25. Zach #2
I don’t remember the handshake line. I don’t remember the locker room. The next thing I know I’m on the plane in the dark with my headphones on, three hours of post-game autopsy running on a loop inside my skull. The half-second where I wasn’t good enough. Where I’ll never be good enough.
Jack’s a few rows up, asleep against the window, and I keep catching myself looking at the back of his head and cataloging every kind thing he’s ever said to me and stacking it against what I’ve been doing with his daughter. Rodriguez drops into the seat across the aisle about an hour in.
“You’re doing the thing,” he says.
“I’m listening to music.”
He stretches out, taking up way more space than necessary. “I’ve known you for two years, Z. I know what your spiral face looks like. You get real still and your jaw does this clenching thing like you’re trying to crack your own teeth.”
I unclench my jaw. I hadn’t realized I was doing it.
“Here’s my take,” he says, and I can tell he’s been sitting on this since the buzzer.
“Being a goalie is bullshit. I mean that as a compliment. The rest of us can fuck up a pass or miss a shot and by next period nobody remembers. You let in one soft goal and it’s a headline.
You let in a breakaway and people act like you personally ruined their lives.
” He kicks my foot with his. “That’s not fair, and it doesn’t change the fact that you had a bad game.
Both of those things are true at the same time. ”
“Is this supposed to be helping?”
“Kind of, yeah. The point is—bad game. It happened. It’s over. Game 7’s at home, clean slate, you get another crack at it.”
“And if I blow that one too?”
“Then we lose, we go play golf, go tubing, we come back next year and try again.” He says it like it’s simple, like the stakes are manageable, like my entire career isn’t sitting on what happens in two days.
“But you won’t blow it. You’re too much of a stubborn asshole to blow it.
You’re going to white-knuckle your way through sixty minutes out of pure spite, and it’s going to be ugly, and we’re going to win anyway.
Get some sleep,” Rodriguez says, standing and stretching.
“And stop staring at Anderson, I promise if you thought Luca losing it was bad, you don’t want to see Jack blow a gasket.
He’s crazy. Fucking blink or stare at Brody, something. ”
He walks back to his seat and I pull my headphones on and turn toward the window and try to think about nothing, which has never once worked in my entire life but I keep attempting it like somehow the result will change.
I check my phone and see a string of texts from Mackie, sent during the third period.
Mackie
that wasn’t your fault
the defense hung you out to dry
I love you
I’m at your apartment
I made dinner
well I made dinner and then I ate most of it but there’s still some left for you
I’m gonna try to stay awake but no promises
just come here okay?
don’t go anywhere else
just come home
I read the last text three times. Just come home. Like my apartment is home now because she’s in it. Like the definition of the word rearranged itself around her without asking my permission.
Me
Just landed. On my way.
Mackie
good
I’m in your bed
hurry
I pocket my phone and grab my bag and I’m one of the first off the plane, walking fast enough that Rodriguez whistles from somewhere behind me. I ignore him because I can’t explain where I’m going or why I need to get there this badly without blowing everything apart.
The apartment is dark when I let myself in. She’s curled up on my side of the bed, like she always does when I’m not here. There’s an open bag of sour gummy worms on the nightstand. Her phone’s still in her hand, screen dark. She made dinner, ate most of it, and fell asleep waiting for me.
I lean against the doorframe and stand there watching her for a moment.
I don’t know what to do with that. I’ve never known what to do with that—the way she just shows up, like it’s decided, like I don’t have a say in whether or not someone takes care of me. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a say with her.
She stirs when I sit on the edge of the bed, her eyes fluttering open, unfocused and soft with sleep.
“Hey,” she mumbles, already reaching for me. “You’re home. Get in here.” She tugs at my arm, uncoordinated and barely awake. “You’re legally required to hold me now.”
“I need to shower, I’ve been traveling for—”
“No. Cuddles first. Shower later.” She tugs harder. “Girlfriend rules.”
I give up and let her pull me down, still in my travel clothes, and she immediately burrows into me, her face pressing against my chest, her arms wrapping around my waist. I press my face into her hair and breathe.
“I watched the whole game,” she says, muffled against my shirt. “You were good.”
“We lost.”
“Not because of you.” She tilts her head back to look at me, eyes clearer now. “The breakaway wasn’t your fault. You were already in a no-win situation. I watched it back like four times.”
“You watched the replay four times?”
“I wanted to be sure before I told you it wasn’t your fault.” She pokes me in the ribs. “I was right.”
“You always think you’re right.”
“Because I always am.” She shifts closer, tangling her legs with mine. “Game 7’s at home. You’re going to be amazing. And I’m going to be there losing my mind in the family section pretending I’m not completely obsessed with you.”
“Your dad’s going to be on the ice.”
“I know. I’ll be sneaky.”
“You’re never sneaky.”
“I am extremely sneaky. I’ve been sneaking into your apartment for months and nobody has any idea.” She yawns, huge and unashamed. “Take your pants off.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re wearing jeans in bed, Zach. It’s weird. Take them off and hold me properly.”
I laugh, but I strip off my jeans. She watches me with sleepy satisfaction, and when I get back under the covers she immediately plasters herself against me, her back to my chest, her cold feet finding my calves the way they always do, like she’s specifically targeting the warmest part of me.
“Go to sleep,” she says. “You need rest.”
“I don’t think I can.”
“Then just lie here with me and pretend. That’s almost as good.” She yawns again. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”
So I lie there in the dark with her breathing slowing against me and I think about the game, the goal, the read I got wrong, the half-second I’ll never get back.
And then I think about seven months ago.
Walking into Pucks & Pucks for the first time with Rodriguez and meeting a girl with red hair and knowing in that moment that nothing in my life would ever be the same.