Chapter 7
SEVEN
SUTTON
He’s late.
I knew this was some sort of joke to Cooper. Yet, for whatever reason, I decided to believe him. Give him a wide-open shot at redemption. I took away every defenseman and goalie in his way, and he still missed.
I never should have let my life fall into the palm of his hands. My heart used to be there, but I retrieved it years ago, only after he shattered it. There are a few bruises on it, a few indentations from where his fingers held it tightly.
I wonder what those fingers would feel like on my body. Where he’d leave bruises if he…focus, Sutton.
Cooper Carmichael has always been attractive. Even as a kid when he hadn’t grown into his body. His limbs long and gangly, muscles pre-developed and softer. Or when he decided he had to have frosted tips, the bleached blond quickly fading to a rusty orange.
He was my first crush, which I chalk up now to being because of how nice he was to me. Besides Meave, no one asked me to play or wanted to be my friend. Being Cooper’s friend was like being picked first for recess kickball every single second.
In middle school it crossed my mind what it might be like to hold his hand.
In high school it crossed my mind what it might be like to kiss him.
In college, apparently, I think about what it would be like to do a whole lot more with him. This isn’t the first time it’s crossed my mind or my dreams.
Because behind my dislike of him, every way that he makes me furious, how he hurt me, or ruined my future, there’s still the six-year-old girl stretching out her hand to the boy with sparkling brown eyes and a friendly smile.
Too bad time machines don’t exist.
I reach for the notebooks I laid out, strewn across the table with sticky notes and highlighted notes circled three times. I pack up my belongings. Shove them into my tote bag and stand from the wooden table in the library study room we had agreed to meet in.
I tap on my phone to check our texts. Yup, says two. It’s now half an hour past that.
Instead of walking home, I take a left out of the building with a gut feeling. Pass between more brick academic buildings and the conservatory before I need to cross the street.
My foot taps mindlessly as I wait for the light to change. I click the button to cross the street again.
“Wait!” it shouts out to me. The robotic voice boils my blood. A taunt. A reminder.
I’ve been waiting. Years worth of waiting, and instead of apologizing, he dug a deeper grave. Chasing me around like a pawn on a chess board. Chased me here.
I was so excited about my signing day. I was the first female hockey player from our high school to be recruited to play Division I. I knew Cooper was being recruited, even someone living under a rock would know. He’s the best.
Mom and Dad hadn’t told me which school he chose.
Probably because I was lucky enough that Lakeland even wanted me still.
My scholarship and place on the team contingent on my recovery after colliding with another player in a game last season—I should have seen her coming, been smarter about maneuvering around her or passing off the puck, but I was distracted.
All I could focus on was what Cooper did, our fight earlier that day.
A silent growl works its way through me as I think back.
I fixed my hair three times. Re-rolled the sleeves of my shirt to the perfect cuff. Made sure none of the patches Meave helped me iron on a pair of overalls were loose..
Walking into the auditorium where my high school hosted signings, my assigned table was set for two. I sat down, confused. Five minutes later Cooper walked in through the same door, a Lakeland hockey sweatshirt on and his brown hair tucked into a backwards hat.
“You did this on purpose,” I whisper-growled when he sat down to my right.
Cooper leaned into me, turning his head so that only I could hear him. “The school had everything I wanted.”
“A spot for a short hockey player?”
Cooper laughed. There was a melancholy to it that now that I think about it, isn’t there anymore. “Exactly,” he said.
“You can’t just let me go, can you?”
“No, I can’t.”
“You don’t know me. I don’t know you. As soon as we get there, you get that?”
“Whatever you say, Dave.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“What should I call you then?” He paused, inched closer. “Mine?”
I burst out laughing. Snorted and slapped a hand over my mouth. “No.”
Memories of us—good, bad, my favorites, come and go as if they are waves on a beach. Calm one minute, violent the next. If I’m not careful I can get pulled into a riptide of them.
I stomp across the street on a mission, when I’m outside the rink I see Cooper’s car.
