Page 31 of Made For You

I look at him,not sure what he means by that. My eyes roam his face, focusing on his when I ask the next question. “Why did you quit?” He lies in front of me, looking at me. He brings the bottle of water to his mouth and takes a deep pull of it. He’s on his side looking at me, his legs crossed over each other. His arm is propping him up, and I can see the muscle in full form. When he came up before, I wasn’t expecting him to be shirtless. When I saw him up close, my mouth watered, which was dumb, since I’m around built guys all the time.

“That’s a loaded question.” He puts the bottle in front of him, his hand shaking a bit. Making me really anxious about his answer.

“That’s a no.” I shake my head, not willing to put him through this if it’s going to be so hard on him. “You don’t have to answer that. I take it back. Let me ask you something else, then.” There is a reason I hate this game, and this is the top one. You ask something you shouldn’t or something that the person doesn’t want to share. My heart speeds up as I try to take it back.

He smiles at me, but it’s sort of a sad smile. “Those aren’t the rules,” he tries to joke, but his voice is monotone. There is no feeling in it, no nothing, which makes me feel even fucking worse.

“I don’t care,” I say, my heart speeding up, suddenly feeling like an asshole for asking the question. “You see? This is why I hate this game.” I throw my hands up. “It should never be played. Ever.”

He chuckles. “It’s fine,” he assures me, looking straight at the water. “To be honest, I never really told anyone my side of the story.” I swallow down the lump forming in my throat. “I don’t even know how the media spun it.” His eyes never leave the water. “I also didn’t go out of my way to find it.”

“Xavier.” I say his name softly, silently begging him not to do this.

“I got drafted at eighteen.” He smiles but like a real smile. “I thought I was a superstar even though I went like one hundred and ninety-three.” He looks at me. “I mean, your family goes like one or two. I can’t even wrap my head around that.”

“They’re all overachievers, so don’t feel bad for yourself. You still got drafted and played in the NHL.” I smile at him. “No one can take that away from you. There are kids out there who think you play in the NHL once you get drafted. The odds are not in their favor.”

He nods his head. “I played on the farm team for a while, then I got called up. I played one game, got a goal, and then was sent back down. I was just waiting for the call-up again, except it never came. Still, I was playing hockey for a living. How much better did it get?

“It took five seasons for me to make the official team. I trained harder than I ever had in my life. I was working out seven days a week, pushing myself to the edge and then coming back.” He stops talking. The sound of water hitting the boat makes it so peaceful, yet I know inside he’s struggling. I know he is reliving this. I can see it in his eyes. “I was at the top of my game at that point. I was putting goals in, assists, on the power play, on the penalty kill. I was on fucking point.” His voice trembles.

“I thought the team was behind me, but then I got traded.” He looks back at the water. “That stung. But I was excited that at least another team wanted me.” I don’t say anything. I just listen, letting him take his time. Afraid to say one word to make him feel that his story isn’t important. “The minute I got there, they gave me the ins and outs of the team. I had heard rumblings through the years. It was an old-school team run by old-fashioned guys. It took a week before they pulled me aside. In a friendly manner, of course.” He laughs, and the laughter is of anger and bitterness. “They just let me know that this was a clean-cut team. No mustache, beards, nothing. It had to be clean cut every single day.” He shrugs his shoulders and picks up his water bottle again. His hands shake less, but his lips quiver when he puts the bottle to his mouth.

“Honestly,” I say, not sure I can stand the torture he is going through. “We really don’t have to talk about this.”

“According to my therapist, the more I talk about it, the better I will feel.” He tries to make a joke about it, but my heart hurts knowing that just thinking and talking about this hurts him so much. “I didn’t really care about the clean-cut thing, summer months though I refused to shave. But the day before training camp, I would buzz cut my hair and shave. Those first couple of years were some of the best hockey I’ve played. Until I got injured in a game against Toronto and had to have surgery.”

“Eek,” I say, “the dreaded S word.”

