32. Everybody Is A Little Broken
EVERYBODY IS A LITTLE brOKEN
LAKE
Even though I’m supposed to be at the game right now, I don’t feel welcome. I’m probably the last person Sutton wants to see. The last person the team wants to see.
After I got done talking with my mom, I spent the rest of the night listening to Sutton’s voicemails, and my God, was it the nail in the fucking coffin.
The hurt in his tone was so guttural. I didn’t have the courage to call him.
I was exhausted and overwhelmed and just started to shut down.
I didn’t end up going back to the room, no matter how badly I wanted to feel his arms wrap around me.
Instead, I braved a trek to Leila Ramirez’s room—one of the few other journalism club members who were chosen to cover the playoffs this weekend—and begged for a place to sleep, even though we’ve only spoken five words to each other in class.
I wouldn’t have survived sleeping outside.
Luckily for me, she was rocking with a place all to herself, so her “spare” bed was up for grabs.
I didn’t go into the nasty details of why I needed a room at one in the morning, and she didn’t ask me.
She saw that I was clearly distressed—stupid waterproof mascara that actually isn’t waterproof at all—and offered me the help I needed.
Did I deserve it after blowing up at Sutton? Probably not, but the rest leveled out the nerves insistent on pinballing around inside me.
I texted Sutton that we need to talk, but he hasn’t replied yet. Probably because his phone is already in his bag, in the locker room, and all the players are getting ready for their semifinal appearance.
Not only did I pick a fight on the night before the second most important game of his hockey career, but I truly underestimated how big this whole ordeal is.
The arena is nothing compared to the humble, quaint one on MU’s campus.
This one is large and imposing, and I couldn’t get to my seat without being trampled by an unsupervised child or smote down by the glares of perpetually punctual pre-planners.
My spot is somewhere in the middle, in a quadrant far up from the ice itself, which is probably for the best considering I’m the last person who needs a front row seat to a game I clearly didn’t approve of last night.
I wasn’t thinking. Actually, some may argue that I was thinking too much.
I followed logic and rationality because following my heart was so much scarier.
I surrendered at the first sign of trouble and fought for what I thought was right, not what really mattered.
And now I may never get to apologize to Sutton before he takes the ice. I didn’t wish him good luck.
Tamara is still waiting for me to publish the article. I have until tomorrow.
But I think the worst part is that he truly believes I hate him when my body isn’t wired to behave that way. Not with him—not with the one person who saved me from all my baggage.
I underestimated our love, and I’m not above admitting that maybe I self-sabotaged this whole thing from the start.
I live in a constant state of emotional pain.
I sure as shit don’t know anything else, and change is goddamn terrifying.
Taking those steps to do better for myself—to feel happy—seems like an insult to Audie.
By wallowing in my grief, I keep her memory alive.
Or so I thought.
I haven’t spoken to my mom with my walls down in…years. And in turn, she showed me a side of herself that I thought I’d lost after my sister’s passing. She’s ready to be a better mother.
Truthfully, I was tired of always being guarded—of placating her with half lies just so she wouldn’t break down the defenses I had so meticulously crafted. I don’t know what I was so afraid of. Feeling anything other than depression and despair?
How could I love someone new if the guilt I still had for my sister was preventing me from moving forward? I was under the impression that love was something delicate, wherein reality, it’s the most tenacious thing on the planet.
Love—on a flimsy whim—pushed Sutton and I together when I was at my lowest. It’s like the world knew I needed a win that night, and ever since then, my life became bearable again.
Now, as I watch little ant-shaped players peel out in the third period, there’s this hole in my heart that wasn’t there before last night. It’s like some parasite ate right through the muscle tissue, carving out a tunnel to feed and grow and staunch all the blood flow I need to live.
Sutton’s team means more to him than I do, and I shouldn’t be surprised by that outcome. He’s been with them longer. He’s trained his whole collegiate career for this moment.
I’m surrounded by thousands of people, and yet, I’ve never felt more alone in my entire life.
The fanfare is cranked to a ten—with multicolored posters and giant foam fingers waving haphazardly in the air—and other arena-goers are making as much noise as humanly possible, decked in the corresponding colors of the Davenport Dire Wolves or the Minnesota Mustangs.
