I went from feeling great, loving hockey, loving the guys on the ice with me, to feeling like I was maybe gonna be okay, to feeling as bad as I have ever felt all in a matter of days. It’s like that single day of contentedness sent my brain into self-destruct mode because it didn’t know what was happening.
Maybe it’s because my grades are so borderline.
Maybe it’s because I could’ve kissed Cauler and instead I bro-zoned him.
Maybe it’s because my parents are coming to a game in a couple weeks.
It was supposed to be just Mom and Dad, but then I mentioned it in a group video chat with my older sisters and they decided to crash it. I almost cried. I haven’t seen them in so long and I miss them so much and this whole thing will be a lot easier to handle with them here.
The game’s being broadcast on ESPNU. NHL scouts will analyze every second of ice time. It should be an easy win, but the final score won’t matter as much as my performance.
Cauler’s only a few points behind me, with better defensive stats. I can’t afford a single bad shift. I gotta take every chance to pad my stats, put flourish in my play, be the superstar everyone expects me to be.
Pretend I’m not dead inside for sixty minutes.
That’s barely an exaggeration.
Whenever I think of Alyssa and Hugh, or Dorian’s relatable music or Cauler’s face when he said what would you do if I said yes, I just get so tired, I want to crawl in bed and not come out for five years. It’s not even sadness. It’s nothingness.
Hockey is the most important thing in my life besides my sisters and Nova, but when it gets like this, the only thing putting me on the ice is my anxiety, my fear of failure.
Doesn’t help when Professor Morris pulls me aside after class one day and asks if I ever contacted the counseling office. Pretty sure she knows I’m lying when I say, “Yeah, I got it figured out. Thanks.”
For the rest of the week if I’m not in class or on the ice, I’m on my phone reading about depression and anxiety and trying to convince myself that I’m allowed to feel this way even with all the privileges I have, even though nothing really bad has ever happened to me.
I survive our only game of the week on Friday. Even manage to put up a goal. But it’s not fun like it was in Colorado. I feel a thousand miles away from my teammates even in the middle of our celly huddle.
I try to force myself out of it on Saturday, at least long enough to get some work done on a paper I have due on Monday, but I end up with my head in my hands, elbows on my desk, exhausted after a single sentence.
I don’t know how long I sit like that before the door opens on Dorian and Barbie, because it’s always Dorian and Barbie. I don’t remember the last time I saw them apart from each other, which doesn’t make any sense with Dorian’s science classes and Barbie’s language classes on complete opposite sides of campus.
“What’re you doing?” Dorian asks, almost frantically, when he gets a look at me. I probably look pathetic, wallowing at my desk, shirtless in sweatpants with books and papers all over the place. “We gotta leave!”
I blink at him. What is he talking about?
He flails his hands at me like that’ll—oh wait. Concert. Right. He invited me to this concert. I don’t remember agreeing to go.
I practically deflate in my chair. “Kill me.”
“It’s fun! Even Kovy’s coming, and he’s into country music. Country, Terzo.”
“You get to shove people around and no one gets mad,” Barbie offers.
“I don’t know,” I mumble.
“You don’t have a choice,” Dorian says, quickly changing his clothes. “You’re not rotting in this room for all eternity. Get up, get dressed, brush your hair. Brush your damn teeth. You don’t have to wear all black. We’re not a cult.”
I don’t want to go. But I also don’t want to work on this paper, or sit in my room, or exist at all, really. So I guess it doesn’t make a difference. I sigh heavily and push myself out of my chair to rummage for jeans in the pile of dirty clothes by my closet. It takes a minute to find a T-shirt that doesn’t smell like it’s been sitting on the floor for weeks, but Dorian still offers me his body spray anyway. I pull on my Royals hoodie and follow them out.
“Why aren’t you wearing that Amity shirt I got you?” Barbie asks when we hit the stairs.
Dorian clicks his tongue and points a finger at him. “How many times I gotta tell you this, Barbs? Never wear a band’s merch to their show. It makes you look thirsty.”