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Since he decided to market me as some sort of hockey prodigy. And with my mom out of the picture, there was no one to balance his intensity.
I did love it once. Didn’t I? When playing the game actually felt like playing a game?
All the years of grinding and being worked to the bone and chasing titles and accolades had changed everything.
Eloise wouldn’t understand that. Nobody would.
I start to feel my T-shirt sticking to my back, but there’s no way I’m taking it off with her standing this close to me.
“I was just thinking—” she stops, almost like a warning bell had gone off inside of her. “Ah. It’s dumb, never mind.”
I can’t explain why, but I want to know what it is she isn’t saying.
“What?”
She looks a bit shocked at the question, and it’s true, I don’t really ask many questions. Not to know more about what someone’s thinking.
She takes a step closer, like she’s about to tell me a secret.
I absently pedal slower. I can smell the lotion on her skin, some kind of vanilla. All of a sudden, I want to know all of her secrets.
“I know it’s dumb for me to try and give you any advice,” she says. “Because I know nothing about hockey, but—”
“But you’re going to anyway,” I say dryly, keeping up the pretense of not caring.
She smiles, brightening. “So, you’re under all this pressure, right? All these people with all their dumb opinions—and you have something to prove.”
“I do?”
“Sure seems like you think so,” she says.
“Yeah. This isn’t helping.” I start pedaling faster. Maybe I liked it better when she was stand-offish with me.
She waves me off. “You don’t strike me as the kind of guy who cares what other people say. At least, that’s what you want everyone to think.” She pauses.
She’s spot on.
“I’m waiting for your life-changing advice.”
Heck with it. I tug my shirt off and toss it on the floor.
She takes a step back, and it’s subtle, but I see her eyes widen, then she looks away.
Eloise clears her throat. “So, uh, what if you went back to that place? The day you picked up your first hockey stick. The day you skated across the rink, holding it in your hands? What if you stopped trying to be the best and remember why you loved it in the first place?”
That place. The first place. I wince at the memory.
“Eloise, no offense, but this isn’t some documentary with me playing hockey on a frozen creek in the backyard.”
Her face falls, and I instantly regret what I said.
“Right. Of course.” She absently taps a fist on the handles of the bike, defeated. “I just thought that if you played like you loved it and not like you’re being punished, maybe the rest would fall into place.”
The door opens and a few of my new teammates stroll in.
She takes a step back and moves to leave before I can make it right. “I’ll be upstairs in one of the common spaces if you need me.”
And then, she walks away.
