Page 96 of Gross Misconduct

“We can’t live in it either.” In that moment, it hits me just how tired I am of looking in the rearview mirror. I lost my shot at a pro hockey career. I can’t keep holding onto that anger and resentment. I can’t keep viewing myself as a loser unworthy of good things in life because of one bad game.

“This isn’t how my life was supposed to go,” he grumbles.

“Same. Life doesn’t always give us what we want, and at some point, we need to move on,” I tell him, but I’m speaking to both of us. It takes two to brawl.

“You never apologized to me.”

I bite my tongue, holding back the guffaw of anger surging up my throat. “You should be the one apologizing to me.” I point to my eye patch.

“I can do that, too.” He mockingly points to his shoulder. “Permanently fucked up thanks to you barreling into me like an asshole.”

“You came at me with your stick pointing like a spear!”

I feel us begin to go in circles. I can recite our arguments verbatim by this point. Round and round we go. This is not the way.

I take a breath and muster all of my strength to utter two words.

“I’m sorry.”

Ted seems flustered by my apology. He blinks a few times, trying to process.

To my surprise, I find that I don’t want to throw up in my mouth after saying I’m sorry. I feel a lightness inside me, like the weight of this rivalry can finally lift off my shoulders.

“I’m sorry, Ted.” Heavy chunks of anger break off me and float away into the wind. “I’m sorry about your shoulder and your career. I’m sorry this happened to both of us.”

Our collision on the ice appears in my memory as fragments of a puzzle that can never be fully put together. “I remember you and your stick coming at my head, but I don’t remember much else. I might’ve charged at you. I honestly don’t remember.”

Ted drops his crossed arms, perhaps a similar weight breaking off him, too. “I remember the panic I felt as we were colliding. Neither of us could stop. I thought you were going to smash into my shoulder first, but you turned your head at the last second.”

“Why did I do that?”

He shrugs, just as clueless about my teenage self as I am. “Why did I hold up my stick?”

“It was our fight or flight response, I guess.”

“My arm jammed back when my stick made contact with your face. It tore my rotator cuff.”

We’re trying to make sense of the past, a fool’s errand.

“I wasn’t trying to take you out,” I say. “Not consciously, at least. I wanted to win. I wanted to impress the scouts in the stands.”

“Me, too.” Ted leans against the model kitchen counter and rubs his bald head. “One moment changed everything, didn’t it?”

“Why didn’t you come to the hospital to see me?”

“Because I was an asshole.” His eyes, blue like Jack’s, shine under the harsh light of the store. “I thought if I went, it meant I was admitting it was my fault. I’m sorry, Griffin.”

My soul lifts at those two little words. I didn’t realize how badly I wanted to hear them. But now that he apologized, I quickly want to move on. Holding onto this anger did nothing for either of us.

“How’s your eye?” he asks.

“Completely non-functional, but aside from that, totally fine.”

We break into a soft chuckle, a chip at the thawing ice.

“I really wanted to go pro. I really fucking wanted it,” Ted says, a curdled wistfulness enveloping him.

“Me too.”

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