Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
KELLAN
I’m a hockey machine. My skates are an extension of my feet. My stick is just a longer, wooden part of my arms. I’m anticipating the movement of the puck like I have a sixth sense, knowing where to skate milliseconds before I receive a pass.
I thought that things couldn’t get better than last night, when I scored a hat trick. I’m happy as hell to have been wrong. It’s our second game of the weekend, and with a period left to play, I’ve already scored another goal tonight.
Coop, Dutch, and I find one another’s eyes on the ice, and with a nod, we all start to skate toward the bench. We’ve been in sync all night, our substitutions like we’ve been playing together since junior leagues instead of connecting as a line last year.
Coop smashes his gloves down on my helmet before grabbing for a water bottle. “You are killin’ it. What the fuck has gotten into you this weekend?”
I can’t even begin to answer that question, so I shrug instead. “Team sport, bro. We’re all killin’ it out there tonight.”
Dutch points his stick at me. “Four goals in two games, dude. That’s Frozen Four playing right there.”
I squirt water on my face, trying to clean out a cut just above my eye before the refs notice it. “Just doing my part. It would be great to go all the way this year.”
We won the national championship my freshman year, though I wasn’t the starting line.
And we made it to the finals my sophomore year but lost out to our rivals, which was particularly brutal.
Seeing the color green still makes me want to vomit.
Then, last year was a “rebuilding” year, as Coach called it, with the loss of our entire starting line in the same graduating class.
This is our year, and I want it so badly that I can taste it. Or maybe it’s the iron-rich taste of blood from the cut inside my lip. I push against it, liking the sting. This is my last chance to make an impact. To be on the starting line of a national championship team.
A few days ago, I wondered how I was going to keep it all together. And now, I can’t imagine us not taking home the cup this year.
“You’re fast as fuck out there,” Coop says, his chest heaving.
I grin and clap him on the back. “You’re keeping up, young buck.”
We’ll be off the ice for less than three minutes before we sub back in, but I feel like I could skate circles for hours around anyone out there.
If I knew that all I needed to do was come so hard that it somehow rewired my brain, I’d have walked my ass into that dingy office way sooner. And even if I could never have anticipated how it happened, I can’t even pretend like I didn’t love every fucking second.
My life isn’t a series of easy wins or failing upward. Every single thing that’s ever come my way, it’s because I’ve put myself in front of it like a brick wall, refusing to budge until I make my mark.
And Wells? Well… for the first time I can remember, I’ve stumbled into something that’s knocked me on my ass in the best possible way.
Judging from how he coldly, almost angrily forced me out of his office afterward, it doesn’t seem like he feels the same.
But I’m trying not to think about it because that only gets me into trouble. Case in point, as I feel Dutch smack my chest, signaling it’s time to hit the ice again.
“Finally fading?” he asks me, a focused look in his eyes to check that we’re still in sync.
I smack my stick against the rubber flooring and shake my shoulders out. “Not a chance.”
By the time the game ends, I have my second goal of the night. My personal best in a single weekend. After an aggressive celebration in the locker room for our back-to-back wins and my scoring dominance, I shower, change, and then head out for the short walk back from the rink to my apartment.
It’s a cold October night, and I take a deep inhale, letting the air fill my nostrils and mouth before soaking into my lungs.
I feel good. Alive.
Dutch and Coop, along with most of the other players, are going straight to a house party, but my adrenaline has to wear off at some point, and I know I’m close to crashing.
In spite of how well I played, with the games behind me, my limbs move a little slower as I take the winding path that connects the arena and the apartments that house athletes.
My phone dings in my pocket.
Mom
Great game, baby! Me and your brothers are so proud of you!
I smile and hit the call button. Time to talk to my mom and brothers is few and far between these days.
“Kellan, you were so incredible tonight!” My mom says through the phone.
I re-adjust the bag slung across my body. “Thanks, Mom. I’m glad you guys could catch the game.”
“I just can’t believe that the school covers the cable bill for local sports channels so that we can watch you play.”
I forgot about that lie, but I roll with it. “Radford really takes care of us. I mean, personally though, I think you should get box seats for every home game.”
My mom laughs, and it shoots straight to my heart, making an already incredible night even better.
I love hearing that sound. Things have been tough for the last few months, but she seems to be getting some of her spirit back.
And I don’t care how many hours I have to work or if I need to break my back to make sure she’s taken care of, I will do everything to prove that life without Rick The Prick is far better than ever allowing him into our home again.
