Page 65 of Second Shot

All I know is that not playing me sends a message to the world that the organization has lost faith in me. That they no longer see me as a valuable part of the team. It makes me feel like my days with the Seadragons are numbered. Technically, we’ve clinched a playoff spot, but there’s still a lot that can shift in the standings over the next four games. Seeding isn’t locked. Momentum matters. The fact that they didn’t put me on the ice tonight tells me they think I’m expendable. And that’s not a great feeling.

Management reached out yesterday and showed me a statement they had drafted for me. It basically says I’m sorry about my past behavior, blah, blah, blah. And while Iam sorry, really sorry, I think it’s bullshit to just put out some piece of paper apology, but then not play me in tonight’s game. Coach says I’m not being punished, but then they don’t play me? It’s sending a mixed message to the public.

The twenty-second floor of the Bayfront Promenade has never felt more like a prison. I’ve been stuck inside for three days, licking my wounds. Right now, I’m slouched on my uncomfortable designer couch, halfway through a bottle of whiskey, staring at the bay through the floor-to-ceiling windows. All I can think about is how much I hate this condo. The sterile perfection. The soulless luxury. Everything echoes because there is no warmth here, no life. Just bare walls and stainless steel appliances.

Nothing like Gabe’s house, where the floors creaked in familiar places and the furniture didn’t match but somehow belonged together. The couch had a permanent dip where he always sat, and there were always books half-stacked on the coffee table, spines bent from being reread. The place always smelled faintly of coffee and garlic, like someone actually cooked there. Lived there. Gabe’s place felt like someone’s life was unfolding inside it.

My place feels like someone’s life is ending in it.

God, I miss Gabe so much. Even though I’m hurt and paranoid, I want to be near him. I wantto hear his voice. I want to believe he loves me and that he’d never hurt me. But the things I’m seeing in the media seem to prove the opposite is true. Every day more texts emerge between Gabe and Freddy.

My phone buzzes against the coffee table for the hundredth time in the past hour, vibrating across the glass surface like an angry insect. I should have turned it off already, should have thrown it off the balcony and watched it shatter on the concrete below, but some masochistic part of me keeps checking the screen.

Forty-seven missed calls. Sixty-two text messages. Voicemails from numbers I don’t recognize and contacts I haven’t thought about in years.

And three voicemails from my father.

I haven’t listened to the messages from him yet. They arrived the day the shit hit the fan. I’ve avoided them because I know they’ll be toxic as fuck. He takes pleasure in tearing me down, so it makes sense that he’d pile on in my worst moment. I should just delete them. Obviously that’s the smart thing to do. I should have done that days ago.

With a grunt, I grab my phone and pull up the voicemails from my father, intending to delete them. But I hesitate, my thumb hovering over the delete button. Nothing good has ever come from my father’s mouth concerning me. Ishouldn’t listen to them. They’ll only make me feel worse, if that’s even possible.

Delete them. Do it. Delete them.

But apparently I hate myself because I press play.

“Ryan.” His voice fills my empty apartment, as cold and disapproving as ever. “I just saw the news. I can’t say I’m surprised. You always did have poor judgment when it came to people. But this? This is a new low, even for you.”

I close my eyes and let his words wash over me like acid rain. A lump forms in my throat as my eyes burn with unshed tears. Did I really think the messages would be anything else? Even after twenty-six years of him berating me, have I learned nothing? Did I seriously think he’d try to comfort me? Am I really so pathetic that I hoped for that from him? And even though I knew he’d be cruel, I’m angry that he’s disappointed me once more. Can’t he ever surprise me? Can’t the motherfucker ever come through for me? What did I ever do to him other than be born? Couldn’t he just once be in my corner? Have a kind word to say to his only son when he’s hurting?

“A playoff spot, Ryan,” Dad is saying now. “A chance to prove you belonged in this league, even though, personally, I don’t think you ever did. But you somehow squeaked in and now you throw it away for what? Some queer relationship with a teammate who’s been playing you for afool? Jesus Christ, boy, how stupid can you be? It’s bad enough you’re a faggot, but did you have to take the whole team’s reputation down with you?”

The familiar shame burns in my chest, the same feeling I’ve been carrying since I was eight years old and he told me that caring about anything other than winning made me weak. I’d come off the ice crying after a loss, and he hadn’t comforted me. He’d sneered. Told me real men didn’t get emotional about games, that winners don’t waste time on feelings. That was the day I started learning how to bury mine.

Ever since, that voice has lived in my head, curling around my thoughts like barbed wire. Every time I showed compassion, every time I hesitated or doubted or let someone in, that shame came flooding back, whispering that I was soft. That I was a disappointment. I’ve spent my whole life trying to outrun it . Training harder, playing tougher, pretending I didn’t care. And still, it finds me. In moments like this, it’s deafening. And I hate that some part of me still believes him.

Hasn’t Gabe’s betrayal proven him right?

“You think this is bad now?” he continues. “Wait until tomorrow when every sports show in the country is talking about Sierra Point’s resident bully. Wait until they start digging deeper, asking questions about what kind ofperson you really are. You’ve disgraced yourself, your team, and frankly, your family name.”

I hit delete and reach for the bottle of whiskey. It’s expensive stuff, something Gabe picked out when we went shopping together last week, back when I thought I knew who he was. Back when I thought he cared about me. Since then, I’ve heard an awful lot of evidence to the contrary. Text messages Freddy Morrison leaked seem to support the theory that Gabe hated me. That the whole time we were together, he wanted to hurt me.

Well, he got his wish. I’m hurting plenty.

I give a harsh laugh, take a swig off the whiskey bottle, and press play on the next voice mail from dear old Dad.

“The worst part,” my father says, his voice drenched with disgust, “is that you clearly learned nothing from everything I tried to teach you. This is weakness, Ryan. You got soft. Sentimental. And now everyone is going to pay the price. Your teammates. Your coaches. Everyone who ever believed in you.”

I notice he’s conspicuously missing from the list of those who believed in me. Not exactly a surprise. But he’s right about me letting everyone down, and that’s what makes it worse. Whatever happens to me, the team doesn’t deserve to be dragged into this mess. They don’tdeserve to have their playoff run overshadowed by my past.

“Why did you have to be my son? You’ve never done anything right. Jesus Christ, kid, I wish you’d never been born.”

The last voicemail ends with a click, and I start laughing. But I’m also crying, because this whole situation is too much to handle. I literally can’t handle the wreckage my life has turned into. Tears stream down my face as I take another gulp of whiskey. The amber liquid burns a path down my throat, but I welcome the pain. It feels deserved.

I still can’t believe Gabe would do this to me, but the text messages suggest otherwise. It felt like a knife to the heart when they hit the news. Gabe had looked and sounded so sincere when we were standing by the bus. I’d almost believed him when he said he loved me, when he begged me to just talk to him, to trust him. But if there really are messages between him and Freddy, then he was lying straight to my face.

I’m confused by why Gabe did a lot of the things he did. I can almost understand wanting to befriend me just to hurt me. But he let me inside his body, for fuck’s sake. How sick is that? Why would a person who hated me let me do something so intimate? Why did he let me stay at his house for days on end? A man could goinsane trying to wrap his head around all the things that don’t make sense.

I keep wishing this was all just a bad dream. I just want to wake up to him holding me and reassuring me none of this is real. But this is real. Gabe is not the man I thought he was. Every touch was fake. Every reassuring word was a lie. I told him things I never even shared with my therapist, laid bare my most pathetic insecurities. I believed what we had was real.

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