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Breath evacuates my body as Paul Lambertson, one of the biggest and fiercest defenders on the University of Virginia team we’re playing, bodychecks me against the barricades.
While I’m stunned, two other Virginia players descend like vultures and, despite my best efforts to fight them off, steal the puck from me.
I can’t tell which of them succeeds in wresting control of the puck from me, as it’s immediately passed down the rink to one of their offensive players.
The vultures lose interest in me and skate up to our zone to assist their scoring opportunity. I pump my legs as fast as I can, but I can tell I’m missing a gear as I’m still winded from the hit. An impressive passing scheme allows one of their best players, Mike Carmichael—twoMikes in his name? What were his parents thinking?—an open shot on goal.
Luckily, Cole bails us out with an incredible glove save.
Virginia is one of the best teams in the league, and with the post-season so close that we can all taste it, they’re playing their hearts out tonight. This is one of the toughest, most competitive games we’ve played all season, and it’s a minor miracle that Cole was able to pull off that save and keep the score 3-3 as we head into the last five minutes of play.
Cole slides the puck to Hunter, who immediately passes it to me.
I shake off the lingering effects of that body check and get my whole mind and body back into the game. Lambertson tries for a repeat as I skate up along the edge of the rink, but I stop short and send him smashing against the dasher boards.
I deke around another Virginia player and pass to Hunter, who then immediately passes to Tristan, who then immediately passes to Ryder—the rapid-fire passing splits the defenders’ attention, allowing me to set up position with a clear line of fire on their goal.
Ryder sends the puck to me and with a deft flick of my wrist, I launch it towards the goal.
The goalie sprawls with everything he has, but the puck still finds the back of the net.
The home crowd erupts.
If there’s a better sound in the world than that cheering while the score buzzer reverberates in the air, I haven’t heard it yet.
I skate along the barricades, screaming and gesturing in triumph towards the hyped-up home crowd, urging them to get louder. The rest of the guys skate up to me and wrap me in hugs or slap my helmet in celebration.
We’re up 4-3 with just a couple minutes left. Virginia goes all-out with everything they have, but our defense holds and the game ends in another victory.
I’m feeling pretty damn good as we change in the locker room.
I’ve been hyper-critical of myself all this season; not to brag, but as I play my performance back in my head, I don’t find a whole lot to criticize this time. I feel like I played my best individual game of the season.
But that’s not the only reason my spirits are riding especially high.
So far this year, it hasn’t just been the extra pressure I’m feeling on the ice that’s weighed my mood down. It’s also been the fact that I’ve been in a total funk when it comes to women.
It’s still hard to believe, but I haven’t slept with anyone since Halloween night with Zoey.
Ever since feeling that immediate, magnetic chemistry with her, other girls just haven’t compared. No matter how hot they are, or how eager they, the kind of girls I run into at parties and on campus just haven’t lit any spark of desire in me.
Which isn’t to say my sex-drive is gone. Far from it. I’m still a red-blooded twenty-one-year-old guy.
But the lack of spark I’ve felt from any girls I’ve been meeting has left me satisfying those desires with my right hand—and the memories of Halloween night still vivid in my mind.
But yesterday, when the girl who was late to my Psych class sat in the desk next to mine, I felt a stirring of interest in a way that I haven’t for three months.
It was hard not to laugh at how annoyed our stick-up-his-ass professor was at her being just a few minutes late.
I often make little humorous sketches of amusing things I see throughout the day—but I never share them. I wait until I get home and sketch them in one of my many sketchbooks that I keep buried in my closet.
It’s stupid that I still feel compelled to hide that part of myself, even from my best friends on the team, even though I know I don’t have to anymore.
Which is why it’s so crazy that I actually felt comfortable enough to share the sketch I made with her. I mean, I guess it’s only fair since it was inspired by her misfortune. But, still, it’s a part of myself I share with no one.
Honestly, the automatic attraction I felt for her, and the inexplicable fact that I felt comfortable to share with her a side of myself I never let anyone see, even though we hadn’t even saidhello, made me dare to think something crazy.
Could she have been the girl from Halloween night?
