Page 29 of Gravity
“Nous? You and me?”
“Yes. Us. Like in Vegas, when we went hiking and kayaking together. Let's do that again. Let's get the hell out of Montréal and… What do you do here when everything is frozen? Whatever it is, let's do it. Let's go. Together, Bryce,please.”
He stares, and I stare back. Emotions flicker across his eyes, shades of despair and remembered pain mingling with restraint and resignation.
“There’s a place up north,” he says slowly. “Near where I am from. Sometimes I go there to get away.Prendre la fuite.” He shrugs. “Especially from myself.”
“Let's go. Today.”
One of his skates slides backward and forward, backward and forward. He swallows and looks away, blinking fast toward the boards and the end of the rink. “Oui,” he whispers. “Okay. Grab your skates.Allons-y.”
* * *
We driveout of Montréal in silence under a pewter sky churning with clouds. The roads have been treated, but there are still slick spots with patches of glare ice. Bryce has been driving in Quebec winters his whole life, though, and a little ice and snow is nothing to him. Growing up, I only saw snow on purpose, when my family went vacationing in New Mexico.
He takes us north, and we leave the city, and then the suburbs, and we drive right into the never-ending nothingness of the Laurentian upland and the Canadian Shield. Bare, glacier-carved rock, unspoiled forests, miles of unending rivers. This is a cold and forbidding land in winter, and it feels like we're driving through the frozen depths of Pluto, not Canada. Icicles cling like suspended guillotines from road signs and frozen tree branches. The Laurentian Mountains spread toward the horizon. The land is expansive, and we are very small in Bryce’s truck.
Bryce drives with his eyes glued to the road, one hand at the top of the steering wheel, one arm propped against the doorframe. He’s leaning away like he can merge with the paneling to be a few more inches farther from me. His expression is carefully and purposefully blank. Deep furrows line his forehead and carve parenthesis around his mouth.
Neither of us have spoken for an hour.
I’ve been working on a speech, something that starts withI had no idea—
But it derails quickly after that. I hunt in the waters of my turbulent emotions for what to say. Quebec's wilderness passes beyond the passenger window, and everything is shades of white and gray, snow and rock. Slivers of snow slide in front of the truck like we're traveling through space and time.
Bryce speaks first. He's clutching the wheel like he’s strangling it, fingers kneading the leather. “Before Vegas—” His voice is rough and catches on his words. He clears his throat and tries again. “Before Vegas, I used to pride myself on how well I could read people. I could read a defenseman’s gaze from half a rink away. I could sense the spike of a goalie’s heart rate from the neutral zone.Calisse, you even called me the best play-reader in the league.”
“Because you are.”
He shakes his head. “I’m not. I read everything wrong when it mattered the most.”
“Most?”
His jaw works left and right. His biceps and forearms ripple, muscles flexing and releasing like he’s trying hard to shove some deep-down feelings back inside him. “When what I wanted overshadowed what was truly in front of me.”
His breathing goes jagged, little puffs of oxygen that are harsh against the silence. His lips move, but nothing comes out, not for a moment. And then—
“I think I’m gay,” he whispers.
The tires hum over the pavement. Ice cracks and slides down the windshield with a wet, suckingslush. The wiperswhish-washin rhythmic whirrs. Bryce's single exhale quivers, and his fingers clench so hard the leather wrapped around the steering wheel squeaks.
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” I say softly. “There's not.”
“It’s fuckingwrongin the middle of a season!Tabernak, I couldn’t figure this out in July? August? When I had all the time in the world to work it out of my system?” He punctuates what he’s saying with a wave of his hand, then slaps the steering wheel. His teeth are clenched. He looks like he’s in physical agony. “I cannot clear my mind. My thoughts, they’re always…” His gaze darts to me, then hits the road as he bites his upper lip.
I don’t push him to finish his sentence. Pavement and packed snow trade places as we wind deeper into Quebec's north.
“Calisse, I thought I was just… having a moment. I thought wanting a man was something that would pass. They were justthoughts. But then I met you, and I knew—” His voice cuts off, there and then not. He lifts his chin and presses his lips into a thin, hard line.
This is when I need to open my mouth. This is when I need to speak. Between the two of us, Bryce is the braver man, and until I say what I need to say, I’m the one who is a coward.
The words form in front of me. They rattle inside my brain. I’ve cast them onto hotel room walls and read them on sleepless ceilings. I’ve Googledhow do you knowandwhat if I amandwhat does it mean if you feel—
I have never had to face anything like this.
A Texas boy’s life is not one of confusion. My path was set, and the only change I ever made was to convince my family that my future was in a sport other than football. High school trials and tribulations centered around whether to blow off my homework or not. Decisions on the ice were made by gut check and reaction, the product of hours of practice and preparation.
How do you feel? How do you really feel?I've asked myself a thousand times since that night. Since that kiss.
