Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
JAMIE
I think we need to talk.
As ominous as that sounds, I rush to agree, letting him set the time and place. He picks the next morning, at a place near the dorms where we used to go for a late coffee during exams.
Wednesday also happens to be the day of the All Star Game, and I’d already planned a full day of distractions, starting off with powering down my phone and putting it in a drawer. For the first time in weeks, I found myself thinking about something other than Ethan.
I walk into the coffee shop ten minutes early to find Avery already sitting there, two coffees in front of him.
“You still take yours with cream?” He asks, looking up at me, deep bags under his eyes.
I nod and take the seat across from him.
“How are you, Avery? Really?”
I hold his eyes for a long moment, hoping to communicate that I really want to know the answer.
“I’m…not good, Jamie. I haven’t played in half the games this season. And at first it was because of the knee, but now…now it’s just because I suck.”
My urge to defend my friend is too strong to resist.
“You don’t suck.”
The anger is back on his face.
“Please don’t pretend like you’ve been watching.”
I reel back, stunned at the bitterness in his voice. I scramble for words.
“I mean, um, some of them have conflicted with our games.” I think they have, at least.
Shit. Is he right?
“So you’ve been checking my stats then, right? You know how many games I’ve been back on the ice for?”
This time, I don’t even try to find the words, knowing they aren’t going to be what he needs to hear. Instead, I silently shake my head.
Oddly, this seems to calm him. He sits back in his chair, crossing his arms across his chest. Looking at me, he just nods, as though he’s finally confirmed some deep-seated suspicion.
“Look, Jamie. I know you’ve had a hell of a year.
But the fact that you think you can just drop back into my life like nothing happened is fucking bullshit.
You don’t call, don’t text, don’t even come home for Christmas.
And then you try to push your silence off on me and my reactions, as though I’m the only one fucking up this friendship. ”
My throat feels thick with unshed tears, but I know that if I continue the silence now, this friendship will be over.
“You’re right. It’s not just you.” I know if there’s any way forward in this, I have to own my part.
He stays where he is, muscles tight and jaw set.
“Can I…check now?” I ask, gesturing at my phone.
He gives me a brief nod, and I pull up the UCLA Hockey website. Navigating to the current roster, I find Avery’s line, my eyes tracing across the numbers.
“You…you’ve only played in five games? I thought you got back on the ice in October.”
My eyes lift from the series of zeroes on the website to his face. His lips are pressed tightly together, the corners bending downward.
“It…it didn’t go well.” His voice is hoarse, and as much as his pain hurts me to hear, I’m so glad he’s willing to share with me.
“Your knee?”
He shrugs, and for a moment I think that’s all I’ll get. I wait, hoping he’ll fill the awkward silence. It only takes a minute before he does just that.
“At first, yeah.”
“Did you re-injure it?” I hope the explicit question will be easier for him to answer.
“No. It still swells up from time to time but the doctors assure me it’s completely sound.”
If that’s true, I wonder why he’s spending so little time on the ice.
“Does it…hurt?” I remember the pills at his house last night, searching my memory for the names on the bottles. Has he been struggling with that on his own?
“I mean, sometimes. But not bad, not more than your average check against the boards. Hell, you’ve definitely had worse this year.”
A sense of shame drips down my spine, knowing that he’s been keeping track of me even as I’ve been ignoring him.
“So if it’s not your knee, what’s up?”
“It’s just…I can’t trust myself anymore.
I worry that one wrong move and my knee will go.
And then I realized – I have no idea what Plan B is.
I’m 80% through a degree I couldn’t care less about.
I’ve never done an internship. I don’t want to go to grad school.
If I’m not playing hockey…what am I doing? ”
The thing that hurts most is knowing that he’s been going through this alone. Carefully, I reach out for his hand, happily surprised when he grabs mine.
“So now I’m playing scared, and you can’t do that. But I can’t get the fear out of my head and now I’m in this constant cycle of self-sabotage…which I imagine you know something about.”
“Self-sabotage?”
He pins me with a look.
“I mean, isn’t that what you psych types would call it? This thing where you make a relationship not work so you can’t get hurt when it doesn’t work? Where you refuse to admit you’re breaking your own heart to keep from giving him a chance to do it?”
I’m stunned at his insight.
