Chapter 28
THEN: Freshman Year, October
Bennett
Paloma slept through the night with my hand holding hers.
The next day, I play my best game yet—a shutout.
I’m not na?ve, I know they’re related. I also know she watched it, sitting in the half-empty stands with my hoodie on.
No one would know. No one even noticed her.
But I did. Her soft smile of approval and excited cheering would be enough to sustain me forever.
I could live off the power of her peace alone.
My best friend racked up a hat trick even on the second line, though I know Coach Harris let him play more than usual tonight. Rhys’s always been a star, and I’ve always had a perfect front-row seat to watch him shine.
So it’s easy to smile as he taps his helmet to mine at the end of the line, yelling over the excitement of our teammates, “We did it, Ben! Let’s fucking go!”
I smack his back as he goes in for a hug, tapping his thigh with my stick. “All you, Rhys.”
The celebrations continue into the locker room, where Harris hands Rhys the coveted trophy—a length of rope made from championship nets.
He gives me a shoutout in his happy speech.
I can see even the older guys around him smiling, looking at him as if he’s already their captain.
Rhys covers the room with the shine of his goodness, his talent, his heart.
As happy as I am that we won, I’m more relieved that I didn’t cause us to lose. I feel less excitement, and more the feeling of my shoulders finally relaxing.
There is a part of me that will always appreciate hockey. I’m good at it. It comes easily to me, and my need for routines works well within its structure. I just don’t have the drive and want that the others do. I don’t love it.
But Rhys loves hockey. And I love him.
Coach Harris grabs my shoulder as I amble onto the bus.
“Rhys told me about your usual routines, and—I’m sorry, Reiner,” he says.
It doesn’t surprise me. Rhys has always been an advocate for me, always understood. It was Anna who’d explained it all to him for me when we were both young. He’s never faltered. I can always rely on him.
“I’ll make sure you and Koteskiy room together next game.” He huffs lightly before dropping his voice. “Anything you need, you can ask me, you know? I want you to succeed. As long as it’s within my power, I will do whatever it is you need to get there. You know that?”
“I do,” I say, swallowing the lump in my throat. He sounds too much like my dad. Enough that the second I’m settled onto the bus, I shoot him a text.
BENNETT
Lunch tomorrow?
DAD
Everything okay? Want me to call you?
BENNETT
Fine. No. Just need to talk.
It takes a long time, the bubbles indicating that my dad is typing. Then stopping. Then typing again, over and over. Before finally—
DAD
All right. Tomorrow at home. You can cook.
A smile takes over my face. I agree quickly before trying and failing to nap for the rest of the ride home.
· · ·
Paloma’s hair glints almost a bright blond in the parking lot lights outside the back entrance of the Waterfell arena. She’s lugging a few of the equipment bags alongside the guy she usually works with—I’ve forgotten his name, but I know she doesn’t like him.
Which must be the reason I follow behind them with my own bag, rather than sneaking it home to clean myself.
It’s only the two of them sorting through it all, quiet until the smarmy-looking guy runs his eyes over Paloma where she’s bent over one of the bags.
“Jesus, Blake.” He laughs, crossing his arms and stepping too close. “I swear I’ve never seen someone with a better—”
I clear my throat, stepping in and shoving his body away from her with my own. My hand settles against Paloma’s lower back slowly, but it still makes her jump.
“Just me, P,” I say, trying to calm her. She straightens, eyes settling on mine over her shoulder as she stumbles slowly into my body. I hold her to me as my eyes lock back on him. She’s still tense, but she stays in my arms.
“Hey, Bennett,” she whispers.
“I’ll stay with you until you finish up, okay?”
Her eyes are wide, happy and glistening just slightly as she nods.
“Yeah. Um, hey, Jeremy?” She turns back to him. “I can finish up here with Bennett if you wanna go.”
“But I’m supposed to—”
“I’ve got it.” My voice is all Adam Reiner, no room for argument. He leaves with little complaint after that.
Paloma steps from me almost instantly and my body mourns the loss of her. She tosses her hair over her shoulders and directs her eyes down toward her feet with a furrowed brow.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
My throat tightens, but I stay firm. “I know.”
“Really.” She crosses her arms. “I don’t need you to just”—Paloma gestures vaguely around—“constantly swoop in. I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can.” I do know that. But the feeling of her relaxed and pliant in my arms last night still haunts me. Thrills me. I can feel the obsession creeping in, no chance to stop it or even quell it now.
In the quiet, Paloma steps away from me and continues to work. I take my bag off and start on my own things.
“Why do you . . .” Paloma begins, biting her lip before looking away from me. “I’m not judging. I was just wondering: Why do you like them cleaned and sorted a certain way?”
