Mitts (OLD VERSION)

17. The Talk

I knew Jamie wanted to talk about Adam. He spent the entire morning and travel back to Lowell holding his tongue, staring at the bridge of my nose. I knew he was going to ask about it. And I didn't want to talk about it. Not even to Jamie.

"You weren't being totally honest about Adam, were you?" Jamie asked when we were finally back at Everett, alone in our room.

"It's not a big deal." I sighed.

"He tried to kill you!" Jamie exclaimed.

"He didn't try to kill me." I sighed, "He just tried an illegal check."

"Jake. What did he do to you?" Jamie asked softly.

The air left my lungs. Why did he care?

"I...It's." I sighed, "It's a long story."

He patted the bed next to him, "I have time."

"I don't." I groaned, "I don't know if I can talk about it."

"You can try," He offered.

"Jamie I." I turned to see him looking at me, his eyes full of worry and concern. I took a deep breath, "I really don't know if I'm ready to talk about it."

He opened his arms up, "When you are, I'm here."

I let him pull me in, "I don't really remember a lot of it," I mumbled, "It's really just bits and pieces. It's not...I dunno I think my brain blocked out a lot of it."

He ran a hand through my hair, playing with it while he let me keep talking, "Sometimes there are days where I can't stop thinking about it. I just can't stop thinking about what happened and there are other days where I'm completely fine. Sometimes I'm still back in Alabama and sometimes I'm here. It's stupid."

"It's not stupid," He promised.

"Are you sure you wanna hear?" I asked, "It's just. It's a lot and I really don't remember all of it, it's kind of patchy and I don't want to burden you or make it your issue."

"You couldn't burden me," He promised, "Please. I want to know."

"Jamie, are you sure?" I asked, "I'm giving you a chance to back out. It's heavy and it might change how you see me and I want to make sure that you can handle this. So are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Ok." I nodded, "Well. I should probably start in freshman year. I joined the 16U team. They let me on because I pointed out in their charter that there wasn't a rule that stated it had to be an all-male team. I was out at the time, but no one believed me. So, I got onto the team as a girl.

"Everyone was pretty shitty to me except Gav, he was the only non-white kid on the team. We got along by sticking with each other, but the rest of the team sucked. They'd chirp me, stick me on the worst jobs after practices, ignore me, put me on the worst lines, play me too much or too little in any given game. It was just like two full years of hazing, I guess. But it was just hazing. It was just shitty chirps and kind of shit playing conditions. They couldn't not play me because I was good and that pissed them all off more. It was just hazing though.

"But when I got onto 18U, Adam joined. He had just moved to the state, so he was switching teams. He was my linemate and he hated me. He turned the team against me even more. Then Gav graduated and went to California. I lost kind of my only friend on the team. So the chirps got worse, I was playing nonstop in games, I was stuck with nearly every post-practice chore, if we lost it was my fault and if we won I did nothing to help even though I scored almost all of the goals. It was like before but on steroids. But Adam started to get physical. Shitty checks in practice, shoves in the locker room, tripping me on the ice, I know there are worse things. I remember bruises and cuts from worse things, but I don't remember what they were. So just a lot of shitty things. It didn't go past that and some colorful slurs for a while. Until right before nationals.