“And everything’s going okay with your work study program? I’ve wanted to ask, but I didn’t want to bother you with everything I’m sure you have going on.” She asks the question like it’s too good to be true.
And that’s because it is.
She thinks that Radford is allowing me to do a work study program that pays double what any other on-campus job pays.
I told her that it was essentially custom built for me, to make sure that I could continue to go to classes, play hockey, and get a little extra cash in my pocket.
Though, it doesn’t stay there for long. As soon as the funds hit my account, I direct deposit them to her for rent and to make sure that my brothers have anything they need.
Whenever I’m breaking up a fight at the bar or staring at the hundredth ID of the night, I think about them. About how this is all going to be worth it in the end.
I’m almost at my apartment door when I realize I haven’t answered her. “It’s going great. Honestly, I can’t believe they pay me for it.”
“They don’t want to lose you on the team, baby,” she says with the unconditional belief that only a mother can manage to have.
Good things haven’t happened to my mom in life, either. She was pregnant with me by seventeen, a single mother by eighteen. And with no family support, it was just the two of us for a long time–until Rick came along.
And you know that story. It was good, until it wasn’t.
The lie slices at me, but I shrug it off. I made the decision months ago that I would do anything for my family, and a little guilt isn’t going to change that.
I swipe my keycard at the lock–state-of-the-art updates that are slowly being rolled out to the rest of campus housing, though we’ve had it for three years at this point. “I just got home, Mom.”
She hums affectionately. “Well, I’m sure you’re exhausted, sweetie. Sammy and Joey wanted me to tell you how proud they are.”
“They’re staring at you right now, aren’t they?” I can see them perfectly, big eyes and messy hair, their cheeks flushed with excitement from watching the game.
She laughs. “They sure are.”
“Well, give them both a bear hug for me. Make sure they give you one back from me, too.”
“I will, kiddo. Have a good night.” I hear the tiredness in her voice then, remembering that she’ll be up tomorrow for the early shift at the restaurant.
“Love you, Mom. Good luck getting the gremlins to sleep.”
“You too, baby. You too.”
I enter my apartment and trudge up the townhouse steps to my bedroom, the last one on the right. I haven’t had much time to make it comfortable, given that the only real time I spend here is when I’m sleeping.
A few Radford pennants adorn the walls, along with photos of my mom and brothers over the years. It wasn’t hard to find ones that didn’t include Rick, since he wasn’t big on spending family time together.
But still, I love this room. Coming to college was the first time in my life that I had my own bedroom. Before Rick came into our lives, my mom and I lived in a one bedroom apartment, where I slept on the fold-out sofa in the living room.
When she and Rick got together, at first, I loved that he wanted to take care of my mom, to make her feel safe. I thought we were going to be a family.
And yet again, in typical Rick fashion, it was all good–until it wasn’t.
After my mom got pregnant with Joey, we moved into a two-bedroom apartment a few blocks over. It didn’t start getting too cramped until Sammy came along a year later. Irish twins–both with a set of lungs on them that they seemed to love to rile one another up with.
Now, they couldn’t be more different. But those first couple of years, it was like living with actual twins.
They even had that secret twin language that only they could understand.
Imagine being woken up at two in the morning by baby gibberish that had them both breaking out into peels of laughter.
It was adorable and infuriating, in equal measures.
I throw myself down on my bed, smiling in spite of the exhaustion that’s wrapped itself around me like a blanket. It’s no wonder I can sleep like the dead almost anywhere.
Before I pass out for the night, I make a mental note to go see them soon.
Maybe tomorrow, after my mom’s shift at the diner is over.
The boys will be good and sugared up from their morning with Mrs. Madsen, our elderly neighbor, so my mom would probably appreciate someone running them ragged for a few hours.
I strip down to my briefs without getting up, contorting my body and putting in far more effort than if I’d just stood up.
But I can’t.
The exhaustion has overcome me fully now.
In seconds, I’m in the liminal space between waking and sleeping. I see my mom and brothers, my teammates, and… I see Wells, floating through my mind.
I’ve never seen him on campus before, so I can’t imagine that we’ll run into one another again until Tuesday, for our first tutoring session since… whatever it is that we’re calling it.
I wonder what he has in store for me as I sink deeper into the mattress, warmth enveloping me fully.
Weirdly, I realize as my body lets go, I can’t wait to find out.