’ve been in this daze. Thirty-seven fucking days of nothing but questions that can’t be answered. “You going to work out before getting on the ice?” Cole asks as he shakes his pre-workout drink in a plastic bottle.
“Might get on the bike.” I tap the bench under me. “Maybe hit the weights.” He stands there like he’s waiting for me. “I’ll meet you there.”
It takes me about five minutes to move my ass, take off my baseball hat, run my hands through my hair—which is longer than I usually keep it—before I walk over to the gym. I train with Cole, side by side. Neither of us says anything, and instead, we get lost in our own thoughts. I wonder if he is thinking that it feels fucking weird without Benji here working out with us. I wonder if he’s thinking we should have fucking done something. I wonder if he’s thinking maybe I could have changed it.
The only time I shut off my brain is when we are on the ice. It was instilled in me when I was a kid that whatever happens out there, happens out there. When you get on the ice, you focus on the game. Focus on helping everyone around you. Focus on the play. I’m one of the last ones on the ice after Andreas, who was working with the goalie coach in the corner.
Practically no one is left here once I get out of the shower. I get dressed, sliding my hat back on my head before picking up my phone and keys. I walk out with my head down, avoiding the picture on the wall.
The tightness in my chest starts as soon as I sit in the truck and back out, looking over to his spot. I’m driving out of the parking garage when my phone rings. Looking at the center console screen, I see Dad calling.
Reaching over, I press the green button. “Hey,” I say once it’s connected.
“Hey yourself.” He chuckles. “What’s up?”
“Not much, just left first day of practice,” I tell him even though I know he knows because we spoke last night before I went to bed. After the funeral, it took a week for everyone to stop watching me. It took Stone two weeks to get back to his life, and he only left because Ryleigh had to get back to work. It took three weeks for my father to leave, begrudgingly, because he had to attend his hockey camp for underprivileged players. Even though he said I wasn’t going, I got on the plane with him. I stayed at home for a couple of weeks and then came back alone.
“How was that?” he asks softly.
“Fucking horrible,” I admit. “They still have Benji’s parking spot and locker.”
“And you’re pissed about this?” I don’t know if he’s asking me a question. “How pissed would you be if you got there and his stuff was cleaned out?” Now I know he’s asking me the question, and the minute I think about it, my throat almost closes up. When I don’t say anything for a full minute, he continues, “That’s what I thought. What about Koda? Have you spoken to her?”
The minute he mentions her name, my hands grip the steering wheel so hard I feel like if I wasn’t driving, I would be able to break it off. The last time I spoke to her, she cried in my fucking arms, her tears soaked into two layers of clothing to penetrate my skin, telling me how bad it really fucking was. If Benji was alive, there is no doubt in my mind I would have beat the shit out of him. I would have hit him over and over until my knuckles broke. That is how furious I was at him. I carried her up to her bed, tucked her in, and walked out of her house, where my family carried me home. “Nope,” I say, my tone angry.
“Did you call her?” he asks, making the irritation now come out.
“Every day,” I reply. “She hasn’t answered one of my phone calls.”
“Have you tried to text her?” His voice is soft. “Sometimes it’s easier to talk to someone when you don’t have to talk.” He sighs. “If that makes sense.”
“I have not tried to text her. I figured if she needed me, she would have called. Considering I left her twenty-five voicemails.” Did I call her every single day since he died? Yes. Did I leave a message every single time? No, I stopped after the first twenty-five. I was sure she blocked me on her phone anyway since it went straight to voicemail.
“Have you thought about what I said?”
I try to chuckle. “I don’t know, Dad. You’ve said a lot of things.”
“About you talking to someone.” His voice goes really low as I pull into my driveway, hitting the button to open the garage door and driving in.
“There is no need,” I huff. “I’m fine.”
“Well, I don’t think you’re fine,” he snaps. “In fact, I know you’re not fine. So you have two choices.” Suddenly, I feel like I’m back in high school, and I’m about to get punished for something. “You can either call your uncle Viktor.” He mentions my uncle who is a recovering addict. He’s been sober and clean for over thirty years and makes no secret about it. “Or I call him, and he pays you a visit.”
“Pays me a visit?” I try to joke about it. “You’ve been hanging around too much with Uncle Matthew if you are starting to talk to me like you know people who can pay me a visit.” Even that joke makes him laugh.
“I actually do know people.” His laughter is loud now. “And one of those is your uncle. So you decide, Christopher, what is it going to be?”
