Page 55 of Blocked Score

“It doesn’t mean anything,you know.”

I ignore Rhys’s words, my features set hard and expressionless while I finish my shoulder-press set.

“I had a worse game than that just two months ago,” he continues.

That’s bullshit. Rhys has never had a worse game than I just had in his life. Neither have I.

That’s why I’ve done nothing since it happened but think about it.

Okay, maybethinkisn’t the right word. More like: I’ve done nothing since it happened but catastrophize over it.

I’m self-aware enough to know what I’m doing, but that doesn’t mean I can stop.

What I’ve worried about ever since my injury last year finally happened. I played a game where I didn’t feel like myself. I was slow, I had bad reaction time, forwards beat me like a drum in one-on-one plays.

Yeah, fluctuations in your performances are a natural part of the game. But having the worst game of my career, by far, just a couple weeks after my return from a major injury?

It could be a natural fluctuation, or it could be the first sign that I’m washed up, that the decent to good performances I’ve had in games since my return up to now were just flukes.

Maybe it means that my durability has totally tanked. That I can play like I used to now and then, but that the injury’s robbed me of my ability to sustain the necessary level of performance over an entire season.

It’ll take more games for me to know the truth. But until that happens, I don’t know how to stop torturing myself over it.

A lot of people would say I’m being ridiculous to spiral like this after one bad game. I mean, shit, a lot of people have told me exactly that. Rhys included, more than once.

But the bottom line is, I haven’t played long enough to really know what kind of player I’m going to be long-term, post-injury. The fact that my fourth game back was my worst performance ever has all the alarm centers of my brain firing off.

With a heave of breath, I finish my last rep. I roll my tight, sore shoulders.

Rhys plops himself on the lat pull-down machine across from me, facing me.

“Alright, asshole,” he begins, a classic conversation opener from my lifelong best friend, “since you won’t listen to me while I’m trying to talk sense into you, I’ll ask you something else you don’t want to answer. Our new roommate.”

The arc of muscle around my neck pulls. “What about her?”

He folds his arms over his chest, giving me a no-bullshit glare. “What’s the real story?”

I almost wish he’d want to talk about my shitty game again. “There’s no story.”

“I already knew there was a story when you looked like you’d seen a ghost that day we helped Hudson move. After seeing you guys live together for weeks, now I know it’s a big one.” He arches an eyebrow. “It’s not like you to keep things to yourself.”

“Look who’s talking. The guy who was in love with my little sister for basically his whole damn life and never told me about it until I saw them kissing.”

I can’t deny that there’s an edge to my voice. But it has nothing to do with Rhys’s relationship with Maddie, and everything to do with him prodding at a topic I don’t want to discuss.

“Yeah, well, that’s because itislike me to keep things to myself,” Rhys parries back with a sardonic grin. “You, on the other hand? This is out of character.”

“Has it occurred to you that you’re mistaken?”

“No, because I can see your face right now.”

I try to keep what I think is a poker face plastered on, but the energy evaporates from my body. I sigh and let my eyes drop between my feet.

“Remember that summer I went to Chicago for that hockey camp?” I say.

Rhys nods, and I give him the story. It’s the first time I’m breathing even a word about what happened that summer to anyone else. Rhys is right, I’ve always shared everything withhim, but this is one thing I’ve kept locked up and buried deep because it just hurt too damn much.

Silly, right? Being that hurt by someone deciding that a short, fun summer fling wasn’t worth trying to drag out into a long-term, long-distance relationship.

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