I’m behind on two assignments, but my professors will give me extensions, I just need to find the time to ask. Everything’s slipping through my fingers, like when you drop a roll of toilet paper and think it won’t travel that far away, then it’s across the room.
My life is currently like fucking toilet paper rolling across the room.
And yet, all I want to do is spend time with Victoria and convince her to give me another chance.
Fuck.
This isn’t good.
I don’t have time for a girlfriend, never mind a readymade family. Wyatt is a toddler, which is probably a lot of work, and yet, I want to teach him about sticks and pucks, about how to line up a shot and skate. Man, I want to teach my kid to skate so badly.
How do people find balance between the things they should do, need to do, and the things they love? Because I’m coming up short across the board, and I’m fucking tired.
“You okay?” Ares levels me with a look that says his question is more than just being polite.
“I’m good. Just tired.”
He nods, but says nothing. We’re gearing up for training on the ice, he’s a weird one at the best of times—comes with the territory of being a goalie—but today he seems on edge for some reason.
Could be me. Maybe I’m projecting, maybe I’m the one who’s on edge, and it just seems like he’s off.
“You know you can talk to us if you need anything, right?” Ares is a playboy, a joker, a fun loving guy who rarely gets serious like this. Am I in the twilight zone?
“Sure. But I’m fine.”
He grabs my arm. “I’ve seen you fine, man. I know you’re not fine. It’s cool if you don’t want to talk to me. We aren’t that close. I’m younger than you. Whatever. But something’sgoing on, and you should talk to someone about it. I’m here if you need me.”
Then he pushes away to bend himself into unreachable positions. My groin winces at some of the saves he pulls off. Like…just how?
Taking a huge bite out of my protein bar almost makes me cry. This shit is for the birds. I need real food. As soon as practice is over, I’m going for a fucking burger. Or nachos. Nachos sound good about now.
The first of today’s drills makes me dizzy as fuck, and even watching my teammates do it makes me want to hurl that gross protein bar back into my helmet. We split into teams, and skate around the edge of the giant circle in the middle of the ice, passing the puck back and forth. It’s a drill designed to work on speed, but so far all it’s doing is making my stomach hurt and dots dance behind my eyes.
The second drill is a three person exercise, in a triangle formation. The person who starts with the puck skates between the other two people, passing the puck to the person at the top of the triangle, takes back possession, then passes it back to the person at the bottom of the triangle, regains possession, then shoots.
Usually, it’s a great passing breakout drill for the whole team, to develop players’ flow, quick one and two touch passes, communication, as well as one timers in the slot.
The skating player—the one who starts with the puck—should focus on keeping their legs moving throughout the entire drill without pausing their crossovers in the pivot. Speedy skating throughout.
We have four sets of players running the drill in each corner of the rink. Mercifully, there’s no whistle piercing the air as it’s a continuous drill, but it takes all I have not to blow chunks on the ice.
Fighting off a migraine is impossible, but somehow Imake it through practice without passing out, vomiting, or crying. Though at various points, I felt like doing all three.
I spend what should probably be considered a criminal length of time in the showers when we’re done on the ice. Partly because my body is so heavy I’m not sure I have it in me to dry off and get changed right away.
Dunno how much later it is when I step out of the rink, but something makes my feet go into the store. I don’t need anything new, but I find the hockey rink store to be like Target for Mom. I neverneedanything, but I always go in for a look and end up coming out three hundred bucks lighter.
Ha. I wish. I don’t remember the last time I had three hundred bucks to blow on anything. But if I did have three hundred bucks, chances are I’d blow it in this tiny store right here.
The kid at the checkout jerks his chin at me in hello, but it’s the red waves standing at one of the racks of shirts that draws my attention. Victoria’s in the hockey shop. Curious.
She’s also looking at shirts and if memory serves, I already gave her one with my name on it, so she has no reason to go shirt shopping.
Whoa, nelly. I don’t own that woman, she can buy whatever the fuck she wants.
As long as it has my name on it.
Yup. Okay. Fine. There’s no calming the possessive beast in my chest. That woman is mine, even if she doesn’t accept it yet. There’s no way she can wear anyone else’s name on her shoulders. Not from my team, or anyone else’s.
