SLOANE DEVON
I can feel all eyes in the arena on me. The fans, my teammates, everyone. But there’s only one set of eyes I care about.
Coach Butler is pacing the sidelines. His eyes keep flickering back and forth between me, the puck, the goal, and the scoreboard. My skates, beat-up but perfectly broken in, are positioned for a shot. The puck floats on top of the ice just off the toe of my right skate. The Liberty High Belles’ goalie is twitching back and forth in her red and blue jersey, ready to block my shot. The period clock ticks down and the score shows a tie game.
This is it. I can do it this time; I can shake whatever this funk has been these last few weeks. All I needed was a do-or-die situation like this one. I got this. I got this.
But when I try to take a deep breath, the air comes too fast and I gasp like I’m drowning. And then I feel them. They start in my shoulders and wash down through my arms into my fingertips. The nerves are starting. Suddenly I can’t focus. Tingles. Pins and needles. Whatever you want to call it, it’s all I can feel, all I can think about. I have to do this. I can’t do it. I have to. Shake it off. It’s all mental. It’s in your head. I lower my eyes back down to the puck, raise my stick back, pivoting at the waist, and—BAM!
I’m on my face, kissing ice. I roll over onto my back. My vision starts to swirl into a tunnel of bright white light, and for a second all I can see is a red and blue jersey bearing the number 22 skating away. She throws a quick glance over her shoulder at me. I turn to see Coach Butler shaking his head.
I lie there for a second, wondering whether I should be pissed that she blindsided me or thankful that I didn’t have to take—and inevitably miss—that shot. When I try to breathe, something catches in my lungs. There’s no air. I blink a few times until everything comes back, and I see my teammate Gabby Ramirez, number 63, appearing over me. She lifts her helmet until her bleached-blond ponytail comes tumbling out.
“Hey, girl, you dead?”
“Air,” I gasp. “I need—”
Gabby stands up and calls to the sidelines, “She just got the wind knocked outta her! She’s okay!”
When I finally catch my breath, Gabby takes my big sweaty glove in hers and drags me to my skates. “Slow breaths,” she says.
Then I see number 22 on the Belles, helmet off like she’s just out for a leisurely skate, waving her stick toward me, doubled over laughing.
“Screw her,” Gabby grumbles, following my gaze. “Dirty player. You totally had it, dude.”
“Yeah,” I mutter, but I’m still staring at 22. When she catches me looking, she sneers at me. I feel whatever was wound up in me unraveling fast. I feel loose, like nothing is holding me back.
I fling off my gloves. Gabby tries to grab the back of my jersey, but I’m too quick. My shooting may be off, but I can still sprint like a speed skater. In two blinks I’m in front of her, and in three I drag her to the ground.
“What the hell!” she screams.
“Dish it out but can’t take it?” I shout. I draw my arm back to deck her. This time? No tingles.
My fist connects with her face, and her head jerks back onto the ice. I see blood, but I can’t tell if it’s coming from her or me. I try to look at my fist to see if I cracked a knuckle or something, but hands grab my shoulders and suddenly I’m being dragged across the ice. Coach Butler is yelling, something about discipline, maybe having it, maybe needing it? I can’t tell; he’s yelling too fast and too loud. The rest of my team is staring, mouths open. When we get to the bench, Coach nearly shoves me over the wall.
“Locker room,” he growls.
“Game’s not over, Coach,” I pant. Shouldn’t I just be parked in the penalty box?
“Go,” he says, then turns away from me.
I burst through the metal door and lean back hard against the Hornet, a chipped yellow and black mural that’s been on the wall of our locker room since medieval times. Within seconds I hear a buzzer and cheering from the side of the arena. The wrong side. We lost.
“Dammit!” I shout, then yank my helmet off and hurl it across the room. It slams into a yellow locker, leaving a small dent. I shuffle across the rubber floor on my skates and pick it up, then go hide in one of the shower stalls. The team will be in any minute, and I can’t face them.
It takes more than half an hour of crouching in the handicapped stall in the dark corner of the locker room before I hear the last player drag her bag out the door. I wait a few more beats to make sure it’s quiet, then make my way back out to my locker to change and get out of here. I sink down onto one of the ancient wooden benches and start unlacing my skates.