I suppose sometimes you can trust your gut.
Someone from the coaching team is leaving.
“Wait! I need in the rink.” I rush forward, my knee stings at the sudden sprint and lingering memory. They hold the door open for me. I give them a smile and say, “Thank you so much! I forgot my student ID and am meeting one of the players for a project. We’re running behind.”
They give me a thumbs up when I notice their headphones in and phone open on a call.
“Sorry,” I mumble with an apologetic shoulder shrug.
Taking in a slow inhale of chilled air, the smell of stale popcorn from a game days ago and chemicals from the coolant, my lungs fill with longing.
It happens anytime I think about lacing up a pair of skates again, braiding back my hair and slipping on my helmet, or the roar of a crowd.
The burning desire to be the best, to win.
I haven’t skated since reinjuring my knee and making the decision to stop playing.
There’s always a part of me, the same one that wonders about my birth parents, about what my life would be like if I was still playing.
And I would be if it weren’t for the boy I find skating, pushing a puck through a series of orange cones.
“No surprise finding you here.” My tone harsh, unaware to its implications.
He cuts, skating over to me and stopping abruptly. A shower of ice trimmings hit me.
“Hey.” Cooper smiles brightly.
“Don’t ‘hey’ me. I waited thirty minutes for you.”
His face falls with realization. Chest heaving as he slips off a glove, dropping it to the ice. He twists a wrist to look at the time. Something rattles in his sleeve, another bracelet of sorts, but I can’t see it through his sweatshirt sleeve.
“Fuck,” he curses under his breath.
I sigh, shaking my head. “Unbelievable. No, you are believable. Predictable. This was a mistake, again. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
“Okay, okay, okay. I’m sorry.” He throws his hands out.
“Your apologies mean nothing to me. There’s never any action behind them.” I stand tall, shoulders back and gaze into his brown eyes.
There was one time when I was nine that I thought they were the most beautiful eyes in the world. Wanted to look at them for the rest of my life. What a foolish girl I was, overrun with preteen hormones. Easily swayed into an unrealistic fantasy.
Cooper peers down at me.
He’s taller in his skates. I quickly give him a once-over when I realize he is still in his pads from practice. Practice jersey removed, he’s wearing a team issued sweatshirt. Our school logo in the center of the navy fabric with Bears Hockey sandwiching it.
“Didn’t practice end almost two hours ago?”
Cooper lifts a hand, squeezing the back of his neck. He takes a slow inhale.
“Why do you need two more hours of practice?” I ask, my tone becoming solid.
“I have to be good enough,” he chokes out.
“For what?”
My brain is trying to figure out if it’s supposed to be in friend or psychologist mode.
“I have to be better than him,” Cooper modifies his statement. It still means the same thing.
“Him? As in your dad?”
His Adam’s apple bobs. The skin taut over each swallow. “Yes.”
“Does he tell you that?” Cooper shakes his head no. “Does Coach tell you that?” He shakes his head again, but it’s more disjointed. “Who?”
“Does it matter who? If not them, someone will. There’s no room for error out here.
” He swings a hand back, gesturing to the ice.
“No room to not be perfect. We’re already halfway through the season and I’m nowhere near being on track to hitting his stats for junior year.
” He keeps going, rambles increasing in speed, decreasing in volume.
“That’s okay.”
“It’s not, Dave. It’s not okay.” He starts stuttering over the same word. And then it happens.
He’s spiraling. And quickly.
One moment his body is upright, the next he’s slumped against the boards.
“Cooper,” I shout, terrified. Pushing through the door to the ice, I move in front of him and drop to my haunches, leveling myself to his eyesight. “Cooper,” I say again, calmer despite the panic raging through me. “Are you okay? Let me call one of your roommates or Coach.”
“N-n-no.” He’s sweating. A lot. He was already sweaty when he skated over to me, unbuckling his helmet and removing it.
Brown hair flattened. This new layer is glistening across his brow, between waves stuck to his olive undertone skin.
