Jesse

I told Nate not to worry about leaving me. Once the doctor saw how I was doing, he gave me some stronger painkillers and I nodded off for a bit and woke up feeling a bit better, but slightly hungover.

When I open my eyes, Mom is sitting by the bed and Sam is playing on a Nintendo in the corner of the room. I can hear the little bleeping sounds of a Mario Bros game.

“Turn that down Samantha, you’re going to wake your brother up.”

“It’s okay, I’m awake.”

Sam closes the Nintendo and comes to sit on the bed, “how you feeling?”

“I’ve been better.”

“Your face still looks like a butt.”

“Sam,”

Mom shakes her head, “what is wrong with you?”

I laugh and ruffle her hair.

“Where’s Dad?”

“He’s gone to get some sandwiches.”

“Mom, you should go home, I’m fine.”

“We’ll go soon, you just rest.”

Sam swings her legs off the bed and looks down at her sneakers, “sorry you won’t get to play at Madison Sq.”

My heart sinks. Fuck. Of course I won’t.

I force a smile, “it doesn’t matter.”

“He’ll play Madison Sq when he’s in the NHL.”

Dad stands in the doorway, arms loaded with pre-packed sandwiches.

If my heart could sink any lower, it would.

“, chicken or tuna?”

I love how my only options are high-protein ones.

“Definitely not tuna. I might be able to eat some of the chicken.”

“You need to get your strength up,”

he says as he tosses me the sandwich.

Mom volunteers to have the tuna and I hope she actually wants it and isn’t just eating it to appease everybody.

We mostly eat in silence and I’m surprised to find myself actually hungry after all that puking. I feel like a prune that’s had all the juice squeezed out of it. But my stomach feels the size of a pea and I’m stuffed from one tiny sandwich.

When everyone’s finished eating, I ask if I can speak to Dad alone.

Mom shoos Sam out of the room and closes the door.

“What’s wrong?”

I can see he thinks I’m going to talk about Nate, and though we do definitely need to talk about that, there’s something more immediate I need to say, something I should have said a long time ago.

“I’m not playing hockey next year Dad.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, when I finish college, I’m going to train to be a coach and get my graduate degree.”

Dad snorts, “with what money?”

“With the money I make from my job.”

“As a trainee coach? In what, the juniors? Do you want to be a high-school gym teacher? Or do you want to play in the NHL?”

“No Dad, I don’t want either, I want to be a sport’s coach, for kids. Coach Rolands got me an internship over the summer at this outreach programme…”

“Stop… just, stop.”

A vein is pulsing in his forehead, but I promise myself I won’t back down, not this time.

“A team in the ECHL scouted me as an enforcer,”

His head snaps up, and for a second, I see pride and hope in his eyes, but I realise, it isn’t really for me, it isn’t because he thinks it’ll make me happy, it’s because his hard work and his praying paid off.

“I turned them down.”

The vein pulses like crazy as he takes a deep breath.

“Why would you do that?”

“It was in North Carolina, they’re called the Steamrollers and they wanted me to fight.”

“That’s what you’re good at, it’s your strength. You’re not the best skater, not the fastest or…”

“Dad, stop.”

He bangs his fist down on the table and I jump. “No I won’t stop!”

His nostrils flare as he looks at me, “do you know how much me and your mother have sacrificed so you could play hockey? We remortgaged our house! I don’t know how we’re going to send your sister to college. And now you’ve pissed another opportunity up the wall, why? Because you didn’t want to move to North Carolina and be away from your… boyfriend?”

I bite my tongue.

“I don’t know how you turned into such a spoilt, selfish…”

he clenches his jaw and takes a deep breath, “you’re going to call the coach in Carolina and tell him you changed your mind. You’ll try out, you’ll be the equipment assistant, whatever it takes to get a place on the team…”

“No Dad.”

His eyes are blazing as they burn a hole through me.

“Listen to me, I’m 21-years old, and I know you sacrificed a lot for me, and I love playing hockey, but I never asked for any of this.”

He scoffs, but I carry on talking.

“It was you who pushed me to play in juniors, and you who pushed me to go to all those hockey camps, and you who pushed to get me trained by all the best coaches, and you who pushed me to apply for scholarships to play hockey in college when I didn’t get drafted, not me. I didn’t push for any of those things, and I definitely didn’t ask you to remortgage the house. If you’d have told me I couldn’t play hockey because you couldn’t afford it, I would have just played with cheap equipment for fun with my friends at the weekend. I love hockey dad, but no one ever told you I was a prodigy. You’re the one who told yourself I was gonna play in the NHL, no one else.”

“Are you done?”

“Yes, Dad, I’m done.”

It sucks watching the team play Madison Sq without me while I sit out injured, but the atmosphere is awesome and Nate is meeting me after the game so we can hang out in NYC and stay in a hotel.

It’s almost a vacation, the first of many I hope. Just as soon as I get my grad degree and start making slightly less shit money.

I know my dad will be watching this game and seething. Thinking about how he’ll never get to brag to the guys at the construction site about his son playing in the NHL, and I know he’s probably been telling everyone for years that’s what I’m going to do, but he shouldn’t have. That was never my dream, it was his. And I deserve to have my own life.

The team kick Quinnipiac’s ass 3-0 and I wish I could get down there and throw Petroski around with the guys, but I know I’m not allowed, even though my head is completely fine now.

It wasn’t meant to be. I can let it go. That’s one lesson I’ve learnt from my dad. Don’t stew in regrets and things that didn’t happen and things you didn’t get to do. It’ll drag you down and poison you. I’d rather enjoy the things I do get to do, like sleep in a hotel with the hottest person on the planet, who, for whatever reason, likes getting naked with me just as much as I like getting naked with him.

But before we can do that, we have to have a real New York City experience and eat hot dogs on the street and just walk around looking at everything with big eyes and our mouths wide open.

Nate looks so good wrapped up in a chequered scarf and a grey wool coat. His hair blowing around his face in the wind and I have to keep pulling him into store doorways to kiss him. His lips cold and smiling as he laughs and pretends he isn’t loving all the attention I’m giving him.

We end up eating dinner at the hotel, because everywhere looks so busy and intimidating. Nate’s too nervous to order a drink with dinner and actually, I don’t want one either. I’d rather stay sober and soak up every second of this.

Nate waits until we’ve eaten to ask me how I felt watching the game.

“It sucked a little,”

I admit, “but I’m glad I’m here, and I’m glad I watched it. And I’m glad we won, even if I didn’t get to be a part of it.”

Nate nods and sips his water.

“And I’m glad I’m here with you.”

I take his hand over the table and he drops his eyes. I can’t believe he still blushes after everything we’ve done together.

And I can’t believe we’re actually here, together, and I don’t know what’s going to happen in our future, but I also know that’s okay. I have a feeling that whatever it is, it’s going to involve us being together.