Page 10 of Shutout
As I stare at my reflection in the mirror, I let my arms hang limp at my sides, dripping water on the tiled floor. A clear tear streaks down my cheeks. My long hair, usually pin straight, looks like a bird’s nest after that little tussle with he-whose-name-shall-be-excised-from-my-vocabulary. There are wet splotches on my white blouse, a little number I got because he liked it when we saw it at a store together even though I absolutely hate its lace sleeves.
In fact, I freaking hate these skinny jeans too. Maybe I should’ve noticed the red flag when he casually told me he liked skinny jeans on a girl. Because not only I used to wearbaggy jeans all the time, but it also implied that he’d been checking other girls out.
I lift up my hands and inspect them. My nails are long, with a clear coat of nail polish, no rings or bracelets. All because he mentioned he liked natural, feminine girls. I picture the girl he’d apparently been making out with at the Bolt House party. Pretty. Lots of makeup. Hair a red that comes from a bottle.
“What a damn hypocrite,” I say to the mirror, my whole body shaking as more little things start popping up in my head. In freshman year, I had my hair past my shoulder and kept meaning to trim it, but I’d been too busy to set time aside for it. And when I found out he liked long hair on girls, I decided to just grow it.
Except, how many of those decisions were actually mine?
When I think back to myself in high school, I realize I was a different person. I wore black, baggy clothes, styled myself however I damn well pleased. When did I lose myself?
How did I let him do this to myself?
“La madre que lo parió.” I don’t speak Spanish anywhere near as fluently as the rest of my family, but the feelings boiling in my gut can only be expressed in the tongue of my ancestors.
I run my wet hands through my hair, all the way down to the tips that fall to the middle of my back. I decide—me, myself, and I—to take myself back.
My asshole ex boyfriend might’ve made me lose sight of myself, but I never truly left. That boring version of me that allegedly made him cheat was the Olivia who tried to fit in his mold. But today I showed him who I really am. A take no shit badass. And that’s who I’ll be from now on.
With a deep breath, I walk out of the bathroom and keep my eyes forward. I make it out of the building without running into any undesirable boys, and haul my ass to the hair salon near campus.
Two hours later—mostly because I had to wait until they fit me in—I emerge out of the salon with a bob and already feel so much lighter. Not just because I lost like ten pounds of hair, but because this is one step closer to reclaiming my identity.
The apartment’s empty when I arrive and that suits me well. I tear off the ridiculous blouse and throw it in the garbage can. I almost crash on my enormous ass while trying to peel off the skinny jeans, but finally succeed and also toss them. I’m all for sustainable fashion, but right now I need to get rid of every stitch that reminds me of him. Opening my closet, I start pulling out piece after piece, tops, bottoms, underwear, the pair of socks he gave me for Christmas. And finally, his damn hoodie.
That one falls at the top of the pile. I’m breathing hard as I glare at it. Before I know it, I grab a Sharpie from my desk and deface it with some colorful words, some of which he won’t be able to understand because they’re in Spanish.
I put my hand on my naked waist to survey the progress. “Good. Now, onto the next stage.”
After bagging up all the clothes and dumping his sweatshirt in a box, I check what’s left in my closet. It’s all the stuff I brought from home that I used to wear until freshman year. I grab a rolled up pair of ripped boyfriend jeans from the back and put them on.
“Whew, they still fit.”
After that victory, I grab a One OK Rock T-shirt and hesitate for a moment. This is Brooklyn’s and my favorite J-Rock band. We went to see them in concert together the summer after graduating high school. But I’m the one who introduced him to them. He won’t take this away from me.
I yank on the T-shirt, and head into the bathroom to get rid of the clear polish and trim my nails as short as possible. I find the angriest hard rock band in my Spotify playlist to keep me company as I paint my nails black.
“Boring? Frigid?” I mutter through gritted teeth. “I’ll show you.”
No morepick meenergy from me. I’m going to do the picking from now on.
CHAPTER 5
BROOKLYN
Summer training camp with Coach Green is famous for being barrels of fun. And by fun I mean puke, which is what we all do at least once during the grueling week of punishment that he calls bootcamp. What’s funny is that it’s not the only week during the summer where sophomores and up train, but it’s the welcome for the freshmen. And boy, it’s filtered out a couple already.
“Congratulations on surviving the week,” Coach voices from center ice, arms folded as he inspects each of us.
He does a double take when he finds me grinning from ear to ear.
Yeah, I’m soaked to the bone. My uniform probably weighs about fifty pounds more from sweat and slush. My calves throb like toothaches. My stomach is queasy, even though I’ve already given my offering to the barrel an hour ago. My head’s still spinning around the ice as if we were in the middle of another skating drill, even though I stand in line with my teammates. Everything hurts and I’m positively dying.
But all this torture means one thing. He’s not giving up on the team this year.
Neither am I.
Coach Green clears his throat and finishes taking stock of the team. He turns to whisper something to one of the other coaches, and they nod at each other before our head coach speaks again.
