Page 1 of The Beautiful Collision
act 1
one
MAINE
“Boys,it’s time to skull-fuck sobriety!”
The declaration erupts from me as I teeter on a barstool, arms flung wide like Christ himself, if he’d majored in poor decisions. Twenty-something hockey players gape up at me with the slack-jawed reverence they usually save for tits, highlight reels…
And the Maine Show.
My calves scream from fighting this wobbly piece of shit, but the show must go on, and this is my stage—warped floorboards baptized in beer, neon signs hemorrhaging light through vape smoke, and two dozen teammates hell-bent on cirrhosis before tomorrow’s practice.
“Degenerates!” My bottle slashes air. “We’re through two rounds, and there are six of us left.”
The resulting roar slams into my chest—pure kinetic validation feeding that bottomless pit deep in my gut that never stops gnawing. And I suck up every drop of it, along with the bar’s signature cologne of fryer grease, Bud Light, and enough Axe to choke a horse.
“It’s time for round three!” I stab my bottle at Mike with soap opera flair. “First up, Altman versus his liver!”
Mike hoists his shot and downs it in one smooth motion, throat barely moving, down the hatch. Show-off. But that’s why he’s my boy—he keeps pace on ice and off, and he still answers my texts, which makes him either ride-or-die or brain-damaged.
Both, probably.
“And Rook!” I pivot to our goalie, who’s listing hard to starboard. “Who’s wearing more alcohol than he’s swallowed.”
“Eat my ass, Maine!” Rook slurs, attempting the finger but achieving interpretive dance.
As Rook downs the shot and almost brings it back up again, laughter detonates around me. I ride it like the attention slut I am, conducting this glorious orchestra and transforming another forgettable Thursday into tomorrow’s legend.
I’m about to launch into the next contestant when my thigh buzzes twice. I consider ignoring it, but my sister is getting treatment today, so I hold up a hand to the guys and pull out my phone. I see it’s a text from my mom, and my gut clenches, the hair-trigger response to the last hundred nightmare texts from her.
I tap the message and the photo appears on my screen, and seeing Chloe’s face is a kidney punch. She’s in a hospital bed, a nebulizer mask turning her into Earth’s frailest astronaut. Her eyes are shut, sockets bruised purple-black, and she looks as thin as kindling.
The bar noise flatlines to white static as my throat seizes at the sight.
I’ll never get used to seeing my little sister like this.
I read the message:
Rough one tonight. Send something funny?
That’s it. No details about what triggered this admission. Just another Thursday emergency in Hamilton-land, where I’m the court jester dispatching jokes via text, because I’m the one whocan always be relied on to lift the mood and take on the load… the healthy kid, miles away, “living his life.”
“Yo, Hamilton, are you stroking out?” Mike’s voice cuts through my self-loathing. “We’re through this round!”
I blink and look down at him. His face shows he’s shifted from drinking buddy to concerned friend, the same expression from when he found me slumped in the locker room after pulling triple shifts to make rent last month. It’s clear he can see through my performance, but he won’t blow my cover publicly.
Words jam behind my teeth.
My little sister is drowning in her own lungs.
My parents haven’t asked about me since August.
Pizza Plus slashed my hours and I’m one month from dropping out.
I’m so fucking exhausted from having to be okay all the time.
But none of those words come out. Instead, I lock my jaw so hard it aches. It’s clear that Mike is worried, but Maine Hamilton doesn’t have pain, he’s everyone else’s morphine drip. Nobody ordered the buzzkill special for this little drinking game, so I do what I do: bury everything under jazz hands and a giant grin.