“But…what if…what if I love him and it isn’t enough?” The tears start to fall in earnest now.
Avery stands up, moving to my side of the table. He sits in the chair next to me, his body radiating warmth as he throws an arm over the back of my chair.
“Well, then we can be sad and pathetic together.”
After another round of coffee and several large pastries, we decide to go out together that night. I promise to turn off my phone, avoiding any news of Ethan or the All Star Game. Avery promises to remember what it’s like to have fun, promising me dinner and a trip to a club we used to frequent.
At home, I start to get ready for my night out.
Digging through my childhood closet, I find an outfit that should be passable for the club – tight jeans, a form-fitting white tank and a sheer top.
The tank is tighter than I remember it being thanks to the work I've put in this year in the gym – I doubt I'll hear anyone complain.
Avery has promised to pick a dinner spot that won't have the game on a TV, but as I grab my phone from the drawer, I think about checking it, just once. Before I can even power it on, I hear the knock on my door. Shoving it in my back pocket, I put on my shoes and open the door to Avery.
Well, if I was worried about how tight my shirt is, I guess I can stop worrying. Avery is wearing a cropped t-shirt with the words “Equal Opportunity Fuckboy” stretched across his pecs. At the hemline, his abs peek out. I almost swallow my tongue.
“Is that outfit...legal?”
“Boo boo, this is West Hollywood, not Minneapolis.”
He has a point.
He's chosen a queer-owned gastropub for dinner, and I'm happy to see the TV over the bar is playing reruns of Drag Race All Stars, rather than the actual All Star Game.
I look over the menu and order a West Coast IPA to go with my salmon caesar salad; with only three days left before I return to the rink, it's time to be a little more attentive to my macros.
I head to the restroom during a commercial break, hoping to get back in time to watch the queens lip sync for their lives.
As I walk back from the restroom, I see Avery focused on his phone, so focused he doesn't even seem to notice when I sit down. I clear my throat and he nearly jumps out of his seat.
“Uh...hey. Jamie. Good to see you.”
Good to see me? We saw each other five minutes ago.
His eyes float between his phone screen and my face and I wonder what the fuck is going on. The waiter sets down our beers, but Avery barely seems to notice.
“Dude. What's up? You look like you've seen a ghost.”
His lips pinch together and he looks back at the phone again.
“I'm, uh, trying to figure out how to tell you something I'm not sure you'll want to know.”
Well, that's fucking cryptic.
As I sit down, I wonder what he could possibly need to tell me. He looks at his phone again, then up at me.
“Am I keeping you from something?”
That seems to make the decision for him.
“No, but I think I might be keeping you from something.”
He slides his phone across the table and I look down at the article he has pulled up.
It's from a reporter named Sam Montgomery, who's always been one of the better hockey reporters out there.
The picture at the top is Ethan, in a green button-up with a camel-colored cargo jacket.
I wonder for a moment who picked it out for him – it looks nice, but it's not one of the outfits we bought together in Chicago.
My heart tugs for a moment at the sight of him and, rather than scrolling, I look up at Avery.
“I don't think I can read this, man.”
He looks at me, teeth biting his lip.
“I think you need to. And then, if you never want to talk about it again, I'll take you out and ply you with vodka sodas all night.”
I turn back to the phone and scroll down, seeing the article's title.
Ethan Tremblay Issues Challenge to NHL
I can feel the look of confusion on my face, the wrinkles forming on my forehead.
I start to scroll through the article. The beginning is mostly fluff – a background on Ethan, a mention of his father's time in NHL, discussion of his own time in the AHL and his eventual signing with Minneapolis.
Sam recounts the team's previous Cups, and the offensive downturn they've faced recently.
Then, I get to the interview. I guess I knew that the All Star Game would come with more press, but I didn't realize Ethan would be getting a full sit-down with one of hockey's top journalists.
Based on the thumbnails on the side of the page, it looks like most other players' interviews were short and shallow – conversations about the best way to tape a stick, joy at having been chosen to their first All Star Game.
This article isn't like that.
From the very first questions, Ethan sounds...
not petulant, but certainly like he has a bone to pick with establishment hockey.
I'm shocked to hear him call their failure to select me homophobic – we'd never discussed it, and it had never crossed my mind that he was as pissed about their choice as I was.