“Fine.” I sigh. “I’ll call him.”
“Good. I’ll let you go so you can get on with it.” I’m about to hang up on him. “Oh, and if you think you said that just so I would get off your back, you’re wrong. I’m also going to call him.” I don’t have a chance to hang up on him because he hangs up on me.
“Fuck,” I grumble, getting out of my truck with my phone in my hand and jogging up the five stairs in the garage that lead to the mudroom. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
I walk into the kitchen and head straight to my living room. The room with the ninety-eight-inch television mounted on the bare white wall where I spend most of my time.
I know I have to call my uncle, but before I call him, I pull up Koda’s text thread.
Me: Hey, just checking to make sure everything is okay with the girls and to see if you guys need anything.
I hit send as I fall into the couch before I pull up my uncle’s name and then press the phone button. “Please don’t answer,” I mumble, as I move my leg up and down with nerves. “Please don’t answer.”
“Well, look who it is,” my uncle Viktor says instead of saying hello. “Was wondering when I was going to hear from you.”
“My father thinks I should talk to you.” I don’t beat around the bush because in a family like ours, he’s probably already spoken to my father.
“So you don’t think you should talk to me, but your father does.” His voice is rich and warm. “How are you doing?”
“Fine,” I cut out right away.
“I don’t know how you can be fine.” His words shock me. “You lost one of your best friends unexpectedly.” My stomach sinks. “I don’t know about you, but I would not be fine.” He doesn’t give me a chance to say anything. “Fuck, I would be beside myself with grief.”
“What difference does it make?” I put my head back on the couch and slouch down, looking at the white ceiling. “What fucking difference does it matter if I am beside myself with grief? Who the fuck cares? I’m not the one people need to be worrying about. People should be worrying about his wife and his two girls.” My voice goes higher and higher. “That’s who people should be worried about.”
“People should most definitely be worried about them. But people should also be worried about those who loved him.” I close my eyes. “Just because you think people should be worrying about Koda and the girls doesn’t mean we shouldn’t worry about you, Christopher.” He says my name softly, and a tear escapes from the corner of my eye, rolling down to my hair. “You have every right not to be fine. You have a right to be sad or even angry.”
“Oh, I’m fucking pissed,” I admit. “As much as I love him, Uncle Viktor, I fucking hate him.” The minute I say the words, guilt washes over me.
“What do you hate him for?”
“For being stupid. For fucking doing the shit he was doing.”
“Did you know he was an addict?”
“Yes and no,” I answer honestly. “I knew he was on something. Knew it in my gut, saw some signs, but that he would have overdosed? Fuck no. Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would get there.”
“As someone who has come back from an overdose,” he says, his voice never changing, “I can say it’s nothing that is done on purpose.”
“God,” I mutter, the tears now coming out like a dripping faucet, “why couldn’t I fucking stop him?” My voice cracks. “Why the fuck didn’t I have a chance to stop him?”
“Guilt,” my uncle says. “Guilt is worse than living with sadness and anger. You see, guilt will eat away at you. Guilt will take over your whole life, and you won’t even fucking know the most important thing.”
“And what is that?”
“That you’re the one still alive. That it didn’t matter what you said, what I said, what his wife would have said to him. The ball was in Benji’s court and no one else’s.” Neither of us says anything as my eyes get heavy. “Now, I’m going to call your father and tell him I spoke to you. But I’m also not going to lie to him. You need to speak to someone, son,” he suggests softly. “Someone who has the tools you need to cope with it.” I still don’t say anything. “I want you to call me tomorrow.” I’m about to say something. “If you don’t, I’m calling your uncles Matthew and Max, along with Grandpa and your father, and we will start the phone chain.” I smile because my family can be a lot of things and can be a lot to handle, but the one thing they do is show up when you need them.
“Fine, I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“I love you, Christopher,” he says, the tears starting over again, “like you’re my son.” He doesn’t have to say it. None of them have to say it because we know. “And I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks, Uncle Viktor.” My voice is a whisper. “Give Auntie Zoe a kiss for me.”
“Will do,” he assures me, and I hang up the phone, placing it on my stomach. I lie here, looking up at the ceiling as the room gets darker. Only when it’s pitch black does my phone beep on my stomach.
Picking it up, I see it’s a text from Koda. My hand fumbles to unlock it, hoping she’s about to give me something, anything. But there in the middle of the screen is her answer, and just like that I’m cut off at the knees again. One word and one word only.
Koda: No.