Chapter 31
Carter
A crack sears my chest apart, and I can’t do anything about it.
We had the perfect day, and it all turned to shit at the realization that I’ll never be good enough for her. I’ll never be the man she can be proud of.
Fuck, she went out with that asshole Vic, but even he didn’t have the demons I have.
I tried my best to cool off. I went to every place I could think of where I’d go to clear my head and let go of all the pain that’s splitting me open, but everything reminded me of Willa.
I found myself walking into the firehouse, pouring myself a beer and sitting at the bar. Staring at it.
We have a long day of practice tomorrow and a game the next day.
If I start drinking, I’ll keep drinking. If I keep drinking, I won’t be able to keep up tomorrow.
The game is the first of the Frozen Four tournament, and if I practice like shit, Coach won’t take any chances to play me. If I don’t play, I let my team down. I’ll let Willa down.
Maybe I overreacted. Jocelyn caught us both by surprise, but I had just confessed how much I loved her and she was telling Jocelyn we meant nothing. Fuck, that shit hurt.
It hurt worse than her kneeing me in my hard cock and balls when she scrambled out of bed.
It didn’t mean as much to her as it did to me.
Making my decision, I lift the glass up to my lips, but it’s quickly snatched from my hand.
“Don’t think so, kid.” Creed takes the glass and drinks the now warm beer. “I’ve been watching you for ten minutes, and you haven’t noticed I’m here.”
I look around to make sure no one else has been watching me, lost in my turmoil.
“What’s bothering you?” He sits with my beer and watches the hockey game I’ve been blindly staring at.
“Nothing,” I grunt.
“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me, and I know when you’re fucking lying.” He drapes his arm over the chair between us and sits slumped down, with his stomach sticking out past his jeans.
I watch the game without registering what’s happening in the play. If I don’t talk, Creed will let me leave and wait for me to come to him, but I need to get it out.
“I think Willa and I broke up.” I lean over the bar and play with the wet cardboard coaster I was using.
“You think?”
“We didn’t really talk about it, but we fought and it’s over.” I fling the coaster into a garbage can set behind the old bar. It coasts over the edge and falls to the floor.
“How do you know if you don’t talk about it? C’mon, shoot it,” he shouts at the TV before turning back to me. “Couples fight all the time.”
They do, and there’s a chance we can make it past this, but then what? We meet up secretly to have sex and pretend we’re friends around other people? I don’t want to do that.
Willa’s friends will never approve and it’ll be her defending me, just like she did with Vic all over again.
“I’m not good for her,” I confess, what’s really stopping me from giving it another try. She knows it just as much as I do. Everyone does. “I’ll never be, because I’ll end up just like him.” I point to the picture of the town hall that hangs on the wall. “I’m my father’s son.”
“That’s bullshit,” Creed scoffs. At first I think he’s talking about a bad call, but it’s a commercial break. “You’re nothing like him. You may look like him, but that’s as far as it goes.”
“You don’t know that.” I slump over with my head in my hands.
“I know that better than anyone.” He hits my shoulder. “I was friends with him before he tried to become a big shot.”
I knew they went to school together, but I didn’t really think they were friends.
“Addiction is a disease.” He holds up his nearly empty glass. “The pressure got too much for him, and he turned to alcohol to have fun and let off steam. But he was always an ass. He thought he was better than anyone, and the drinking made it worse. I don’t recognize him anymore. You were never like he is now or was.”
“He’s a monster and he raised me.”
“Your mother raised you. You’re just like her, or like she used to be. She stuck with him, thinking she could help him. She’d do anything to help him when he lost his shot at the pros. He drank himself into oblivion and she was there to lift him up.” Creed lets out a long breath. “It worked for a bit too. Then the pressure hit again. He had to be the best, and drinking was the only way to get through it.”
“I don’t remember any of this.” I shake my head. I only remember him being the drunk bastard he is.
“You were too young,” Creed laughs at me. “I remember the night it started again. He was sitting here just like you are, only he drank the bottle. He didn’t stare at a glass until it turned piss warm in his hands.” He winces from the taste as he takes another drink. “Your mother helped him as best she could until Janisa passed.”
Creed rubs my shoulder and looks down to say a silent prayer. He picks his head back up and wipes a tear from his eye.
“That killed your mother. She hasn’t been the same since.” He pats my back and lets out another breath as he stands up with a grunt. “That’s who you are. Someone that would do anything for those he loves, even push them away.”
