Page 125 of Face Off
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. You never owe me an answer.”
“It’s complicated. My dad played hockey in college, and when he and my mom were trying for kids, he really wanted a boy. When I was born, my mom was determined to steer me toward any other sport. Ballet. Figure skating. I even tried water polo and rowing. I kept going back to hockey, and she resented it,” she says.
“Why?”
“She always wanted a daughter, and I think she had this idea in her head where we’d go shopping together and get our nails done and I wouldn’t be around sweaty teenage boys. I do like to do those things, but I like to hit the puck too. I’d come home with black eyes and bruises on my body and she’d be so angry. She and my dad argued a lot—there was a lot of blame. A lot of yelling. Eventually, they got divorced. Sometimes…” Emerson trails off.
“Hey.” I brush a piece of hair away from her face. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
“No. It’s not that. It’s just… I carry this weight with me. I think it’s my fault. Maybe I should’ve just done something else to make her happy. It’s why I walk around with this chip on my shoulder; I feel like I have to constantly defend my decisions.”
“No way,” I say fiercely. “That’s not how being a parent works. You were doing things that madeyouhappy, and she should’ve been happy for you too.”
“She remarried and has three perfect daughters who wear dresses and go shopping with her and don’t have bruises all over their arms from getting shoved into the boards during a game.” She sighs. “She got what she wanted, and I guess I did too.”
“What about your dad?”
“He got hurt,” she says softly, and my heart drops to my feet. “A freak accident at a beer league game a decade ago. Broken cervical vertebrae. He’s paralyzed from the waist down.”
She sniffs and buries her face in my neck. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to comfort someone who just shared the most tragic part of their life with me, because telling herit’s all right. It’s going to be okaysounds like a load of fucking bullshit.
But I want to make it okay. I want to take her pain and carry some of it for myself, so she doesn’t have to do it alone.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, and I stroke her hair. I rub her back and hold her tight to my chest. “I’m so sorry he had to go through that.”
“It’s not your fault.” She looks up at me, and her bottom lip quivers. I wipe away a tear and kiss her forehead. “I go home during the summer, but it’s hard to get away for more than a day during the season. When I’m there, everything moves a little slower, and I never want him to feel like I’m rushing through my time with him.”
“I’m glad you still get to see him. I bet he’s so proud of you.”
“Proud is an understatement.” Her laugh tickles my skin. “He tells everyone I play hockey. People at the grocery store. The guys at the gas station. He owns about fifteen of my jerseys, and he has a weekly rotation.”
I smile. “He sounds awesome.”
“He’s the best. Despite everything he’s been through, he sends me a text every morning saying ‘great news! Today is the best day of your life!’” She laughs. “I didn’t inherit his optimism, but I go along with it anyway.”
“What are you talking about? You’re the most optimistic person I’ve ever met,” I tease, and she pinches my ribs. “Thank you for sharing him with me.”
“What about you?” Emerson asks. “There’s nothing on your Wikipedia page about your family. I’ve checked.”
“Stalking me, Hartwell?”
“It’s called curiosity, Miller.”
I hum. “You won’t ever find anything on my Wikipedia page. I pay a lot of money to keep it that way.”
“You do?” She frowns. “Why? You’re not that private a person, are you?”
“No. I, uh, grew up in foster care,” I say, and her eyes widen. “I aged out of the system.”
“What?” Emerson sits up. She crosses her legs and stares at me. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. I don’t remember a lot about my childhood. I know my dad wasn’t very nice to my mom. There was lots of yelling and things getting thrown. My childhood psychologist told me my mom was fighting a lot of mental health battles; postpartum depression and anxiety. Bipolar disorder. The best thing for my future was foster care.”
“You never found a home?” she asks softly.
“No. Nothing ever worked out. I went through eight different families before I aged out, and by then, I was grateful to be out. I didn’t want to get my hopes up only to be sent back.” I take her hand in mine and kiss her knuckles. “People ask why I sleep with so many women, and I think it’s because I just want to be fucking wanted. They know what they’re getting into because I’m very honest about it—it’s only for the night. Sex and no attachments. They might claim they want to date me, that they want something long term, but we know it’s only for tickets and money and fame.
“One-night stands soothe that need to be wanted, to have someone who wants to keep me, even if it’s only for a few hours. This way, I get to control things.I’mthe one who leaves, not them. That probably makes me a horrible person. My therapist tells me sex can’t be my coping mechanism forever, and I’m starting to understand why. The older I get, the more I have this deeper desire to be wanted for real. To find someone who wants to keep me—not Maverick Miller the hockey player, butMaverick Miller, the fuckup kid without a family who tells jokes so no one knows he sometimes feels dead inside. And not just for the night, but for a long time. It goes against everything I’ve wanted up to this point, and it confuses the ever-loving fuck out of me.”