I hear the door squeak open halfway. “Jacobs, you in there?”
I suck in a breath, wondering if I can make it back into the handicapped stall before Coach Butler sees me. But with my skates half unlaced and him halfway in the door, it’s pretty unlikely.
“Jacobs, I didn’t see you come out, and your team didn’t either. You’re in there, and I’m coming in. If you’re not decent, speak now.”
I could shout something about being in my underwear, but it’s no use. I’m going to have to take the lecture from him at some point; might as well be now. “Come in,” I finally call back.
Coach Butler strides in, marches across the floor, and sits down on the bench across from me. He takes off his yellow Hornets ball cap and leans down until his elbows are resting on his knees. Then he looks me dead in the eyes.
“I don’t know what you could have possibly been thinking out there. That kind of crap does not fly on my team,” Coach says. His voice is even and completely cold. It’s worse than yelling. “I’m ashamed of the way you behaved.” He shakes his head. “I didn’t train you to play like that.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. I feel a lump rising in my throat, but I gulp it down. There’s no crying in hockey, not for me, at least. But I feel like I’ve been punched square in the sternum. We sit in silence for a few moments. Coach stares hard at me, and I keep my eyes firmly on the ground.
“Jacobs, you’re benched.”
My gaze snaps to his. “But the season’s over,” I say, my voice going shrill.
“Well, I’m coaching next year, and unless you plan on moving to another school, you better plan to park your butt on the bench for the first three games next season.”
“You can’t do that!” Three games? That’s a lifetime! That’s when the scouts come, when college visits start. Benched?
“I can, and I will,” he says. “I won’t tolerate fighting. You could have really hurt that girl.”
“She came at me,” I reply, but immediately I know it’s the wrong thing to have said.
“It was a legal hit. I watched it. You were too busy reciting Hamlet’s soliloquy or some crap while you were lining that shot up. What were you expecting, an engraved invitation to the goal?”
I drop my eyes again. I can’t even begin to come up with an explanation. Not without exposing my secret. He’s right, of course. Had I been paying even a sliver of attention to what was going on around me instead of freaking out, I would have seen that girl coming a mile away. I was too busy thinking about not making the shot—again.
I try to take a deep breath, but I choke on a sob. It comes out as a strangled noise that I turn into an angry string of curses. Coach has heard me swear before; it’s either swear or break down in tears, which is not an option. Coach just watches me. His gaze is intense, his eyes narrowed in a mixture of confusion and something I can’t read.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately, but you need to get it together. Figure out a way to control yourself, or I won’t have you on my ice,” Coach says. He runs his hand through his hair, then fits his ball cap back on his head. “Now go get showered and get out of here. Go home.”
I leave the corner bodega and shuffle home with my hands in my pockets, my hockey bag over one shoulder and a plastic bag holding a frozen pizza bouncing awkwardly against my thigh. I try not to think about the game, the fight, the suspension … and definitely not the tingles. Because if I start thinking about any of it, especially the tingles, my brain will simply follow the path to its natural conclusion, which is that hockey is over.
And if hockey is over, then my life is over.
No hockey means no scouts. No scouts means no college scholarship, which means no life outside of this stupid neighborhood that’s half row houses bursting with kids and grandparents and aunts and uncles and half UPenn hipsters turning the Laundromats into brunch spots with all-you-can-drink mimosas. It’s only a matter of time before our landlord hikes our rent so high we can’t afford to live here anymore. And no college and no house is not a pretty equation.
As I round the next corner, I lower my head and prepare to walk the gauntlet of homeboys and hoodlums hanging out on a stoop two doors away. If they’re deep into whatever club or girl or hot new track or illegal activity du jour, I can usually get by with barely a whistle. As I get closer, I see a couple empties in brown paper bags littering the stoop, and I know right away that tonight I won’t be so lucky.
“Hey, girl, you wanna bring that pizza and that fine ass over here?”
“Mmm-hmm, hard to tell which I want to taste first.” Oh ick.
There’s a round of high fives and “aww yeahs.” I can feel the thudding in my ears again, the heat rising up my neck, but if I jump these guys like I did 22, it’ll be the cops and not Coach Butler pulling me off. That’s if the homeboys don’t give me a concussion—or worse. Out here is not like the controlled, contained world of the rink. Out here it’s the wild. Out here I have to control myself.
