Chapter 9 #2
“Sleep on your side. If you get sick. Don’t lie on your back.”
“Okay.”
I’m up on one elbow. The blanket’s at my waist. The t-shirt is gaping at one shoulder.
He doesn’t let his eyes go to my shoulder.
“Night, Melly.”
He turns to go. I open my mouth before I’ve decided to. “Blue.”
He stops.
“There’s enough room,” I quickly explain.
I reach over and click on the lamp. The room goes warm yellow.
He turns.
“On the bed. If you want.”
He looks at me.
“My head’s spinning.” I offer a small smile. “I don’t want to be alone.”
He closes the door behind him and walks slowly toward the bed. He doesn’t sit.
“Okay,” he says, careful. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“No, that’s not —”
I push up. The blanket falls to my hips.
I say, “I’ll take the floor. You take your bed back.”
“You’re not taking the floor.”
“It’s your bed.”
“I’m fine on the floor.”
“Blue.”
“Melly.”
“Just take the bed. It’s big enough.” I look at the big bed and widen my arms. “See.”
He looks at me. He looks at the bed. He breathes out through his nose.
“Are you sure?”
I nod and crawl across the mattress to the wall side and pat the spot. “Am I far enough?”
He glares at me. A real glare. The Blue Golding glare. The one that has been deployed at me from across hallways and ice rinks since I was twelve.
“I’m gonna change.”
He takes the wings off and places them on my costume. He reaches down, opens a drawer, grabs shorts, and a clean white tee from the third. He goes out into the hall and shuts the door behind him, and I lie on the wall side of his bed with my heart in my throat and count.
Twenty-two.
Twenty-three.
The door opens. Gray Camden Wolves shorts. Clean tee. No wings. Barefoot.
He looks at the bed and scratches his face. “I don’t think I should take the bed.”
I pat the pillow. “It’s fine.” I pull the blanket to my chin. I’m cold again. Suddenly. I shiver, visibly, and he sees it. “Do you have a hoodie?”
He nods.
He goes to the closet and pulls out a Camden Wolves hoodie.
He hands it to me. He watches me put it on. The inside of the collar is worn, as if he’s worn it a thousand times.
It’s huge. The hem hits my mid-thigh under the blanket. The cuffs come past my fingertips. It smells like him in a way nothing else in this bed does — closet and cologne, all at once.
“Thank you,” I murmur into the sleeve.
He gets into bed beside me. The bed dips. He clicks off the lamp. The room goes black and falls silent.
Somewhere downstairs, the music stops. The kitchen goes quiet, and the only sound is the soft clatter of someone moving glasses into the sink one at a time.
I want to cry. I don’t know why. I’m not going to.
Blue isn’t breathing like a person who’s asleep. He’s breathing like a person being careful about how he’s breathing. The inhale is longer than the exhale.
I say into the dark, “Blue?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
A long pause. “Yeah.”
“I’m happy we can be friends.”
He doesn’t answer.
The seconds tick out. He doesn’t say yeah. He doesn’t confirm that we are friends. He just lets the word sit on the comforter between us, and the not-picking-it-up is louder than any sentence he could have used.
I press my face into the collar of his hoodie.
A minute, maybe two passes. My head’s spinning, and it’s making it hard to sleep.
I ask, “What time are you up tomorrow?”
“Usually six.”
I scoff. “On a Sunday?”
“Every day.”
“That’s psychotic.”
He laughs. The smallest possible laugh. A single soft exhale through his nose. It makes me smile.
“How were your midterms?”
I open my eyes to stop my head from spinning. “Better than I thought.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. How was yours?”
“Good, I think.”
“How were your hockey games?”
A pause.
“Won Thursday. Lost Friday.”
“I know,” I confess. “I watched it.”
“You’re still watching, huh?”
I laugh softly, embarrassed. “I saw you throw the first punch.”
There’s a long pause. “You saw that?”
“I saw the one last week too.” I chuckle. “It’s funny to see you sitting in the penalty box.”
“You think that’s funny?”
I nod. “I do. It’s a time-out for being naughty.”
I hear something shift in the bed, and then I feel it. He groans.
“Are you okay?”
“Just my shoulder,” he breathes.
“What’s wrong?”
He takes a long time to reply. “It’s fucked.”
I turn my head on the pillow and realize that he’s facing me.
“Has it been fucked all night?” I ask, trying to make out his face in the dark.
“Yeah,” he whispers.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and then pause. “So, you got put on a time-out and you hurt yourself?”
I feel his breath hit my face. He let out a tiny laugh.
“Is the pain bad?”
He doesn’t answer.
“What do you need for it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you tell the trainer?”
“No.” He adjusts himself again. “I haven’t told anyone.”
