Chapter 7 Colt
Colt
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Stella’s story all day. At morning conditioning, I skated like I was trying to catch the devil himself. I don’t even remember hearing Coach yell. I was functioning on autopilot.
In the gym, I put on my headphones and didn’t talk to anyone. With the rage and adrenaline I harnessed, I beat my bench PR by twenty pounds.
I didn’t go eat lunch with the guys. Beau and Booker each texted me to ask what was going on, but I ignored them.
If I had been there that night, in Georgia, even if I had never met Stella before, I still would’ve killed that Dylan prick for what he did. How did nobody see what was happening to her?
The joke I made about Beau last night, how he might not take her rejection very seriously, sits heavily in my stomach. Stella was trying to be brave and stay in a house with two guys she barely knew, and I dangled her worst fear right in her face.
It also makes perfect sense now why she got so upset when I told her about how everything went down with Summer. I considered my night with Summer a very severe lapse in judgment on my part. But Stella viewed the whole thing much more seriously.
And the car alarm, outside the bar; it’s no wonder she looked like she saw a ghost.
I go about the rest of my day in a trance. I don’t retain a word of my lectures.
In the locker room, suiting up for practice, my friends finally corner me.
“Okay, Crosby, what gives?” Beau asks, putting a hand on my chest to stop me from walking away. He only calls me by my last name when he’s fed up with me. He looks me in the eyes, searching for some sign on my face. When I don’t respond, he continues. “Is something wrong at home?”
Beau knows all about my life growing up. When we were younger, we used to pretend we could trade places. He wanted to ditch the prep schools and fancy dinners, and I wanted to be able to afford groceries.
I had a happy childhood. My parents loved each other.
I had friends, I had hockey. I didn’t know anything was wrong until I was a little older.
My mom had been sick for a very long time, and her chemo treatments were costing my parents a fortune.
I was nine when they told me she would only have a year left to live.
After she passed, it was just my dad and me. He worked religiously to be able to pay all the bills, the ones from the hospital visits, as well as the ones for the house. He somehow managed to keep me in hockey, I guess because he knew it was the one thing that made me smile.
Early into my freshman year at Saint Augustine, I got a call saying that my father had had a heart attack and had passed away. The only people I told were Beau and Coach. The rest of the team doesn’t know I’m an orphan.
I hadn’t handled the loss well. In fact, it took a lot for me to get to the place I am today. When Beau asks if things are “okay at home,” he’s asking, in code, if my depression is rearing its head.
I don’t have the urge-to-off-myself kind of depression.
When your whole family is dead, the thought of more death is rather sickening.
I have the kind of depression that makes me want to curl into a ball in my bed with the lights off for a month.
After my dad passed, it was really bad. I just kept wondering, what was the point of getting out of bed, of going to class, when everyone was going to die one day, anyway.
Nineteen-year-old me didn’t know how to process an existential crisis. Fortunately, with the help of Coach and Beau’s family, and a lot of coercing, I got some counseling and some medication, and I’ve been relatively fine for the last two years.
I shake my head, telling him no, that’s not the problem. I feel guilty for making him worry.
“It’s nothing. I’m fine. I just had a bad morning,” I tell Beau, Booker, and Drew, trying to get them to back off.
“Dude,” Drew starts, “I’ve never seen you look so pissed. At first, I thought Warren here really slept with your girl or some shit.”
I huff out a shaky laugh. I can always count on Andrew Mattingly to cut the tension.
“He couldn’t get with her even if he wanted to,” I reply. “Come on, let’s go before Coach decides to rip us a new one.”
Beau gives me one more wary look, but just nods and walks away.
The next few days pass by without so much as a peep from Stella. The longer her silence goes on, the antsier I become. Does she regret opening up to me about her past? Does she think I judged her for getting emotional?
I texted her after dropping her off that morning, telling her that I was glad she felt comfortable enough to open up to me and to reiterate that she can come to me any time she needs.