“I don’t want them to see me like this. I never wanted you to see me like this. ”
Leaning into his space, I want to make sure he can hear me. If his panic attack, which this clearly is, is anything like the ones I’ve experienced, then his ears are ringing and sound is muffled as if he’s underwater.
“I always see you, Cooper Carmichael. Even when you don’t want me to. Even when I don’t want me to.”
His eyes pinch shut. Lines creasing at the corners.
“Sutton. Why am I like this? Why does this happen?”
Cooper starts to shake his right hand, trying to free it from his glove. I reach out but pause. “Can I help you?” I ask gently, seeking his permission.
“Please.” The break in his voice is cutting me wide open.
If anyone was around, they’d see the hurt he’s caused, sure, but they’d also see how my ribcage grew around the pieces of him I’ve kept.
All the years of friendship and growing up together we did.
They’d see how parts of me are only holding on by strings he used to sew me together.
I undo his glove. Slip it off his hand and set it on the ice. Immediately he palms his chest, right over his heart.
“Slow down,” he tries to tell it.
“We should get you off the ice,” I advise. “You need to—”
“I can’t move,” he cuts in. “Can you sit? Can you stay with me?”
Exhaling, I sit down next to him.
Great choice in outfits this morning. The floral skirt I’m wearing bunches around my waist, exposing my thick thighs that thankfully I decided to cover with tights. Unfortunately, they do nothing to stop the cold seeping in through them, chilling my skin.
It’s not warm enough yet for me to be shaving frequently. Short, light-auburn hairs stick through the black tights.
But none of that matters. I whisk the thoughts away and focus on Cooper.
How long has this been going on? Does he get them often? Do they happen whenever he’s on the ice by himself?
That question terrifies me. I open my mouth to ask, but from the corner of my eyes I see him taking staggered breaths, eyes still sealed shut.
I try not to imagine him out here alone or going through any of this alone. He said he didn’t want anyone to see or even know he’s the student I’m working with.
After quitting—I like to say I retired—I was ashamed of myself. Ashamed of how my body was failing me, how my mind was failing me and allowing negative thoughts to become my beliefs about myself. I hid away until my family—mainly Meave—encouraged me to go to therapy.
Meave had been volunteering with kids, mainly those with autism or down syndrome and using art as a form of therapy. She told me therapy can come in all shapes and sizes and there’s nothing to be ashamed of from seeking it out.
“You’re already in therapy to heal your knee. Why avoid healing here?” she asked, tapping my temple.
I asked her to come with me to my first appointment. Meave held my hand as I recounted what happened. Squeezed it when I explained how I had been feeling since. It was nice to not be alone in what I was going through.
I watch Cooper and I don’t want him to be alone in this.
There’s a breath of relief that fills me when I remember he confessed that he wants this for himself, that this isn’t him helping me but the other way around. It might not be the complete therapy he needs, but maybe this is his way of asking to not be alone.
I reach out my hand to him. “Here.”
There’s a moment of disbelief. I see it crash over him and the fight he’s internally battling. Eyes fluttering open, wider each time till brown eyes rimmed in red look deep into mine.
He grips my hand like it’s a floatation device, like I could save him.
Then interlaces his fingers with mine.
I don’t scoot closer to him. Giving him space and waiting for his direction with this. But I do place our hands in my lap, rub my thumb over his knuckles.
“Breathe,” I coach. “In and out.” I repeat this several times. “Breathe. In and out.” Watching as his breathing slows, and he starts to come down from the rollercoaster that panic attacks can be.
I readjust my legs, uncrossing and recrossing them.
“Don’t leave me,” he mumbles. “Not yet.”
“I won’t.”
His hair is long enough that a loose strand is stuck to the center of his forehead. I lift my hand, gently pushing it back, and run my hand down his face.
Cooper stops me, cupping my hand. Holding it against his face.
“I hate this. I hate all of it. You’ll he-help me, please.”
“I’ll help you, Coop.”