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My recall of that day is perfect—I remember the vivid blue of the summer sky, and the burn of my young muscles as I carried my hockey bag inside after practice. I remember how neither of my parents had acknowledged my arrival back home until I announced myself. Dad had wanted to know if I was working on my footwork, because I was too damn clumsy. How dare my ten-year-old body not work the way he wanted it to work?Yes, one of the older kids, Daniel Greene, is working with me. He stays after practice sometimes to do skating drills.
Dad liked Danny, which is perhaps why I felt comfortable enough to continue talking.I like him,I had said,he’s cute.Never in my life had I been struck, and so it took me a long moment to realize what had happened; it took blood on the fingers I pulled away from my mouth to realize that dad had hit me, a single backhanded blow to the face.What’s wrong with you?he had asked,Don’t ever talk like that about your teammates again, you hear me?I had nodded yes, still stunned, but determined to learn my lesson. Mom was shaking her head at me, beckoning me over to her. As I went, I heard my dad mutterfucking disgustingunder his breath.
I sat on the toilet as mom dampened a washcloth and used it to wipe my lip.Girls are cute too, she told me, and I was a quick learner so I knew enough by then to remain silent.You’re too young to know what you want, she told me, and I wondered what she would think if I told her Danny wasn’t the first boy I had thought was cute, just the first one I had mentioned out loud.
I tried, after that. I really did. I found a girl to take to my Homecoming, one who, admittedly, was thin enough at sixteen that she was still flat-chested, and had hair cut short in a bob. In the dark, I had reasoned, she’ll hardly be like a girl at all. But I was wrong, horribly, embarrassingly wrong, and my sixteen-year-old self had learned another valuable lesson about shame that day. No matter how low you’ve sunk, there is always further to drop.
A knock at my front door breaks me from my reverie. I tap a finger on my phone and realize I’ve been home for over half an hour and have nothing to show for it. I start toward the front of my house just as another bang echoes against the door, the sort of sound a foot would make and not a fist. Which means I know exactly who’s on the other side.
Lawson grins at me over what looks to be a heavy box. Whatever it is apparently requires two hands to hold, hence the use of his foot to knock. I step back at once, letting him in, and I hate myself a little bit, for how pathetically grateful I am to see him. I get far more from our relationship than he does, feeding off of him like a leech. Selfless as he is, he would never leave if he knew just how lonely I really am.
“Hey buddy,” he says, “want to barbeque?”
He doesn’t have to ask, and he knows it. Never, in the years we’ve known each other, have I ever told him no, and I’m sure as hell not starting now. I follow him through the house as he beelines for the backdoor, pushing thoughts of my parents as far from my mind as possible.
Nigel
I’ve been here a week, and my need to talk to Corwin has me nearly crawling out of my skin. Every day I search his eyes for the memory of that night, and every day I am met with a cool-eyed wall of indifference. I want him to hate me for what happened and it bothers me that he doesn’t. Or maybe he does but he’s too much of a stand-up guy to hold it against me. Either way, I can’t do this anymore; I can’t play pretend and act like we don’t have history.
Six years too late, but I think it’s time I apologize.
Sighing, I watch him from where I’m standing by the bench, getting some water. He’s by Lawson’s goal and the pair of them are chatting, a familiarity between them that speaks of years of friendship. Corwin smiles the private smile that seems to be reserved for only Lawson and Troy, and I turn away before he catches me staring. Replacing the water bottle, I skate toward the opposite end of the rink, putting as much distance between us as possible.
When practice ends, I parallel Corwin’s movements as much as I can without being too obvious. It’s understandable that he would want to avoid me, but I can’t see another way to do this without embarrassing us both. He’s going to have to talk to me somewhere else if he doesn’t want an apology here, shouted at him across the locker room.
Luck appears to be on my side today, however, as he’s completely alone when I fall in beside him as he walks across the parking lot after practice. More often than not he seems to be accompanied by Lawson, like some sort of pseudo bodyguard. Part of me wonders if something is going on between them; this is also the part of me that wants to run Lawson over with my truck, so I do my best to ignore it.
Corwin looks at me from the corner of his eye but doesn’t say anything. Well, that’s fine, because I only need him to listen, anyway.
“Hey, so I need to talk to you, about what happened back in Florida, and I think—”
He’s gone from my field of vision, and I turn back to see him standing frozen, staring at me wide-eyed. My heart is literallypoundingin my chest, and I rub a hand over it absently; I think if I don’t get the words out now, they might very well kill me.
“I don’t…” He trails off.
I’m not above begging. “Please. Just one time, that’s all I need. Let me say what I need to say and that’s it, we never have to talk about it again.” He still hasn’t moved, and that damn mask is so firmly in place I have no earthly idea what he’s thinking. Probably wishing Lawson had walked with him to his car, like he usually did. “Please, Corwin.”
He flinches, very slightly when I say his name and if I thought my heart was behaving erratically before, it’s nothing to what it does now.
“Okay.” He says, quietly. I see his chest rise and fall, and find myself counting out five inhalations before he speaks again. “Okay. But not here. You can come to my place.”
“Are you sure? We can go somewhere more public, if you’d be more comfortable.” He gives me a strange look, shaking his head.
“Private is better. I can text you my address.”
“Okay.” I breathe, relieved that he’s agreed, but a little wary about going to his house. All I can think of is the shaky way he held his hands up to ward me off, and the terrified gleam in his eye. He passes by me, stepping around so he doesn’t touch me accidentally, and continues on toward
his car.
I’m sitting in my truck, waiting, when a text chimes and I scramble to pick up my phone, relieved that he followed through. A moment later he sends another text with a time, seven o’clock, which is obviously a request to not follow him home right now. Two hours to kill.
I pull out of the lot and drive less than a mile down the road, parking in front of a bar called Hank’s. I’ll nurse a beer and wallow in nervous energy, maybe figure out exactly what it is I’ve been waiting six years to say.
???
My navigation app has a hard time finding Corwin’s house, and by the time I’m parking in the driveway it’s seven on the dot. He answers the door wearing the same thing he left practice in, though I notice now that the color of his shirt adds a hint of green to his irises. He silently steps back, holding the door wide for me to enter. As he shuts it behind me, I see he’s not wearing shoes, and the sight of his socked feet makes my throat feel tight. I tug off my own shoes and leave them by the front door.
“Do you have any food allergies?” Corwin asks.
