The Rhodes Method

nine

What you been up to, my baby?
Haven't seen you 'round here lately
All of the guys tell me lies, but you don't
--- How to Disappear, Lana Del Rey

OCTAVIA RHODES

I've missed you, the letter read. I can't explain how sorry I am for leaving.

Bright lights. Shouting. The cold smell of ice.

I have replaced each word of the letter every minute of every hour. I am out of focus. I did not sleep last night.

I'll explain everything soon.

Coach yells at me. "Get your head in the game," she shouts over and over again because of my terrible performance on the ice. I've missed more saves in this game than last season. Coach subbed me out for one quarter. Proceeded to yell at me. The words went through one ear and out the other.

It is not just the twenty words that ring through my mind. There are also glimpses of the picture that I thought I would never have to think about. The drowning man with blue skin and dreadful eyes, who seemingly, didn't just drown. Because no one takes pictures of a man in the state and mails them to someone if they weren't the reason the body was like this in the first place.

A million possibilities run in my mind. All of them have been created by my mind in the hope that this is a big misunderstanding.

My mind has settled on one scenario: that maybe I was right before. The pictures are sent to Damien in relation to the police report. Maybe they sent the pictures to Damien to confirm the body of the man who drowned himself.

I know this is not the case. I know they wouldn't just mail these photos to him. I know it does not work like this.

Coach Madden still shouts. "Tav, I need your head in this game. If you're going to continue performing like you just were, then I need you to tell me to my face."

The ice. The smell of ice. The shouting of the audience. The confused faces of my brothers who have come to watch me play. Myles is here too. He is never here, but he is here today, only to watch me play the worst I have ever played. I glanced at their faces once and I have not looked back since. I can't face the disappointment on their faces. Because ice hockey is the one thing I'm good at, and now I'm failing to prove that it is.

"Can I count on you?" she asks me with force. "Tav?"

"You can." But I don't even know anymore.

I am then on the ice. I think of nothing but the words and the pictures and Damien and my father and now I am spiraling again.

The yells of my teammates snap me out of the small trance I am in. The other team has the puck. They are head straight at me, with two fast offense players who have been hogging the puck for the whole game.

I stand firm. I watch their angry expressions and I recall a time when this was all easier. When this wasn't something to prove to myself that I could be something. When this was just Myles and I on the ice on the lake, falling and laughing because nothing used to matter.

The lake. Of course, my mind goes back to it.

Focus, Octavia.

I save the puck before it goes in. Somehow I do. The crowd erupts, and I feel my teammates shove my back in congratulations. They are glad I am back in the game. They are glad because it is never me who pulls down the team. I am focused. I am driven and it is unlike me to be so out of it.