Page 90 of Shutout
“Wow, you’re beingthemelodrama,” I say to the quiet.
The funny thing is, I didn’t even feel this shitty when Trent cheated on me or when he basically admitted he felt no attraction for me.
Slowly, I pull myself up by my elbows until I sit. I rub my face hard. Maybe I should study. I’m in the middle of finals and this drama is setting me back. I busy myself washing my face and fixing up my bed. But after cracking a textbook open and trying to lose myself in the world of organic biology, my mind keeps drifting back to him.
It’s four in the afternoon now. This is when, in a different universe, we’d have met at the mall to start looking for a fancy dress.
I could try to film a new video. There’s a recipe for cookies I’ve been tweaking with. I’m trying to make a gluten- and lactose-free brookie that doesn’t taste like newspaper. And Brooklyn would definitely love to eat it after a game. I’d love to feed it to him. Slowly. With my fingers. And then, I’d really enjoy kissing the crumbs from his lips.
There’s no point. He’s leaving during the Christmas break.
I need to get out of my head, and there’s only one place in town where I can do that. I pack an overnight bag, including my textbooks and my laptop, and hop on the stinky SUV my brother passed down to me when he graduated college and washired on as the most expensive free agent in a professional team on the other side of the border.
See? That’s what the hockey guys do. They work very hard to leave everything behind. It’s my turn to be left behind again.
Some half hour later, I’m on the opposite side of town parking by the curb of my parents’ home. I skid on black ice as I get out of the car, and for a second I think how shitty it’d be if I die cracking my head on the pavement right now. But I manage to stabilize myself and step more carefully to the other side to retrieve my bag. My heart’s pit-pattering hard as I stand on the porch and realize I forgot to grab my keys to the house.
I feel more pathetic than ever by ringing the doorbell. But Mom opens the door, takes one look at me, and pulls me into a hug. “¿Quieres unas arepitas, mija?”
This is why I came. Mom and Dad’s way of showing affection is feeding us. Unless we want to talk, they don’t probe.
From the living room, Dad asks in excellent Spanglish, “¿Qué? ¿Tienes que hacer un laundry?”
I snort into Mom’s shoulder. Correction, food and laundry. I blame my siblings, because that’s all they ever did when they visited home after leaving for college.
“Food,” I say.
While Mom goes off to fix some arepas, I crash on the living room couch next to Dad. Unfortunately, with so many hockey goons around him, he’s come around and now follows the sport closely. He’s watching a rerun of an old game of Aran’s where my brother’s pulling saves that should get him this year’s Vezina. One of those saves has Aran doing the splits like some Olympic gymnast, and now I get why Brooke said that pulling their groin is a common injury for goalies.
That sure helps me focus on my textbook until Dad asks, “You okay, Aceitunita?”
I sigh, perennially annoyed at the nickname that likens me to an olive. “I’m okay.”
He hums from his throat but keeps watching the game. I push through my reading for at least fifteen minutes until Mom calls me from the kitchen. The house smells like freshly grilled arepas, and I let my nose trace the scent to the plate waiting for me on the kitchen counter.
“You’re too skinny, Olivia,” she says, obviously not realizing I’ve loaded on the pounds from stress-eating vats of popcorn with Coke at Brooklyn’s games. “Are you eating okay? Or is it something else?”
I chew on my arepa with avocado and pico de gallo and say nothing.
“Something else, then.” Mom nods to herself and turns back around to the kitchen. “I’ll be here whenever you need to talk, okay?”
A memory hits me smack in the face. That’s exactly what Mom said the night I came home crying, after Brooklyn agreed with those terrible things a hockey bro said at the Bolt House party almost two years ago.
I set the arepa down and swallow hard. That’s why I came home. Not because my parents are less snoopy than my friends or my siblings, but because they’re my parents. And whenever I feel sad, hurt, or I’m sick, I look for them. Or for Brooklyn, which right now and back then I couldn’t do.
“Mom.” My voice shakes and it makes her drop the bowl she’s washing. The entire kitchen blurs as tears pool in my eyes. “Mom?”
“Mija, what’s wrong? Are you sick? Arturo!” She calls to Dad. “Get the EpiPen!”
“No!” I shake my head. “I’m not sick. It’s not… not that.”
“No EpiPen?” Dad screams from the living room.
“No.” Mom confirms, before appearing back at my side. “¿Qué pasa, Olivia?”
I draw in a shaky breath. “It’s Brooklyn.”
“But I thought things were finally going the way you wanted?”
