Page 22 of Gravity
I wait. He moves steadily, appraising me as he approaches. One long, lingering look that digs into my bones.
Will I be playing tonight? Have I been scratched for the first time in my career?Calisse, I cannot blame Coach if he decides to pull me. I need to be pulled. I need to get my head on right and sort through these cascading days of failure.
Where is the bottom to this fall? I haven’t found it yet, and part of me fears there is no bottom. Maybe there are no more goals, no more assists, no more wins. No more victories or happy teammates. No dream-man to hold me at night, either. No first-kiss wishes coming true.
Coach finally reaches me. He is tall, almost as tall as—
Non, stop.Tabernak, I cannot be trusted for thirty seconds in my own mind.
“Bunny.” His voice is even and flat. Coach Richelieu is a man who rarely loses his temper, and that I, with my shit playing, made him erupt in such a public way last game is a sign I have cracked his foundations.
“Coach.” My hands open and close on my stick. One skate glides back and forth. I swallow and force myself to still.
“You’re needed in the dressing room,” he says.
I nod.
Coach Richelieu isn’t moving. This isn’t the only message he’s out here to deliver. I wait with my teeth clenched.
“We made a trade,” he says carefully. “And it was an expensive one. After your performance in Vegas, and how you and he played, his team wasn't willing to give him up cheaply.”
What?
“Something has happened, Bunny. You’re spiraling. No, you’re cratering. The last time you played well was at the All-Star Weekend, and damn it, if somehow recreating whatever it was you and he found out there is going to shake you out of this death spiral, then that’s what I'm going to do for you. So today, Hunter Lacey became an Étoiles. And you’re both skating. Tonight.”
* * *
I followCoach to the dressing room, everything moving too fast and slow at the same time. My vision is blurring on the edges, but is sharp in the center. My heart is frantic, banging against my ribs so hard it feels like they're about to break. I can barely breathe.
It’s an hour before the game, and the team is buzzing. Half of the guys have ice or heat packs wrapped around their sore joints, and the other half is partially dressed and stretching. Pads and skates and sweaters lay in heaps on the floor.
Hunter’s new sweater is hanging on the wall at the end of the second bench. Lacey. Number 21.
I wear your number. I wear your number, too.We can't share the same number on the same team, though.Calisse, thesame team.
Expectancy saturates the air. Anticipation is a living thing, coiling on the ground, writhing between my teammates. Dangerous excitement whirlpools around me, and everyone is talking and moving quickly, like they can’t hold back their nervous energy.
On the edge of everything is Hunter.
He’s the new guy, so he’s at the end of the bench, squeezed into a space next to Slava where there was no one yesterday. He’s wide-eyed and silent. He is the reason for this surge in adrenaline, but most of the guys are hands-off toward him. I catch long stares thrown his way when he’s not looking, and feel those same stares slide to me.
“Listen up!” Coach Richelieu steps forward.
He runs through his pre-game speech, outlining his offensive and defensive strategies for us. He tells us to skate fast, think even faster. Beat the other team to the blue line. Make clean, sharp passes that San Jose has no hope of stealing. It’s the kind of speech he hasn’t had to give in a long time, and he’s describing a game we used to play effortlessly, without thought or conscious decision. Now, it’s a game we’re scrambling to find, like something we’ve forgotten.
“Lacey—” Coach looks at Hunter.
Every head in the dressing room turns to him. Hunter stands at the back of the gaggle of players, half a head taller than Valery and Etienne. I see his Adam’s apple rise and fall.
“We’re looking forward to you contributing tonight,” Coach says. “You’re on the line with Etienne Leroux.”
The first defensive line. The one that is paired with mine.
“Calisse!” MacKenzie calls. “All right, we are going to win this one! You two do what you did two weeks ago, eh?” He looks from Hunter to me and back, eyebrows high, nodding like he’s a parent telling his kids to go out and win for an ice cream cone.
The team claps enthusiastically, cheering and pumping each other up. Shouts bounce off the walls as the guys scatter.
Hunter and I are two agonized anchors, silent and unmoving in this heaving dressing room.
