Page 6 of Poetry On Ice

Off-hand, I can’t think of anything that’s brought me more joy in, oh, the last five years at least.

3

Robbie McGuire

My phone buzzes inmy hand. A message pops up on my family group chat. Another one.

Mom: It’s not that bad, honey.

Beth: It is.

Mom: It really isn’t.

Mom: Dad says don’t sweat it. Everyone will forget about it by the next news cycle.

Beth: Do you want me to come down there and kick Decker’s ass?

Beth: Let me know, bro, ‘cause I have some free time tomorrow. I can pencil it in.

Given that I haven’t sent my mom or sister a copy of the photograph or so much as mentionedit to them, yet they’ve felt it necessary to message me four times about it, it’s exactly that bad, and then some. The photograph is everywhere. Online. On TV. Two of my friends forwarded the article to me within thirty minutes of it being posted.

At this rate, I’ll be a meme before the day is over.

I click on the photograph and close my eyes, trying, yet again, to convince myself it isn’t as bad as I think it is. When I open them again, the image fills my screen. Decker looks relaxed and happy. Fresh. He looks like the kind of guy that smells good. The kind of guy you know is in the room just by inhaling. He’s looking directly at the camera. His hair is short and well-cut. It’s still wet. His facial hair is dark and a little unruly. There’s a tiny hint of enamel, a little sliver of white, peeking out through his beard. Even though his beard is thick, I can see the scar on his top lip. A deep gash that healed badly.

I was watching the game on TV when it happened. It was three or four years after we met at the Seattle Juniors hockey clinic. A three-week sleepaway camp that felt like a huge deal at the time. I was sixteen, and he was a year older at the time. Decker was probably already a giant dick back then, but I misread him because I’d never played against anyone like him before. Not even close. He was amazing. A missile. Terrifying andawe-inspiring. Big, even then. Not quite fully grown, but close. Close enough to dwarf everyone else.

The injury happened during his first pro season. I hadn’t made it yet, but watching him play made it feel like it wasn’t impossible, like it was just a matter of time before it happened to me too. He was playing for Chicago. A good team, though it wasn’t at its best that year. Still, it was a decent place to start out and make a name for yourself. They were playing the Tampa Blackeyes with less than five minutes left of the second period. Chicago was down by one. It was a tight match. A hard, physical game that looked set to come down to luck as much as skill.

I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.

Decker had left plenty of clues for me that he was an asshole by that time. It’s not that he hadn’t. I just hadn’t pieced them together yet. I guess I can be a little slow about things like that.

It was one of those plays that happened so fast I had to watch the slo-mo replay twice to unpack it. Decker was in their right circle, puck glued to his stick. He looked unstoppable, but their defense was shit-hot. Both of them hit him, a simultaneous one-two from the left and right that left all three players in a heap on the ice. Decker was irate, dangerously inflamed. He was the firstto get up, pushing himself up before the other two had fully crumpled into their landing. As his weight shifted forward, a skate blade made contact. Hard and deep. The ice was instantly splattered with red.

There was so much blood that a stream of it ran through his fingers and down the back of his hands as he clamped them to his face.

He skated off without assistance, but the crowd was quiet. At home, on the sofa, my heart was in my throat.

A week later, he was back on the ice. Clean-shaven for the first time in a long while, with an angry, jagged scar across his top lip, the only evidence he isn’t completely invincible.

I toss my phone onto the sofa and firmly decide not to look at it again for the rest of the day. Instead, I head to the fridge, opening it and hoping against hope to find a lovely home-cooked meal ready to be heated up.

No luck.

Unsurprising, as I know damn well I ate the last meal my mom brought over for dinner last night.

Honestly, fuck this day and everything about it.

As I’m already here, I get an ice pack out of the freezer and hold it against my left cheek. My skin is warm, and I hiss from the cold, but thankfully, it doesn’t look asbad as it feels. There’s only a pink smudge across my cheekbone. If I’m lucky, it won’t bruise.

I don’t know how to explain what happened at practice today. It wasn’t me. I’ve literally never been in a fight other than throwing a few punches in the heat of a game in my entire life. And even then, I’m the one who breaks fights up, not starts them. I don’t know what came over me. One second, I was my usual self, and the next, I was something else. I felt…I don’t know. Alive isn’t the right word, but it was something close. Activated, maybe? Heightened? Everything around me slowed and all I could see was Decker’s asshole face. My blood pumped hard and my thoughts evaporated. One second, they were there, and the next, my mind went vacant. My limbs reacted, hands clenching, arms swinging, with no conscious decision from me. The only thing I was aware of was Decker.

Where he was.

Where I was.

And this deep, red-hot thing in my chest that I’ve never felt before. A kind of pull. A want. A craving.