Page 119 of Daydream
“Do you want a drink?” he asks, dropping his bag next to the couch and walking toward the fridge.
“Do I want a drink? No! I want to know what the fuck is going on before I actually lose it.”
He sighs, dropping onto the couch. I immediately take the spot beside him, not touching him, as much as I want to, because there’s something about him that’s off, and I don’t want to do something to push him over. When I’m finally close to him I see the top of his cheekbone is starting to swell. “Is thatswelling? Did you get into a fight?”
“Fighting is for fools, and I’m not a fool,” he says, smiling at first then grimacing when he rubs his hand against the growing bruise. “He fought. I just got in the way of it.”
My hand covers my mouth, because if I don’t I feel like I’m going to scream this house down from frustration. Lowering my voice to a whisper, I give him a look that hopefully shows that I’m pleading with him. “Please give me a straight answer and just tell me what happened.”
“There’s a small area between the home and away hallways that meets before it goes into our respective tunnels. It’s because they confused the designs when they were building the arenas because of the other rink and they’d already started constructing and—”
“Henry,please.”
“Sorry. We call it no-man’s-land, but it’s basically just a short hallway that links us to the visitors. Under no circumstances do we stray into it and mess with the other team; Faulkner would have our heads. Will didn’t get the memo and had some shit to say. I said some stuff, he said some stuff, I said some stuff back. He was being aggressive. I’m not playing.”
“I feel like I’m a sim and someone is canceling the action where you give me a full explanation.He was being aggressive, I’m not playingdoesn’t help ease how sick with anxiety I feel right now. I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be hard work, but give mesomething. What’s so bad that you’re avoiding telling me?”
His face tells me I’m right immediately. He reaches for one of my hands and brings it to his mouth, kissing the back of it. “It isn’t nice, Halle. I don’t want to say it.”
“If it was worth fighting over, I think I have the right to know.”
“I didn’t fight; he fought. I know you don’t like fighting, so I didn’t,” he says seriously.
I’m confused beyond words. “So if you didn’t fight, how come you’re not playing?”
Henry rubs his jaw and looks everywhere but me. When I don’t look away, he kisses the back of my hand again. “Because I wouldn’t tell Faulkner what Will said. He said if I wasn’t going to be honest with him then I wasn’t going to play. I said fine. He said if I wasn’t prepared to do things I didn’t want to do for the sake of my team, maybe we needed to talk about if I have the right attitude to be captain.”
My heart is breaking for him. I know how hard he’s worked. “Oh, Henry.”
“And then I walked out after he was gone.”
“What can I do?” I ask, the desperation clear in my voice.
“I need to feel you. Can I?” I nod as he holds out his arms, and I’ve never needed to touch someone as much as I do right now. Ithink he feels the same because he tugs on my leg to pull it over his until I’m straddling his hips. He keeps my head to his chest, breathing deeply as he kisses my forehead.
His mouth works down the bridge of my nose gently, until he kisses my mouth, hesitant at first until it deepens. We don’t talk as we begin to pull at each other’s clothes. I have this frantic need to feel close to him, to keep him near me, almost like somehow deep down it feels like he’s slipping away when he’s right in front of me. I can’t explain it, but I think he feels it too.
Henry holds me close as he lowers me onto the floor. Every touch serves a purpose to get us closer together until he sinks inside me. He’s careful and tender, telling me everything and nothing in every kiss, every thrust. I cling to him tighter, and when stars burst behind my eyes, I still don’t want to let him go. I want to believe that it’s grounding to him, that it rids him of all the extra energy plaguing him. But it feels like an apology. Or maybe, it feels like a goodbye.
Henry rolls off me, pulling up his sweatpants and immediately helping me pull my panties back up. It’s dirty and emotional, and yet neither of us is saying anything when we stare up at the ceiling of his living room. We’re both breathing heavily, but it’s the only sound.
“I need you to tell me what he said. Please, Henry. I’m going to create my own answers if you don’t tell me, and it’ll probably be far worse than the actual truth.”
“Even though it’s disgusting and will hurt you?” he asks quietly.
“If something is so bad you’ll risk the thing you’ve been working hard for all year, then I feel like I need to know what it was. I know adjusting has been hard, but you’re such a great leader. You can’t throw it away. I’ll only make you say it once, I promise.”
He takes a breath and tells me as calmly as he can. My stomach twists as I hear how Will talked about my body. Henry pauses, which gives me a chance to apologize. “I’m so sorry, Henry. I know how hard you’ve been working to beat him fairly.”
“He asked me if I liked the things he’d taught you,” Henry adds, and everything that comes after makes tears fill my eyes, but I don’t let them fall.
Will Ellington isn’t worth crying over, and he never has been.
Henry is right, it is disgusting, and it’s a weird moment where the anger and the upset fight against each other in my body. But as horrible as Will is, as embarrassed as I feel, I would never want Henry to lose something over me. “You should tell your coach what he said. I can drive you back to the rink right now, and you can tell him and all of this can be fixed so you can play tomorrow.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Now isn’t the time to be stubborn, Henry. We can fix this. I’m not worth getting in trouble over. I’ll get over the embarrassment. Please let me help you. Don’t make me watch you spiral.”