The next day, though she still hadn’t responded, I sent another text: a photo of Drew and Beau in my kitchen, fighting over the last of the cookies Drew had brought over from his grandmother.
In the picture, Beau is holding the cookie way above his head with one hand while he has Drew in a headlock with the other.
Drew looks furious as he’s reaching up and failing to grab the dessert from my roommate’s clutches.
I was sure the photo would gain me a response, but my attempt to lighten the heavy blanket of silence currently suffocating our newfound companionship remained ignored.
Then, at risk of looking desperate, I sent a third text asking if she wanted to work on our project any time this week.
After three failed attempts at making contact, I decided she must be more upset about the conversation we had in the truck than I originally believed.
Knowing all too well what it feels like to be lost in the darkness of your own head, I drive to her dorm, more worried about her than I care to admit.
The thought of running into Summer twists my insides ever so slightly, but not enough to deter me from checking up on Stella. Besides, it’s a Friday night, and I’m banking on the probability of Summer being out at a party somewhere by now.
A couple of swift raps of my knuckles against their dorm door has it opening to reveal an overabundance of blonde hair and cleavage. Great.
“Colt!” Summer exclaims, throwing her arms around my neck, bringing her chest way too close to my face for comfort.
“Uh—Hey, Summer,” I greet, awkwardly disentangling her body from mine. Before I can get too far away from her, she runs her manicured hands into my hair and plants her pink, glossy lips right on my mouth.
My eyes are probably the size of saucers as I rear back and gently—but forcefully—push her away.
“What are you doing?” I ask incredulously.
“I knew you’d come back,” she says as if she’s stating a well-known fact.
I scratch the back of my neck awkwardly. “Look, I actually did want to talk to you about something, but—”
Before I can explain that I’m actually here for Stella, Summer is backing into her dorm, pulling me in with her.
“I’m so sorry I never answered your text! You know how it goes, I read it and then got busy and just completely forgot.” She smiles up at me like I hung the moon solely for her enjoyment. “I don’t usually do repeat hookups, but I think we had something special, and I’m glad you reached out! I—”
Before she can continue her deluded ramble, I cut in. “No, Summer, that’s not why I texted. I don’t want to hook up again.”
Her mouth snaps shut, and her shoulders tense. “Oh.”
When she doesn’t say anything else, I explain, “I wanted to…to confirm that we were safe when we hooked up that night. I was pretty drunk and couldn’t remember if we used protection.
But I already got tested, so…” I trail off, waiting to see how she reacts to the fact that I don’t really remember our night together.
Summer brings a hand to her chest and laughs, her reaction catching me off guard. “Oh, that’s all? Well, yeah, we used a condom the first time, but you only had one in your wallet, so we didn’t have one for round two. I wasn’t worried about it, though.”
My vision goes hazy as I process her words. Didn’t use one for round two? This girl seriously thought it was okay to forego a condom without my consent? Who am I kidding? She wasn’t worried about consent.
Clenching my teeth, I ask in a stilted whisper, “Are you on birth control?”
“Psh, duh. I’m not stupid, Colt—”
“Really? Because I think fucking someone who’s blacked out drunk without a condom is pretty fucking stupid!” The anger bursts from my lips before I can hold my tongue.
Summer rears back, surprised by my anger. I’m not sure what she sees on my face, but whatever it is causes her lips to tremble and tears to well in her eyes.
“I—I’m sorry. I didn’t think about it like that. We were just having fun, Colt. You were having fun,” she explains pleadingly as a single tear escapes her lashes.
Shit. I’ve never yelled at a woman before, and I hate myself a little for losing my temper and making her cry. And she’s saying the exact same thing I told Stella: I did leave the bar wanting to have sex that night.
While I’m still extremely mad, I tamp down my anger and pat her upper arm in what I hope is a reassuring gesture. “Hey, look, don’t cry—” but she stops me from finishing my sentence again when she throws her arms around my abdomen and buries her face in my chest.
At that moment, as I’m about to push Summer Hayden off of me for the second time tonight, Stella walks in the front door.