Page 127 of Falling

“You’relucky that I haven’t cracked your head open yet, Davis.” Jake shouts another threat to me from the showers while I finish getting ready in the locker room.

Some of the team shout a “Yeah” in agreement, and the howling begins.Again. We’ve just finished another qualifying game, which wealmostlost. It was a close tie until the last few minutes of the third period, and we managed to pull through. We’re one step closer to the semi-finals next month.

On top of all this unnecessary shit from the team, I’ve got to go to my mom’s fiftieth birthday party later, which I’ve been dreading all week. Clara has been verbally bullying me for the last week, making sure that I attend. She told me to bring Wren, too, but she’s been busy with nationals, and I know that it would just stress her out rather than help her. We’ve hardly spoken over the last few weeks with us both being so busy with sports and college, and I don’t blame her. I know what she needs to do to get in the zone, and I don’t get in the way of that, so I’ve kept my distance. I didn’t realize how difficult it would be to be dating another athlete with a season as competitive as mine and it's been a hard adjustment not seeing her everyday like before. We still text, but it feels like there’s still this disconnection between us like I’m not fully pulled in again.

“God, can everyone chill out? We didn’t lose. In fact, we did the opposite,” Tyler says with a sigh. They nod at me before dapping me up and walking past me.

“Wealmostlost because you acted like you were out of your fucking mind,” Jake spits out, walking around from the showers.

“But wedidn’t,that’s the whole point. Give him a break,” Xavier retorts, drying himself off. Jake inches toward me, a nasty look on his face.

“I’m sick of giving poor Miles Davis a break. He needs to man up and get his head in the game,” Jake shouts, squaring up to me. I'm sick of his shit. I tower over him and glare. “What are you gonna do, Davis?”

“You know exactly what happened last time we did this, Callahan,” I say calmly. “Step the fuckback.”

He stares at me for a minute, resisting to back down. Most of the team are gathered around us, ready for a fight to break out. Luckily for him, he steps out of my face and turns back. We both know it would be a stupid idea to fight and get suspended.

“Listen, we’ve got one more game closer to the semis,” Coach begins, standing at the door of the locker room. “There’s no point trying to blame each other. All you need to do is work together on doing better. Understood?”

“Yes, Coach,” we all say in unison.

“Out what?”

“Out hustle, out work, out think, out play, out last,” we all chant back.

I survive the rest of the time in the changing room, and a few more sly comments are thrown my way on the bus back to campus. Each game day with the team has become another opportunity for them to berate me, and I’ve gotten used to it. It’s stupid when they complain because it doesn’t affect my performance. The only thing I can think about is Wren and if something has happened to upset her.

I’ve become an easy target after losing Carter. After he died, the whole team was disappointed in me, but with Wren’s help, I was able to turn that around. I can’t shake the feeling that we’ve stopped talking as much because we’re busy or if there’s something else I’m missing out on. I know she’d tell me if something was wrong.

She has to.

I pull out my phone and shoot her a text.

Hey, Wrenny. I miss you.

Wrenny

Hi. Sorry. I’ve been super busy.

Do you want to grab lunch next week when you’re free?

Wrenny

Sure.

I knowthat her agreeing to take some time off and have lunch with me is a good thing, but the only thing I can focus on is that she didn’t say that she misses me too.

I tryto be on my best behavior with my mom. It’s her birthday, so it would be shitty of me to cause a scene. I know that she’s been trying to foster a better relationship with me, but part of me thinks that it’s too late. I’ve spent so much time not trusting her. So much time keeping all my feelings and my grief bottled up within myself, that opening myself up feels like opening up a fresh wound.

My parents’ main priority my whole life was making sure that I was happy. No matter how many arguments we had or times me and Clara fell out, they were always there for us, which is why it makes what my mom did even worse.

They busted their asses for me and Clara to pursue what we wanted to do. Whatever I was doing, they just wanted to make sure thatIwanted to do it and not for any other reason. Part of the reason I started to play hockey was because I enjoyed it, but I also wanted to do it because it’s what made Carter and I grow closer.

Our families supported us from junior league right until college. Carter’s brother Ethan was a dick to the two of us growing up, and I think he was just jealous of the attention Carter was getting. He was a smart kid, and not only was he smart, but he was talented and good at everything he did. Their parents always brushed it off as sibling rivalry, but I know Carter always wished he had a better relationship with Ethan deep down.

As much as I’m grateful for my parents, I can't stand birthdays in the Davis family. Every year, no matter whose birthday it is, we have to have some sort of celebration. For as long as I can remember, birthdays have always been a sacred tradition within our family.

There’s something about bad music and shitty birthday cake that turns my family upside down. We have stupid rituals like the cake flip, where the birthday person has to flip their cake and catch it the right way around. When the party has died down and it goes from neighbors to close family, we each have to say one thing that we love about the birthday person.

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