Page 32 of Your Kiss Is On My List

“I know.” I fist and unfist my hand then push my fingers through my hair.

“You can’t make things right? She’s definitely into you.”

“She’s too young to know better.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Fuck. Even if she’s not too young, she’s a fucking virgin. She’ clearly too innocent for the likes of me.”

“Pardon my crudeness, but someone’s got to burst her cherry. Why not you, man?”

“Don’t be a fucking dick.”

“I thought you cared about her?”

“I do, but…”

“But what? What is it between you two? There’s some kind of bond between you. I can see it from a mile away in bright neon. That’s got to be good—”

“It’s not,” I say, the truth slicing through my soul, the bright lightning flash of awareness too sudden and traumatic to hide from. “The bond between us came from something truly bad.” I bark a humorless laugh because that’s the fucking understatement of a lifetime.

“What the fuck?” Frustration and puzzlement contort Nate’s face and I can see he’s on the verge of punch-throwing anger. We got to that point between us one other time in the past three years. It was the kind of emotional purging that strengthened our bond to brotherlike, leaving implicit unwavering trust between us, the kind that’s allowing me to spill my guts now without fear. At least not fear of him.

Fear of my demons is a whole other matter that I’m rediscovering now as my breathing and heart rate speed up with the entire fucking demon story rushing to the tip of my tongue.

“There was an incident.” I snort a laugh at my inability to label it what it was, the way I keep thinking of it as an incident, so dubbed by my father, the only one brave enough to talk to me about it—except Dani.

“What kind of incident?” he prods when I stall out, equal parts curiosity and skepticism in his voice. He’s leaning against the side of the car and I stand a few feet from him in the shadows of the trees, the cushion of pine needles under my feet, the comfort of their strong scent surrounding me. I look him in the eye.

“A fucking bloody accident. A deadly accident.” His brows go up and he stares back, his curiosity stronger and now mixed with concern and apprehension. My heart beats so hard it shakes my whole body, the pulse rippling through me like the pounding of a hundred marching band drums.

“When I was twelve, we were playing hockey. It was a league championship game and I fell. It was an accident. We were crowded in front of the net and I was trying to score. My feet flew up and I slammed onto the ice, hitting my head. I was shaken, woozy, but conscious.” I close my eyes, wish they’d been closed that day, have wished I’d blacked out a million times since then.

“You’re alive and well.” There’s almost panic in his voice and I open my eyes. He’s standing away from the car, steps closer. I hold my ground, shaking my head, but the misery that I thought I’d purged, worked so hard to get rid of—to forget, to reconcile, to will away—squeezes my chest so that my breathing is quick and shallow. I haven’t talked about it in so long, but it’s all still there inside me, needing to get out.

“I wished I was dead. Wished I’d cracked my head open on the ice. Wished all that blood—” I stop and force a deep breath, push a shaky hand through my hair again.

“Don’t—fuck.” There’s no disguise to the full-bore panic in his voice and eyes now. I’m breathing hard like I’m racing on a breakaway down the ice with the defensemen on my heels, but I need to finish the story, to get it out of me.

“My skates hit another player, a kid on the other team.” I force myself to say his name, clearing the ball of emotion from my throat. “Corey.” I shake my head. “When I went down, I hit my head hard and the players and ref rushed to my side, to look after me, but I saw the blood spurt—Jesus, still see it in nightmares. Blood all over the ice, slimy and bright red.”

“Fuuuck.” The word comes from his mouth in a shocked croak. “And you’ve lived with this… this horrible accident on your conscience all this time, not even telling me—”

“I’ve been trying to forget it, to move on, not talk about it.” He nods.

“That is so messed up.” He pauses and I feel calmer now, my chest loose and breathing almost normal although my heart’s still pumping blood like I’m about to go in for a penalty shot to win the championship game. “But you still played hockey, you were courageous enough to get back on the ice.” Excitement builds in his words like he’s damned impressed with me, but I stop him with a derisive snort.

“Courageous? Fuck no. I was a fucking mess. I didn’t get back on the ice for a fucking year.” The shocked look on his face almost makes me flinch. This is the hard part of the story because I still have a fucking crazy mix of guilt and shame. I’m ashamed of feeling guilty and guilty for feeling shame. Truly messed up. He scowls at me.

“Whatever, man. You got back on the ice and that had to be hard.” He gets it even if his look is hard, like he has no patience for guilt or shame. Or that could be all in my head.

“For a whole year there was a lot of whispering about it, about the accident. Some people judged me as guilty. Said I should give up skating. Others felt bad for me but they also thought I should give up skating. Everyone had an opinion because I was supposedly the local hockey phenom. Mom, Dad and my coach supported me and wanted me to get back on the ice when all I could see was a puddle of blood. My therapist was neutral.” I chuckle without humor.

“Your therapist—so what got you back to skating?” I can see he’s struggling with the story, trying to grasp it, to reconcile it all with who I am now, the fucking scoring star for the SPU Wildbeasts, the right-wing speedster who gets hounded by the press and agents convinced I’m a top NHL prospect. And I wonder which guy I am.

“Dani,” I say. And he sucks in a breath and shakes his head. “I finally got past the incident because Dani came up to my room one day when I was lying in bed feeling sorry for myself because the other kids from my team were leaving for hockey camp the next day. She sat down on the bed next to me and took my hand like she was some wise old woman even though she was only nine years old and she told me I was meant to skate, meant to play hockey, that I had to prove that the accident wasn’t for nothing.

“Something about proving myself struck a chord in me. So after a year, I went back. And Dani came with me, to every practice and every game. My dad and Lou came and sometimes my mom. To this day they’re like my personal team and I’m playing for all of us and I will be until I stop—hopefully not for another twenty years from now.”