I am more furious than I was before I came.
7
THEO
Six AM at the rink is not a practice. Six AM at the rink is a punishment with skates on.
I am on the ice at five forty-five. Paul drove me. Paul did not speak in the car. Paul parked in the first spot near the door because Paul is the coach and walked ahead of me through the players' entrance as if he did not know I was behind him. I know I am behind him. My skates were over my shoulder. My bag was at my hip. My mouth tasted like the toothpaste I brushed with twice because brushing it twice was a thing I could do that was not thinking about what I did in my bedroom.
I did not sleep.
I slept maybe forty minutes in the gray part of the morning. I woke up every time my thigh touched my other thigh and the touch reminded me of a hand. I woke up every time my sheet moved. I woke up at four because a garbage truck three blocks over did the hydraulic thing garbage trucks do, and I lay in my sheets looking at the Y on the ceiling, and I thoughtgood boy,and I flinched as if the thought had physical weight. At five, I got up.
The locker room was empty when I got here. The overheads buzzed on one at a time. My stall is on the far wall, three down from the door, because I am new and because Paul believes the rookies should not be near the door. I tape my shin pads. I breathe. Four in, seven hold, eight out.
I am on the ice before any other player arrives—because Paul wants me to be on the ice before any other player arrives. I skate the perimeter. I warm up the way Paul taught me to warm up, which is the way I have warmed up since I was nine, since before I knew that warming up was a thing normal families did not do, since before I knew there was another way to be a person.
My legs are heavy. Not physical heavy. The heavy of a body that has been holding something all night and has not been allowed to put it down.
I do not look at the door. I do not wait for Maddox. I have one job on the ice and the job is not to be the kid who looked at the door.
He comes in anyway.
I know he comes in because him coming in is a feeling. I had it in the bar. I have it now. I do not turn my head. I watch my skates. I push a circle around the near face-off dot and then another one. When I finally have to turn because the drill would not make sense if I did not turn, he is at the bench with his helmet off and his hair wet from the shower in the locker room, and his eyes are on me. I believe his eyes have been on me since he walked in, and he does not pretend otherwise.
He does not smile.
He does not do the corner-of-the-mouth thing he has been doing at me since Monday.
He looks at me like he is about to decide something about me.
I look back.
I look back because I do not know what else to do and because not looking back would be worse than looking back. It is three seconds, maybe. The longest three seconds the morning has had. Then he puts his helmet on. The bars of the cage go between us.
I skate.
Paul does not mention the bar.
Paul mentions everything except the bar.
He lines us up at center ice in three rows. He walks the rows. He does not raise his voice. He does not need to. He says, “Last night's game was won in the second period and lost in the third and we are going to talk about why.” He says, “Nobody on this team has earned a single thing about his reputation and the reputations you have are the ones you built two years ago.” He says, “This team does not go to bars. This team, from tonight forward, does not close a bar down when the game was a one-goal win and there is a practice Saturday morning. You are professional athletes. Behave like one.” His voice is the voice he uses on me when he is about to take the car keys away, except he is using it on twenty-two men, and the twenty-two men are standing very still on their skates.
He does not look at me while he talks.
He does not look at Maddox while he talks.
Not looking is a way of looking.
Magnus, three over from me, shifts his weight. Jax, two down, studies the ice between his skates. Phoenix, at the head of the row, stands at parade rest and faces Paul head on, because Phoenix is the captain, and Phoenix absorbs.
When Paul is done, he skates backwards three strides, turns, and blows the whistle.
“Drill one. Line rush. Three units. Laurent, you're with Magnus and Grayson.”
It's not a demotion. It is not a promotion. It is a line I have not practiced with because Paul has been moving me between lines every session to see who I don't get in the way of. Today he is moving me again. I understand what today is.
I skate to my spot.
