Page 21 of Shift Change

“That isn’t why I avoid commitments.” I looked away and swallowed more beer.

“What is it, then? Did someone hurt you?”

If he only fucking knew.My pulse kicked up, and my stomach twisted itself into knots. I’d never told anyone the whole story, just carefully sanitized details. And now I was about to spill it to a guy I’d only known for a few days?

My fingers tightened around my beer bottle, and when I brought it to my lips, it clinked against my teeth. I drank what was left and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, already coming up with a bullshit story about a girl who’d crushed me. That would be safer because the truth still had teeth.

I fell in love with a girl in college who was secretly a sex worker. I didn’t know that every night when she came back to me, she’d spent all day in bed with other men. When she finally told me the truth, she said I sucked in bed, she didn’t love me, and she was eloping the next day with a vice president from the bank.

Who knew if Dog would buy it, but this had been a stupid idea to start with. I opened my mouth, ready to spit out this ridiculous lie and move on, except I made the mistake of looking at him.

He was sitting still, watching me. The flickering light from the TV caught his eyes, and he tilted his head, obviously choosing his words carefully.

“Buddy,” he said, “if you want to tell me, I’m here, but I get it if you don’t. No pressure. It might help to get it off your chest, though. I feel a lot better since I talked to you.”

The tension in my abs let go, and I realized I was safe. I wanted to tell Dog the story, and maybe, for the first time, I could.

“I was an only child,” I started, fixing my gaze on the floor. “When I was little, we were happy. Dad had his moods, but I remember him and Mom laughing. I also remember how great Mom’s food was. She made everything from scratch, and even way back then, I ate like a horse. They took me to Orlando once, the three of us. The details are fuzzy in my mind, but I’m sure we had fun.” My throat tightened. “I have pictures somewhere. In one of them, Mom and Dad are on either side of me, both kissing my cheeks.”

Acid poured into my stomach, and I almost stopped there. I wanted to let the memories drift away, but Dog shifted closer and laid a hand on my arm.

“Is this okay?” he asked.

I nodded, bracing myself to go on. “Things started going bad when I was in third grade. Mom was tired all the time, laid around and didn’t do anything. Sometimes she was out of it. The house got messy, and Dad lost it over that a lot. She didn’t cook much. By the time I was in fourth grade, she was a zombie most of the time. They kept telling me she was sick, but she’d be okay.”

Dog remained quiet, and when I glanced over, he was pressing his lips together.

“Then she started disappearing,” I said. “Overnight at first, then for days at a time. I’d wake up, and she’d be gone. Since Dad was working, I spent a lot of time with the neighbors.”

I didn’t realize I was gripping my own hands until Dog’s thumb brushed over my wrist—barely there but grounding me.

“What was wrong with her?” His voice was careful, as if he already knew the answer.

I exhaled sharply. “The summer after fourth grade, she left again.” My throat filled, so I croaked out the rest. “She never came back.”

Dog slid his hand back up my arm.

“I asked Dad where she was, and all he said was, ‘The drugs got her.’ I didn’t understand what that meant. I asked if she died, and he said no. Told me she’d found another life and wasn’t coming back.”

A heavy silence settled between Dog and me, thick enough to feel. I stared at a shadow stretched across the carpet. It looked fragile somehow, like one small shift could erase it completely, but I knew better. Some shadows are permanent.

When I looked at Dog, his eyes were dark. He didn’t say anything stupid—no “I’m sorry” or “that sucks.” Instead, he let me experience my feelings, his presence solid and steady, his hand still on my arm.

“I think Dad got sick,” I said. “Depression or whatever, I don’t know.” Everything around me blurred, and I slipped into a kind of trance, telling facts instead of reliving them. “He got mean, and the next eight years were hell. He was never in a good mood, we never did anything fun, and his whole life became hockey—me playing hockey, to be exact. He becamethatdad, the one who yelled at the coaches for not giving me enough ice time, argued with refs over every call, and drove me harder than I drive myself in the NHL.” I huffed and shifted my gaze to a spot on the wall. “If I fucked up, or he decided I had, I got a beating.”

Dog made a strangled noise in his throat, and I understood. There was a time when I’d died inside every time I thought about it.

I kept going. “It was a long, downhill trip. He’d disappear for days on end and leave me alone, then bring some woman around when he came back. The neighbors called CPS a few times, but Dad always cleaned up and put on his best act. By the time CPS showed up, he was all ‘concerned single father raising a troubled boy’ or some bullshit.”

I turned to Dog, unsure if I should say what came next. He gave me a small nod, so I continued. “Dad took me to see one of his girlfriends on my fifteenth birthday. Said it was time for me to become a man.”

Dog rocked a little. He moved his hand from my arm to my shoulder but said nothing. At least he didn’t ask what happened that night.

“I poured myself into hockey because it was the only way out. The beatings got worse, and we ended up in the ER a few times. Dad always had a story—my son got in a fight, took a hit in practice, fell off his bike—and I went along with them because I didn’t want to make things worse. By some miracle, I kept my grades up and got a scholarship to UMass my senior year. I was bigger than Dad by then, and he mostly left me alone.”

Dog cleared his throat. “Thank God. Was he at least happy about your scholarship? That was what he’d been pushing you for, right?”

I barked out a sound that didn’t qualify as a laugh. “Don’t know. The only thing he ever said about it was that I’d have a lot to prove when I got there, that D-1 schools didn’t keep fuckups around.” I groaned as my jaw tightened. “That spring, he got into a bar fight and almost killed a guy when he hit him in the head with a bottle of liquor. Dad went to jail, and I sat in court for two days that summer while they tried him. A week before I left for college, they sent him to prison, and I haven’t seen or heard from him since.” I hesitated before letting the last piece slip out. “I know I could go visit him, but I don’t want to.”

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