“Screw off,” I mutter, and then double my pace until I’m past them. I hear the laughing and the catcalls until I’ve turned the next corner onto my street and slid my key into the lock on the front door.
Inside, I drop my skate bag at the bottom of the stairs and leave my keys on the table next to a pile of unpaid bills and take-out flyers. I don’t hear the TV, so I call, “Dad!” He should be home from work by now.
“Kitchen,” he calls back.
Dad’s sitting at our little blue chipped Formica kitchen table. He looks tired, but that’s not new. Ever since Mom left last month, I don’t think he’s slept at all. And if he is sleeping, I don’t think it counts if it’s on the couch in front of the television.
“We need to talk, Sloane,” he says, and that’s when I see that underneath the exhaustion, there’s something else. The last time we had to talk, Mom was already gone for her ninety-day stint at Pleasant Meadows or Calming Breezes or whatever pseudo-cheery name the place is called. All I remember is the pamphlet Dad slid across the table at me. The front of it showed the name in loopy blue script over a picture of a pair of smiling people who looked nothing like the disaster my mom had become, having a picnic somewhere green that looked a world away from Philly.
“Yeah, okay,” I say. I slide the pizza box out of the bag, then wad the bag in my fist. “Let me just pop this in the oven.”
“The pizza can wait. Just sit down.”
I leave the frozen pizza on the counter and slump down in the seat across from his, bracing for the news.
“Coach Butler called,” he says, his voice gruff. “Says you got in a fight. Again. He said he suspended you starting next season.”
I’m so shocked, I can only stare. Coach Butler never rats us out, not ever. Not when Julie Romer got a hornet tattoo on her lower back (though he made the nurse look at it to make sure it wasn’t infected), not when he caught us in possession of Middlebury High’s disgusting stuffed bulldog mascot (we had to take it back), and not even when Madeline Gray showed up to practice so hungover that she barfed on the ice during sprints (she had to do five morning makeups and sign a no-alcohol pledge). We trust Coach Butler. How could he do this to me?
“Sloane, I tolerate a lot from you.” Dad sighs. He picks at a spot on the table where the blue Formica is so chipped that particleboard is starting to show through. “That hoodlum musician boyfriend, your middle-of-the-road grades. I let you get away with a lot, because you’ve got hockey. It’s your ticket. You know we can’t afford to send you to college. You won’t go to college without it. I don’t want that for you, and you don’t want that for you, so what in the hell are you doing getting yourself suspended going into your senior year?”
“But she came at me! And that ref was totally from Liberty! He was biased!” It all comes tumbling out, all the words I can say to hide the ones I can’t. I can’t tell him about the tingles, not when he’s just laid out all the repercussions of biting it in hockey. Oh, sorry, Dad, it’s just that I was so freaked out about not being able to hit the broad side of a barn with a four-square ball that I ended up tackling some blond bimbo from Liberty High. So you see, no big deal! Either way, my hockey career is over!
As I’m rattling on about how I barely even touched her, Dad holds up his hand. “Save it.”
“See? You don’t even want to hear my side.” I cross my arms over my chest and slouch further into my chair.
Dad ignores the remark. “Luckily, your coach is looking out for you, and he called with a suggestion,” Dad says. “He thinks you need a change of scenery. One of his old college buddies runs a hockey camp up in Montreal, and he made a phone call on your behalf. You’ll leave tomorrow. You finish the summer with a good report from this camp, you can start the season with your team next fall. No harm, no foul.”
It’s so much information, I don’t know what to process first. I’m not benched? But I have to go to hockey camp? The coaches are going to see that I can’t make a shot. I can hide it for maybe a week, but after that someone will notice. And then that someone will call Coach Butler. They’ll call Dad. And then I’m screwed.
But that’s not what I land on first.
“I can’t leave tomorrow!” I burst out. “It’s summer. I have plans! I was going to apply for a job at the Freeze and save up. And I can’t leave Dylan!” As soon as I say it, the part about Dylan, I realize it’s hardly true.
“Fine, skip hockey camp. But you’re not playing the start of next season. And the scouts aren’t seeing you, and you’ve got a suspension on your record, and then college falls off the radar.”
I shake my head, even though I know he’s right. “I can’t believe you’re doing this to me.”