He gives my shoulder another pat before leaving me alone to clean up my mess.
I got to the rink early to avoid seeing Willa beforehand. I’m not ready to face her.
I’m angry and I don’t know if I’m more angry with her or myself anymore. I don’t want her to see me like this.
I know this anger all too well, but it’s been a while. Add to that my broken heart, and I’m a mess.
I’m the first one out on the ice and the Coach is talking to Alex’s older sister, Lenny, at the bench with her hands pressed in a steeple in front of her chest, begging him for something.
Our first game is a home game, and she’s here for Alex and something to do with the hockey podcast she runs. I’ve listened to it, it’s not that bad.
She and her boyfriend graduated from here last year, and just like everyone here, he wasn’t my biggest fan. He dumped jugs of water over my head more times than I’d like to admit for every time I lost my temper.
One by one, the guys come out, ready for drills and whatever else the coaches want to do with us.
Willa is the last to come out. I glance away once her face comes into view, and the crack in my chest widens.
Avoiding her should be easy. We usually avoid each other during practice and games so as not to appear that we’re dating. Or just fucking.
Half way through, I take a break for water. I’m not playing my best, and I”m getting frustrated.
“Carter.” Willa comes skating over.
I close my eyes, getting a whiff of that cherry blossom body wash she uses. Opening them, I see her for the first time since I left her room. Her eyes are puffy with a tinge of red at the corners, but that doesn’t detract from her natural beauty.
She reaches out to touch my arm, but thinks better of it and pulls it away.
“I’m sorry.” This time, her hand touches mine resting on the ledge of the wall. “Can we talk later? You didn’t answer my text this morning.”
I hadn’t even looked at my phone, but I wouldn’t have answered if I saw it.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I look away, trying to find anything else to focus on before I change my mind. “It’s going to be a long day.”
We have several more hours of training to go. Several more hours of Willa whipping the guys and myself into shape. A full day left of watching her completely in her element, bossing me around.
“Please.” Her voice is the sound of my heart splitting open.
My thumb lazily rubs her palm. I shouldn’t say yes. It will only lead to one thing, but I can’t say no to her. Never could.
I open my mouth to agree, but her hand quickly drops from mine.
Alex comes over and I’m reminded why we’d never work out.
“Hey,” he says, pulling her attention away. “I hate to ask, but…” he pauses to look at me.
It’s clear I’m not welcome in this conversation, and I skate away to work on progressions they have us doing next. Skating across the blue line to lose myself in working out.
“Head up,” Willa orders as I line up. “Get low,” she encourages when I start off. “That’s it. Keep your stick down. Again.” She blows her whistle and I line up to go one more time with a puck she drops at my feet. “Please,” she whispers before moving away, begging me to speak to her.
I glide the puck from one side to the other before lining up again, and Willa starts me off.
“Quick release.” She moves with me, passing the puck back and forth. “Faster,” she orders with a blow of her whistle to start again. “You’re better than this.”
I go through another round, tired and frustrated with every command and every blow of her whistle.
She keeps on me, waiting for me to talk to her. That’s what it’s all for. Baiting me to say I’ll meet her in the parking lot to talk privately.
My grip tightens on my stick as she has me go again.
“It’s all in your head. I’ve seen you do better.” She puts the whistle to her lips, but I’m done.
I’m over this shitty day. Another crack sears against me.
With a loud groan, I lift my stick and bring it down, breaking it over my knee. Tossing it up and over the glass.
“Pierce,” Coach Renan shouts and whistles to summon me over.
“Fuck this shit.” I head straight for the locker room.
Looking back, Willa stands in the spot I left her, shaking her head, disappointed that I’m letting her down.
Ripping my jersey and pads off, I sit on the bench with my head in my hands to stop the noise. It’s my father yelling at me how I’m worthless. My sister, telling me to toughen up. And now it’s Willa saying I’m better than this.
I’m not better than this.
“Get your pads back on and get back out there,” Coach Renan comes in after me.
I stand up and punch the wall of my wooden cubby hole.
“Damn it, Carter.” Coach huffs. “Do you want to play tomorrow or not? This is your shot to get drafted if you show up. Screw this up, and you won’t get out of here.”
He stays behind me, waiting for me to either freak out or get my pads back on.
“I can’t do this shit right now,” I mutter through my heaving breaths.