The collective stomping of feet strikes a chord within me, making my teeth hurt as the impact jars through my bones.
I can’t hear anything. The turbulent contents of my stomach are making me queasy.
The nearest exit is past my row, and navigating through an already unruly crowd seems like a task I don’t want to attempt right now.
I feel so helpless. Pre-Gamble Gate Lake would have marched all the way to the exit to squash her nerves. Pre-Gamble Gate Lake would tell the kid currently kicking the back of her seat to fuck off.
The tick of my pulse mirrors the giant countdown clock on the scoreboard, and I don’t even realize that one of the teams had scored before my small patch of real estate flares up enthusiastically, punching their fists in the air and screaming unintelligibly.
Fuck, I can’t do this. I can’t sit here and pretend like everything will go back to normal when I head back home.
The stale taste of the granola bar I had to hold me over lingers in the back of my throat, and my breath is yet another variable I can’t control.
The air is stifling as it sits on top of this burgeoning sardine can—refusing entry into my trembling body—and the irrefutable warning signs of a panic attack are beginning to set in.
I need to get out of here. It’s all too much. Everything is too much.
With my fear of perception suddenly blowtorched away, I’m about to steamroll anyone who intercepts my beeline to the exit before some conspicuous pointing captures my attention from below.
Two girls whisper amongst themselves, and I can pick up on a few choice words like “Mustangs” and “lose.” One of them is holding up their phone with a picture of Buford’s headshot, and the other seems to be scouting the ice for his jersey number.
They seem rather confused, like he’s not here.
Have I really been so out of it that I hadn’t noticed he wasn’t present?
And how do they know Buford? I pray they haven’t shared any fluids with him.
Though, considering we’ve been here for a few days, it’s not above him to hunt down the locals for a pitiful pump and dump.
He has to be here somewhere. Buford is still on the team. Sutton didn’t go to his coach about this, or I would’ve heard about it.
What if Sutton did have a change of heart?
He would’ve told me, right?
You’re not his keeper. You two may not even be together anymore. He doesn’t need to run anything by you.
Right, I…I screwed everything up. I lost the privilege of being in his life when I turned my back on him.
Considering my day has already been comically awful, it truly takes me by surprise when the world chooses to laugh at my misfortunate by flooding my phone with a vibration of notifications.
A sense of gut-rotting apprehension pierces the veil of my brain fog as I slowly slip the device out of my pocket, forcing myself to face what appears to be my article, plastered on the homepage of MU’s website.
No. No, no, no. How is this possible? I didn’t publish this. I didn’t—oh my God.
Time plummets like the felling of a tree in the middle of a snow-laden forest, and the girls in front of me break out into a hushed conversation of shock, now scrolling through paragraphs upon paragraphs of information that weren’t supposed to see the light of day until after the tournament.
They’re reading my article. Everyone in this fucking arena could be reading it.
Did Tamara do this? It’s the only reasonable explanation. She decided to publish the article without my agreement.
The hockey game still clamors around me, screams from the onlookers erupting in volcanic bursts that overlay the unprecedented decibels of the arena.
Droves of tears wet my eyes while I’m reduced to incoherent sobs that are thankfully drowned out by the surround sound. Guilt gorges on my barely beating heart, and I follow through with my escape plan by tearing through the crowd and taking one of the hidden stairwells down to the floor level.
I descend each step with an unsteady gait, narrowly colliding into other pedestrians as the reminder of how seemingly inconsequential I am in the grand scheme of things spades into the depression of my belly.
The image of the article strikes at my brain like a whetstone, the bold words ILLICIT and DISGRACED nipping at my heels.
It’s getting harder to see—sweat mingling with tears, a headache roosting behind my eyes, my hospital-admittance-worthy heart rate impeding my ability to operate like a normal human being.
And call it a symptom of my fleet-footedness or a laughable dice roll of fate, but the minute I exit the stairwell, I slam into a wall of a person. My eyes crimped shut, I brace for the impact of the fall before I realize that their hand is latched around my arm.
“Lake?” a deep voice asks, that familiar affectation drawing my gaze back to the light.
I crack an eye open. “Sutton?”