Page 83 of Playing the Player

Me: Anyone up for a drink?

Knight: At 11am?

Knight: Always.

Josh: I can come out for an hour.

Me: Is that when your curfew ends?

Knight: Joshy’s got chores to do.

Me: Have you earned enough pocket money

this week to come out with us?

Josh: Fuck you both. I’m not coming anymore.

Knight: Aww. We’ve hurt Joshy’s feelings :(

Me: We’re sorry. Please come out with us?

Josh: Fine. But you’re buying.

Knight: Guess he didn’t earn his pocket money after all.

Josh: *middle finger emoji*

Thirty minutes later we’re sitting in our usual bar, beers in hand. “...then the puck came flying at my face with so much force it actually knocked me on my ass.” Knight tells me excitedly, “But I’m just so good at my job that I was still able to catch it before it hit the back of the net.”

Normally I would laugh. But today, I barely hear him. Every conversation somehow circles right back to hockey. Practice, games, the next road trip. It’s always like this and usually I like it, but now it’s like someone’s constantly rubbing salt into an open wound.

Maybe I should make friends that don’t play hockey. Golf? No, you still need two working arms for golf. Shit!

Knight keeps talking but I don’t even register his words. I’m just nodding along and smiling when I think I’m supposed to. He doesn’t even seem to notice. Josh notices though. Of course he does. He keeps watching me like he’s trying to work out what’s going on in my head. Jokes on him, I don’t really know either.

I think the hardest part about all of this is that they don’t actually get why it’s hitting me so hard. They think I’m upset because I can’t play. They don’t know that it’s a way for me to escape to somewhere other than my own head.

Maybe I should just tell them. But what if they look at me differently? Sasha’s words float through my head. “If anyone changes the way they see you after knowing that, then they don’t deserve a place in your life.” She’s right. She always is.

I take a long sip of my drink before blurting out the words that I’ve been dying to say for years. “I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was six.” Knight freezes halfway through another story. Josh slowly lowers his beer. Neither of them say anything. Good. Because if they interrupt me now, I’ll lose my nerve. “My brain doesn’t stop.” I admit quietly, staring down at the table instead of my two closest friends. “It’s like… there’s always ten conversations happening at once. It’s like my brain is going a mile a minute and I can’t turn it off.” I sigh heavily, running a hand through my hair. “I talk too much because if I don’t get that thought out immediately, it’ll disappear. I interrupt people. I say stupid shit. I’m loud and impulsive. I know I can be a real pain in the ass sometimes, but I can’t help it.”

Knight snorts. “That explains… literally everything.”

Despite myself, I laugh. “Diane has talked me down a lot. When things got too much, she always knew the right things to say to help me calm down.”

Josh frowns. “Wait, Dee knows?”

“Yeah. Diane, Sasha and management are the only ones who know.” I rub my thumb around the cold glass. “What I’m trying to say is, hockey has been the one constant in my life that makes me feel normal. When I’m on the ice…” I’m struggling to find the words. “It’s like everything goes quiet. No racing thoughts. No noise. No chaos. Just hockey.”

Silence settles over the table. It’s not uncomfortable, but you can feel the tension. Knight is the first one to speak. “And now you don’t have that.” He shakes his head. “That really fucking sucks.”

Tell me about it.

“Shit, man. I’m so sorry.” Josh reaches across the table and squeezes my shoulder. “What if you came up to Canada with us this weekend?”

I blink at him. “What?”

“I know it might be hard having to sit on the sidelines, but it might help a little. You don’t have to sit here by yourself.”