“Do you think I don’t know what you go through? I live in this town,” Coach sighs. “Take a break. We’re almost done out there anyway. Take a break, and do the interview for Lenny’s podcast.”
“What?” I turn to question him.
“She’s asking for a player to interview. This will give you time to think it over if you really want to be here. We have Power Skate bright and early in the morning. If you’re not there, then I know your answer.”
He grabs the pen he dropped and heads to the door.
“Just so we’re clear,” he calls back. “Your steps are; lose the fucking attitude, do Alex’s sister’s interview, and sleep it off. Or you don’t play tomorrow.”
I hit my forehead into the cubby shelf. This is the last thing I need.
I made it through the interview, doing my best not to freak out over the questions about Willa.
That’s all Lenny wanted to talk about; how good it is that Coach Renan hired the first Drexton Hall female coach, and how good she’s been for the team.
Willa stares at me from the hall, watching us wrap the interview up from the small window in Drexton Hall’s tiny studio.
I push the mic out of my face when we’re wrapped up and storm out through the door.
“Carter, wait,” Willa calls out to me, but I don’t stop. “Please, just talk to me.”
“Why, so we can be friends again?” I snap around to look at her. “I’m done with that.”
I’ve lost all sense of love I had for her. It took twenty-four hours to strip it away. Maybe it wasn’t love after all.
“Please stop.” She races after me. “I didn’t mean it like that, please Carter. I love you. Please don’t do this.” She stops me from walking out the door. “This isn’t you. You’re better than this.”
I pull my hand out of hers.
“I’m not the guy you think I am.” I push through the doors, running out through the rain to my car without looking back.
I know exactly what I need to feel better and get myself back. I was living in a dream. A fantasy of love and happiness.
My life is pain. That’s where I truly belong.
The drive to my parents’ house is quick. Too quick, because I was flying without a thought of danger in my head.
I don’t knock and don’t care what I’m walking in on, but it’s worse than I could imagine in my darkest dreams.
My mother is kneeling on the kitchen floor, crying. My father stands over her with the pan from her cooking set raised.
“You burned it on purpose,” he shouts with a slur.
I haven’t been home in weeks, and I shouldn’t have stayed away that long. Mom has an old healing bruise on her cheek, and red marks on her forearms sticking out of the shirt sleeves on her robe.
“Don’t touch her.” I storm over, leaving a trail of water and mud from my sneakers on the always clean and spotless floor.
He turns his head slowly to look at me with a laugh, putting the pan back down on the counter.
“Carter, no,” Mom begs me to leave. “Go. Just go.”
“You want something to hit?” I take my wet jacket off and toss it on the table. Covering the food my mother must’ve made him. “I’m right here.”
“Dumb as shit, boy.” He spits out on the floor, stepping away from my shaking mother, and grabbing his glass of scotch to chug down the small drop left in it. “I’m going to enjoy this.”
He throws the glass. Mom shrieks as the glass shatters against the porcelain sink. Winding back, his fist comes at me with the first familiar punch to my already broken chest. Swinging right and left to throw his anger at my torso.
I don’t feel anything.
There’s no pain worse than losing Willa. I pushed her away. We could’ve worked it out, but I pushed her away. I’m too stubborn to realize she’s the thing that gets me out of this hell I’m living in.
I don’t need hockey, and when I’m with her, I don’t need this.
I’m not him.
“Stop!” Mom screams and holds my father’s fist back, but he shakes her off and pushes her away.
She falls back and hits her head against the counter, leaving her in a daze as she slips down to the floor.
“I’m not you,” I mutter when he comes back to hit me.
My arm lifts to stop him, and he stumbles back. But I don’t stop there.
I tackle him down to the floor with a loud roar from deep in my throat. The sharp, searing pain rushes out of me as I ram into him.
I sit on top of him, throwing everything I’ve been holding back for ten years into his face.
His chest.
His gut.
“You killed her,” I scream with the next hit. “You’re the reason she’s gone.” My fist cracks his jaw. “I’m not you.” Another crack to his rib. “You abusive piece of shit.”
I lift my fist up, but it’s grabbed before I can bring it down.
Braydon drags me off of our father and pulls me across the room.
“Stop, you’ll kill him.” He holds me back against the wall with his phone pressed to his ear.
I can’t move. Locked in place as I stare at the lifeless heap of my father on the floor.
My mother cries in the corner as lights flash through our window.
I’m done for.