I know she’s not judging me, because she’s never asked why before. She’s always just done it the way I asked her to, because she knows it makes me feel better. More comfortable.
“It’s . . . I just have to have them that way. It’s—”
“Like . . . OCD?” she asks, but keeps her eyes pointed ahead. My throat closes up as heat dampens the back of my neck. I’m not surprised she’s picked up on it in some way. People use the term so loosely now.
“Yes.” It’s quiet for a long moment. “But not like . . . it’s not like how people think.”
Paloma looks at me then. “I wasn’t thinking anything, Bennett. Do you want to tell me about it?”
No. I don’t. But her eyes are so open, her posture relaxed. The call of her is impossible to ignore. “It’s not about being clean. I don’t wash my hands eight times or keep locking and unlocking my door. It’s . . . there’s a certain order. I need things to just be a certain way.”
“Like your pads?”
I nod.
“And . . . the touch thing?” She bites her lip and glances away from me, arms crossing over her stomach. “I’m sorry if it’s invasive. I just . . . after last night. I don’t want to push or make things more difficult.”
My stomach sours. “No. That’s— I’m . . . that’s different.” I shake my head and look at the wall, pointedly away from her. “I’m autistic. I mean, when I was diagnosed it was still called Asperger’s, but . . . yeah. I just . . . it’s not a big deal and I’m not, like, different or anything.”
I’m defensive and frustrated, and I hate it.
I drop my chin toward my chest with a heavy breath. “Well. I am, I mean. But you already know that.”
“Something’s wrong with me.”
“No,” my dad says, leaning down. He settles on his knees, arms enclosing the armrests of my chair like a wall. “Bennett, nothing is wrong with you.”
“Mom is upset.” My eyes try to bounce over his shoulder toward where I can hear her still, crying as quietly as she can. It feels like knives slicing my skin. I jerk my hands up and over my ears again.
Dad slowly raises his own hands, reaching for mine and pulling them away.
“Focus on me. This is important.” Holding my palms in a tight grip, he speaks a little louder. “You are perfect. Nothing is wrong with you. You just need things done differently, okay? And you and me—we’re gonna figure this out. Okay?”
“Okay.”
I clear my throat, still avoiding looking at her. Embarrassment and shame mix like a sickness in my body. “So sometimes things can be difficult for me. Seven is supposed to help me calm down and . . . other stuff.”
“Does he help?” she asks, her voice loud enough that I know she’s looking at me even if I won’t look at her.
“Sometimes.”
“And . . . are there things I could do? That would help?”
The question is soft, and it melts over my skin like a caress. Like her damp, smooth hair over my fingers. The catch in my throat is new, like I’ve swallowed a rock and can’t speak around it, let alone breathe.
I turn toward her.
Paloma watches me all the time. I’ve grown used to the feeling of her eyes on me, surprised by the warmth and comfort her gaze brings. It still doesn’t prepare me for the punch to the gut that is her warm brown eyes filled to the brim with concern and care for me.
“You do most things right.”
My answer seems to irritate her. “Can you just tell me? How am I supposed to know if I’m doing something wrong unless you tell me?”
“I like to know when you’re going to touch me,” I rush to say. We’ve already talked about this, but it feels like a safe place to start. “And I don’t . . . It’s not always easy for me to read your expression. You might have to tell me how you’re feeling, I won’t always be able to guess.”
“Okay. I can do that. What else?”
“Crowds. Loud noises.”
“But hockey—?”
“That one isn’t hard for me. Maybe because it’s how I grew up, so I’m used to it. Or because I have something else I’m hyper-focused on while I’m playing.”
She nods as if that complexity makes perfect sense to her.
“Um . . . Sarcasm can be hard for me, too.”
Poetry is easy. Recognizing idioms, figurative language, things that aren’t literal.
Talking to people, conversation—that’s the harder piece.
I don’t always pick up on it, especially if the conversation is moving too fast. Locker room talk, hockey slang, they’re all things I had to meticulously practice to understand.
And even then, I never participate. Only listen.
“Anything else?”
I get a mental image of me at sixteen having a meltdown in my parent’s kitchen, eyes blinking open, body sore as I realize I’ve blacked out.
My mom’s tear-soaked face and distant body language.
My dad’s arms tight around my body, holding me to his chest with his red-rimmed blue eyes.
I can’t remember what it was about, but I remember the effects.
But even the thought of telling Paloma that I might have a meltdown over something, explaining the way I’m careful with my own emotions to prevent it—it makes that overly hot, sick feeling rise again.
“No,” I say, tone even. Quiet.
She nods before turning back to the laundry. As if nothing has changed. As if everything is normal.
Maybe, with her, it could be.