My gut clenches. He’s just told me a thing he hasn’t told anyone, and the way I respond matters more than what I say.
After a beat, he goes on by himself. “It got worse after Friday’s game.”
“You should tell someone before it gets worse.”
Silence falls on the room again, and this time I hear footsteps right outside the door.
Eventually, the sound ends after a door shuts.
I stare into the darkness, feeling like it’s easier to talk to him through it.
I like that he’s not sleeping yet. I smile, remembering what it’s like when he lets his guard down.
“Do you remember the night at your captain’s house?”
I hear him swallow. For one full moment, I think he won’t answer. I think I overstepped.
Then, “Yeah.” It comes out rough. He clears his throat. “Yeah, I remember.”
I close my eyes. “I think about that night sometimes.”
The dark holds it.
He doesn’t answer right away.
“Yeah,” he says, finally. “Me too.”
My eyes fall open, feeling a little more sober.
I let the me too soothe me. It’s like a balm to my open wound.
And my heart sings. I clutch at his hoodie.
I didn’t know all I needed to hear to heal a big part of me was a simple pair of words.
I don’t push any further. I don’t ask how often, or what about it, or do you regret it, even though I really want to.
I let his words echo in my head. For tonight, this is more than enough.
I snuggle my head onto his pillow and exhale, closing my eyes.
“Are you still going for your social work degree?”
“Yeah. Are you working towards going pro?”
“You don’t know?”
My heart starts racing, waking me right up. “What?”
“I’m drafted. Fourth round.”
“Wait,” I sit up, reaching for him. My hand falls on his forearm. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah, you sound surprised.”
“Blue!” I fall on the bed and laugh. My hair whips onto my face. “That’s incredible! Your dream is coming true!”
I can hear the smile in his tone. “Yeah.”
“Are you freaking kidding me? Don’t just yeah me.” I scoff.
“I’m drafted in the fourth round. It’s different from first round like Benson and Stanley.”
“Yeah, but Stanley is literally named after the Stanley Cup.”
“How do you know that?” he asks.
I shrug. “Uh, I don’t actually know.”
“His dad was a big hockey player and won the Stanley Cup, so he named Stanley after that.”
“Would you name your son Stanley?” I joke.
He pauses.
When he’s silent for too long, I ask, “Do you want to have kids?”
“I don’t know,” he whispers.
Before I open my big mouth, I close it and think. He’s watched his mom be a single mom for most of his life, so I don’t blame him for not knowing.
“Do you?” he asks.
I inhale, breath stalling. I don’t know why I hesitate, but I do. Then, I answer, “Yeah, I do.”
“How many?”
“Two.” The room is silent again. “Do you have a girlfriend?” I ask. “Or anyone you’re seeing?”
He’s quiet. “No.”
“Like at all?”
“I don’t have the time for that.”
“Well,” I murmur after a moment. “You’ve made your dream come true, so I understand. You’ve always been focused on hockey, and it paid off.”
“I don’t know,” he says after a minute.
“Blue, you’re joking, right? That was always your plan.”
He takes a moment to think.
I close my eyes. “I’m a little drunk right now.”
“A little?” he jokes.
“Just listen.” I swat in the direction of his arm and miss.
“When we’re kids — when we’re little — we think reaching our goals is going to be this huge thing.
Like, fireworks. Like, a parade. We think we’ll feel it.
But then we get there, and it’s actually a bunch of really small moments that pass you by without you even noticing, and your brain goes — that’s it?
That’s the thing? And then your brain decides to find something new and to keep moving forward, and none of it ever feels like it’s enough. ”
A beat.
“My brain, huh?” he teases.
I cover my mouth and laugh into the pillow. How dumb do I sound right now? “Your brain. Everyone’s brain. The brain does that, Blue.”
“When did you become so insightful?” he jokes.
I shove him, and this time I don’t miss. “Stop it.”
He chuckles loudly. “You’re about to push me off the bed.”
I use my feet and playfully nudge him with a soft kick. He grabs onto my arm like he’s actually going to fall. Instead of pulling himself more on the bed, he pulls me closer to him.
“Blue,” I screech. I laugh so hard when his arm comes around me. “Why are you so close to the edge then!”
He pulls me closer to him. I keep pushing him away with my feet. His fingers land on my ribs and my body starts jerking when his fingertips dig into my side.
“Stop!” I shout. “You’re going to regret this.” I’m laughing so hard I can’t catch my breath. I grab both of his hands and wrestle to get him to stop. He leans over to turn on the lamp, and I kick a little too hard, expecting to be met with resistance. Instead, he falls off the bed.
I sit up. Shit. I cover my mouth with the long sleeve when I see his shadow stand up in the darkness. He sits on the bed and flicks on the lamp.