Page 15 of Unrecognizable Player

“You’re sure this injury isn’t giving you trouble?” he asks after I let out another groan.

“No, it’s just tight.”

He finally lets me get up, after torturing me for what felt like hours. I’m sweating worse than I was when I was on the ice in full gear.

“You know Alexei…” Michael says, wiping his hands on a towel while I put my shirt on. “If you address the pain in your shoulder now, you could save yourself a lot of trouble in the future.”

What future?

“I’m fine, but thanks.”

I get my hoody on and hop off the table.

“You have to think about your career. You don’t want it to end it before it even starts.”

That stops me in my tracks.

“The injury I got in juniors ended it before I started.”

“What do you mean? You’re here aren’t you?”

I can’t stop the scoff escaping. “I was supposed to go to Boston and get drafted, even signed by now.”

“This isn’t something to turn your nose up at either. You’re playing Division 1, Ivy League here.”

“Yeah and this is where the road ends.” I try to walk past, but he instinctively puts his hand out to stop me and then realizes what he’s done. I’m not gonna make him feel bad about it, so I step off.

“Listen, I know your intentions are good, but my career ended when I was eighteen. I haven’t been the same since and everyone who was directly behind me overtook me.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t play hockey.”

Does this guy have a fucking off button?

“Yeah, it does. Because I might be getting an Ivy League education, but it sure as hell won’t count for shit in the minor leagues. I have a family to take care of. I need a job that pays real money. I didn’t go to private school like some of the other guys on the team. I don’t have rich parents to bail me out. I have responsibilities. People counting on me. I’m not old-money. So can you please just stop getting my hopes up? I know what my future is, and it isn’t this.”

He just stands there with his mouth open like a fucking fish while I sail past him.

The guilt only sets in when I’m halfway out of the arena and I remind myself that the guy was only trying to help.Yeah well, I don’t need his help. I know what I’m doing. I have a plan.

I needto quiet the voice in my head. That constant little critic always chirping away. Like my own personal heckler nobody asked for.

It’s mostly quiet when I’m on the ice. Focusing on one task at a time. Nothing outside of the perimeters of the rink.

And when I’d talk to horror boy. My head was quiet then too. Loud with something else maybe. Like the rush of blood in my ears, and my imagination giving him a voice. A soft, melodic one.

For the first time in a long time, I feel the need to open those old chats. To remind myself of all the stuff he said. How lost I’d get in his words.

It’s buried behind a year’s worth of generic book conversations. I see the part where he told me he had a boyfriend and scroll fast. Faster past the chats where he’s asking me why I didn’t show for our date. Faster still past the bit where I promised I’d meet him at that deli, and how he’d be reading a Sanderson book, for me. Because I’m a fucking dork and he’s the only person in my life who knows that outside of my family.

I find the tail end of one of the chats we had before I fucked it all up and have to stop myself from getting impatient and pausing in the middle. I want to experience it all again. The build-up, the anticipation.

RedRum237: I was thinking about you when I finished reading that book.

Kelsier38: Oh yeah? What were you thinking about?

RedRum237: You know what I was thinking about.

Kelsier38: Tell me.

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