That makes him laugh, and it’s a real laugh because his head goes back as he booms out the sound. “Yeah, the dreaded S word. It was fine, but I was out for like three months, which, as you know”—he looks at me—“feels like eighty-four years.” It’s my turn to laugh at this. His tone is getting a bit lighter, so I’m hopeful that the worst is past, but something tells me it’s not. “In reality, though, I missed about forty games. Not the worst, but it wasn’t the best. Then it took time to get back into it.”

“At least you got back on the horse,” I tell him, trying to encourage him.

“Well, the next season, I came out swinging. I was at the top of my game. I had the best start to my season I ever had, and then one game, it just stopped. I don’t really know how to explain it. I played the next twenty-seven games with two points.”

“Everyone goes through slumps,” I try to assure him, and he just shakes his head.

“Yeah, but not only was I not performing, I had the lovely honor of being in the papers every single day. Every fucking day, the papers would let me know how much I was fucking up. Every single interview started with, so you haven’t had one point in…” His eyes close, and his head hangs. My stomach rises to my throat, and I think I’m going to fucking throw up. “It would be during practices, after the games, on the street. It was constantly in my face. I was living in hell. My head was a mess. I would try to talk to the coach, who basically told me to grow a thicker skin.”

I bite my teeth together now, hating this man who I’ve never even met. “What the fuck?” I hiss, not wanting to, and at least it makes him chuckle.

“Yeah, well, that wasn’t the worst of it.” He looks at me, swallowing. “When I went to the GM, he told me that I needed to basically just suck it up.” I’m about to say something when he holds up his hand to stop me. “Actually, his exact words were, ‘If you start producing, they’ll leave you alone.’” He brings his water bottle to his lips, drinking the last drop of water. His hand shakes when he puts the bottle down.

“So that just tells you how much support I had. I tried talking to my captain. I tried talking to everyone, trying to get them to listen to me. Every day was such a struggle. I was lost. I didn’t know what to do with myself. The harder I tried on the ice, the worse I was. I would suffer panic attacks as soon as I got home. I would have anxiety attacks when I was on the road. I went for seven days with one hour of sleep. I just couldn’t shut off my brain. I couldn’t not hear the whispers, and then it had crept into the locker room.

“It was such a toxic environment. I had all this going on with me. I needed so much help, but I got nothing. I was a ticking time bomb. One night, I was on the ice warming up for the game, and I just skated off the ice and refused to get back out there. That night, I got home and…” He looks up, taking a deep exhale. “It got so dark for me that one night I tried to end my life.” The gasp escapes me, and my hand flies to my mouth. The tears form in my eyes as I listen to him. “I had a bottle of pills in one hand.” He wipes the tear from the corner of his eye. “A bottle of Jack in the other, and there in my bathroom, I was going to just take it all away.” I can’t stop the tears from running down my face. “I was so sure that if I swallowed everything in the bottle, it would be over.”

I can’t even fathom how he must have felt, how desolate one must feel to think they don’t matter. “Xavier,” I say his name.

“My agent is the one who found me. I had sent him a message thanking him. He busted down my door and found me before…” His voice trails off. “He got me the help I needed. The team put out a stupid fucking statement saying I was taking an indefinite leave of absence from the team for personal reasons.” The anger now fills my body. “They asked everyone to respect my privacy. I hung up the skates, sold my house, and never looked back. Got some therapy and then more therapy. Adopted Beatrice, who is secretly my support dog,” he says with a smile. “At this point, I’m convinced she knows how to speak and just doesn’t talk to me, hoping I will stop talking to her.”

“Would you ever go back?” I ask, and he smiles. “I can’t not ask this.”

“I don’t know,” he admits. “My agent thinks I should.”

“What do you think?” I hug my legs to my chest, waiting for him to answer.

“I think that they failed me,” he says without skipping a beat. “In more ways than one, they fucking failed me. They were supposed to be a family. They were supposed to have my back.”