Page 45 of On the Edge

if you give that to me i’ll just throw it away

Henri

Atlas

oh my god i can’t with you right now

bye henri i’ll see you in class

Dropping my phone onto my bed, I gather my shower kit and my pajamas, going across the hall to the bathroom I share with Nate and one other roommate. It’s not until I’m standing under the water that I realize what he did. Without meaning to, Henri hijacked my bad mood and distracted me enough to have me grinning at my phone and forgetting all about my dad.

Next time I see him, I’ll give him another lesson in kissing to show my appreciation.

13

Henri

Nate is fired up—half-naked,standing on the bench in front of his stall, and telling a ribald story that I lost the ability to follow five minutes ago. He has the rest of the team laughing—even Max, who rarely joins in on locker room shenanigans, is chuckling—and I’m wondering if Coach Mackenzie is allowing him to continue only because he knows how badly we need to be pumped up.

It’s a big game tonight, and if we pull off a win, that means we’ll likely be going into the holiday break seated as the number one team. Everyone is feeling the pressure, but none more so than McIntire. He’s pale, knee bouncing and eyes locked on Nate as he talks, but a vacant expression on his face that gives away the fact that he’s not really paying attention.

Max and I are already dressed out, so I carefully walk over to where Micky is sitting and slide in next to him.

“Hello, my friend,” I say just loud enough for him to hear me over Nate’s wild voice.

“Hey,” he replies, low enough that I can’t hear his voice at all, but have to read the word off his lips. Micky’s problem is nerves. He is a good netminder, but struggles with getting out of his own way.

“You are excellent goalie,” I tell him. His eyes meet mine in surprise. I’m not one to give pep talks—usually leaving that up to our captain—but I fear that if I don’t say something, Micky might faint from performance anxiety. “And we have your back, yes? It is not all on you to defend the net and win the game.”

“I know that,” he says, but bites his lip. “Sometimes it feels like that though, you know? Sometimes it feels like it’s my fault when we lose. And I really don’t want to lose tonight.”

“It is my job to score goals, yes? Is it not also my fault if we lose, because I did not score enough goals? And Max? His fault, too?”

Micky gapes at me. “I never looked at it that way.”

I pat his padded leg as Nate finishes his story, and finally climbs down from the bench amid a round of applause. He’s grinning as he turns to his stall to finish getting dressed.

“We shall do our best tonight, you and I. That is all we can do, yes? And if we lose, it will be a team effort, just the same as it would be if we win.”

“Right,” Micky agrees, nodding. “Thanks, Vas. Thank you. That…I just get so nervous, you know? It’s stupid.”

“No, no, is not stupid. We are all a little nervous. These things are normal.” Coach Mackenzie walks into the locker room, and snaps something at Nate that has the guys closest to him snickering. He gives us two minutes before we need to be on the ice. Across from where I am now sitting with our goalie, I see Max stand up and shake outhis legs. “It is a good night for hockey, Micky. Let us go have some fun.”

And we do. Max makes the opposing team look like junior league players, and after his second goal in the first period, I even feel a little badly for their goalie. It’s not his fault Max is a league beyond the rest of us.

Instead of chasing a hattie, though, Max sends the puck to me and our linemates more often than he keeps it. When Nate scores his first goal of the game off of a suicide pass from him, I swear I can see tears in his eyes when he takes a seat next to me on the bench. Coach Mackenzie pats him on the shoulder as he passes behind us and I worry he might faint.

“Did you see that?” Nate asks me.

“I did.” Grinning, I slap a gloved hand on his leg. “Nice goal.”

During my next shift, we get stuck between shift changes and I am pushing ninety seconds on the ice when Micky loses sight of the puck as a shot is made. It partially deflects off of his skate, but he has to spin around and make a secondary save before the puck can cross the goal line behind him. Desperately, he sends it to me and I try to squeeze a little more gas out of my exhausted legs. Somehow, I carry it coast to coast and sail it bar down over the goalie’s right shoulder. My teammates on the bench jump up, screaming and banging their sticks on the boards, cheering for Micky as much as me. It is not often a netminder gets a primary assist.

Max doesn’t get his hat trick, but we put up an impressive six points and win the game. When it’s my turn to hug McIntire in the lineup, I put my face as close as I can to the cage on his helmet so that he can hear me over the din of the arena.

“You are so talented of a goaltender, you start doing our job too, eh?”

He laughs, arms tight around my shoulders in a hug that would be painful if we didn’t have our gear on. We skate to the bench together, and the roar that goes up when Micky enters the locker room makes me fear for our eardrums. Max is waiting for me next to our lockers, eyes bright and smile painfully wide on his sweaty face.

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