“We make our own choices, Sloane,” Dad says. “And frankly, you’re lucky you’ve got a coach willing to compromise and make phone calls on your behalf.”
“This is bullshit,” I say.
“Knock it off, Sloane. Honestly, what would your mother say if she was here?”
“Well, she’s not, because she obviously made her choices,” I retort. “But you sent her away too, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”
I see the pain start in Dad’s eyes, then ripple outward like a stone disturbing the water. Immediately I feel guilty. He doesn’t say anything, just stands up from his chair. He stares at me hard. “You’ve got a nine a.m. bus, so you better pack,” he says, then walks out of the kitchen. I hear him shuffle up the stairs. A few minutes later his bedroom door slams shut.
I stomp back to the front of the house where I dropped my bag and dig my phone out of the front pocket. Because I don’t know who else to talk to, I text Dylan, jamming on the keys so hard I worry my thumb is going to come out the other side.
Awful day. Need to talk asap.
I drag my bag up the stairs and into my room, then heave it onto my bed with enough force that the sound echoes my level of anger. I. Am. Pissed.
At the Vid with guys. Come out.
Great. He knows I don’t have a fake ID, and even if I did, he knows I wouldn’t go to the Vid and hang out while a bunch of his friends get trashed. Idiot. Life sure is a hot fudge sundae with a cherry on top, isn’t it?
I pull my big black duffel down from the top of my closet and start throwing clothes inside, not even paying attention to what I actually need. A handful of sports bras, a couple of pairs of jeans, some jerseys, some T-shirts … Who cares? I’m not going to make it past the first week anyway. Maybe after they throw me out I can just hit the road, trade in my return ticket for somewhere warmer. Somewhere hockey doesn’t even exist.
I hear the scritch-scritch of little feet coming up the stairs; then a fuzzy black face pokes inside the door. I jump up on my bed and pat my comforter. “C’mere, Zaps.”
Zaps is the only good thing that ever came out of Mom’s drinking. One evening, after finishing a bottle of some cheap red, Mom was flipping through the channels and saw one of those über-sad ASPCA commercials where a nineties pop starlet is warbling her old hit while pictures of abandoned and injured animals flash across the screen. Ten minutes later, Mom and I were on a bus to the local shelter, and less than an hour after that, we were getting out of a cab in front of our doorstep with Zaps, a terrier mix on a bright red leash. His name is actually Zapruder, after the guy who made that infamous Kennedy assassination film. Nerdy, I know, but it was Mom’s choice. She loved history. Maybe she still does. It’s hard to see where her affections lie beyond an empty glass or bottle.
Zaps jumps up on the bed and nuzzles my armpit, then starts furiously licking my face. “Down, boy!” I cry, but pretty soon I’ve dissolved into giggles. I can’t believe I’ve got to leave this moppet behind tomorrow. Is Dad even going to remember to walk him?
Thinking of Dad brings back that awful guilty feeling. I shouldn’t have accused him of sending Mom away. It was all her. She chose to become a drunk. She chose to drive after drinking not one but two bottles of wine. And it wasn’t the first time, either. It wasn’t even surprising when she finally hit something. Luckily it was just a city mailbox on the corner and not a small child on the sidewalk. Which means it was her choice to go to rehab, even if it seemed like the court didn’t give her much of one.
She chose and she chose and she chose until she was gone.
I sigh into the scruff of Zaps’s neck. Mom hasn’t always been like that, though the past three years have been so miserable that it seems like forever. She always enjoyed a glass of wine or two, but when I was in eighth grade she left her job teaching social studies at a magnet school in town to take care of Grandma Rosa, who had been diagnosed with lung cancer. It wasn’t easy for Mom, leaving a job she loved to watch her mother get sicker and sicker. I didn’t blame her when she drank … at first. As sad as I was when Grandma Rosa died last year, I was hopeful that maybe things would go back to normal. But at that point Mom was just too far gone. She couldn’t get her old job back, and she couldn’t get herself together to apply for something new. Everything went downhill fast after that.
I curl up on my pillow, hugging Zaps, until I’ve fallen asleep and am dreaming of somewhere far away from Montreal, far away from Philly, even. Somewhere far away from hockey and far away from home. Dreaming of being someone—anyone—other than me.