Page 82 of Cheap Shot
I fidget in my chair, trying to discern what he’s asking me. “Playing? Nothing, other than trying to stop myself from getting my ass kicked off the team before the season starts.”
“How do you think you're doing with that so far?”
I could spin some bullshit about trying to get back into the swing of things and feeling out the other members of the team, but I have a feeling that’s not what Coach is asking me. “I think I have a fifty-fifty shot of making it to at least the first scrimmage of the season.”
“I’d agree with you on that front. I’m sure you are aware I don’t like you.”
“I’m well aware of that fact.” I shrug, not knowing what else to say.
“I’m used to being the one to choose my team because I want players who will gel. Who follows direction and will always put the team before their own needs. Someone like your brothers. But you are nothing like your brothers.”
“You already have a carbon copy of Cooper with Beau. I can understand why you wouldn’t want to deal with the potential of having another one.”
This isn’t the first time someone has alluded to the fact that they’d rather have one of my brothers instead of me, and it won’t be the last. But this time, it stings. When I originally met Coach Mercer during my visit last season, he came across to me as a fair man. Someone who gives every player who steps on the ice a fair shake, but I guess he’s just like everyone else.
“That shows how much you know about your older brothers, Cole.” Coach scoffs, pushing back from his desk. “Beau and Cooper are entirely different people. Sure, they’re both dedicated to bettering the sport, but that’s where their similarities end.”
Coach comes around his desk and takes a seat on the edge, a few inches away from me. “No one wants you to be a carbon copy of either of them, but what I want is someone I can depend on, like your brothers, to put the team before everything else. I want someone who can leave all their other bullshit at the door when they step onto the ice.”
“And I assume you’ve decided I’m not that person. If you don’t want me here, I’m gone.” I push to my feet, but his hand shoots out and shoves me back into the chair.
“Sit your ass down and listen for once in your life, Cole.”
“I’ve listened to every word you’ve had to say, Coach Mercer. I’m sorry that I can’t be the player you want me to be. I’ve always put my team before myself, and look what it got me. A fucked-up shoulder and traded to the highest bidder.”
“You and I both know that’s not the entire story.” Coach pins me in place with his stare, his eyes scanning my face as if he’s searching for something. “Care to tell me the rest?”
No, I don’t want to live out one of the lowest points in my life. One of the many times over the years, I couldn’t keep the rage burning inside of me, and it cost me everything. He deserved what happened to him, and I deserved to be fined and suspended for three games, but none of that mattered to them. In their eyes, it was my fault their two best players weren’t able to play in one of the most important games of the season, and it was my fault that we lost our chance at the Cup that year, and I’ve been paying for it ever since.
“What’s the point? You already know what happened. I fucked up and cost the Wolverines a chance at the Cup two years ago. And they never let me forget it.”
“I know what happened. It was all over the news and in your trade report from the Wolverines. What I’m asking is why it happened in the first place. If what you say is true, that you have always put the team above everyone else, that should’ve never happened. Please explain it to me.”
I push to my feet and step around the chair, resting my hands on the back so I don’t lash out. This is what Coach is asking about: the uncontrollable rage that overtakes me. The burning need to destroy and make someone pay for what happened to me. I need my pills. I need the calm and numbness they bring me, but I can’t. Not now with Coach watching me like a hawk. He can’t know. No one can know.
“Why does it matter?” My grip tightens on the back of the chair, the skin on my hands turning white from the pressure. “You’ve already made up your mind about what happened, just like the Wolverines’ management did.”
I did everything they asked of me from the moment the ink dried on the dotted line, but I’ve never been one to hold the party line. When someone is out of line, I tell them. I always have, and Leon was out of line that day, just like he was when he socked me after I missed the penalty shot this past season.
“Sit down, Hendrix,” he commands. My body moves before I even realize what’s happening. I plop down in the chair, head down, as I pinch the skin on my wrist between my fingers.
“If I’d already made up my mind, we’d be having a much different conversation right about now. If I’d already made up my mind, you would never have been given the chance to step foot on the ice, wearing the Timberwolves jersey. This is your chance to tell me something different. To convince me you aren’t a complete waste of my time and the team’s resources.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say, Coach.”
“I want you to tell me what happened. Why did you attack your teammate and put him in the hospital the practice before one of the most important games of your career?”
“Is that what they said? I didn’t attack him, Coach. He had been chirping at me all practice, and he—” I clench my eyes shut, wanting to escape the memories of what happened that day, but they play behind my eyelids like a movie reel.
“Take your time, son.” Coach lays a gentle hand on my shoulder, and I inhale deeply, trying to focus on the here and now.
I take a few moments to find the best way to tell this story without letting Coach Mercer know all my darkest secrets, but to tell this story the right way, I have to go back a lot farther than a few years ago. “After showing up to a few games, trashed out of my mind during the season, the team forced me to go to a joke of a rehab facility somewhere in Utah. But by some stroke of luck, I managed to stick with it.”
“Yes, that’s also in your file. Getting sober is a hard thing to do, especially when you are so young, but staying that way is even harder.”
“I haven’t had a drink since the day they dropped me off,” I respond, knowing that I can’t exactly call myself sober any longer. “I had been sober for almost a year at that point, but that night, I was on edge. It was a few days before the anniversary of Dad’s death. Couple that with my nerves about the game, and I was a mess.”
The familiar feeling of guilt when remembering that night fills my mind. My shoulders round forward from the weight of what I had done. How I had cost everyone on the team a shot at their dreams.
