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Eighteen-year-old hockey prodigy Elliot Wexler has three goals for senior year. One: somehow graduate with a 3.5 GPA. Two: hide his bipolar disorder from his peers. And three: make it in...
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THE LAST THING I want to do is work on the first day of Christmas Break, but when FarmCo calls, I answer.
Deck the Halls plays from the radio and drills into my head. There's a pause in the shoppers going through the checkout, so I have a second to breathe. With heavy eyelids, I scan the silver, red, and green decorating the dull browns of the grocery store's interior. Hipsters with scarves, dudes in thick-rimmed glasses, moms in yoga pants—nothing changes around here. Minutes drag into hours behind this checkout counter, packing gluten-free this and organic-that into paper bags.
In my head, I'm on the ice. The puck is at my stick, and the other team charges me as I weave through them like a shark in a sea of fish. The image of Luke, Eric, and Mason sends my fantasy/memory to a screeching halt. At last practice, I overheard them saying, "He's such a freak, did you see the way he was standing there like that?"
"Yeah man, one minute he's on fire, the next he's like a stunned idiot."
"Kid seriously needs to get his head checked."
It doesn't matter who said what. I don't even get what they were talking about—so what if I space out sometimes, it's just because I haven't been sleeping lately. School and hockey are a lot to juggle, but I'll be fine for the Brantford game. I always am.
Davis, my beady-eyed manager, hobbles past and jerks his thumb at me. "Wexler, take yer break."
Finally. I pass shelves of overpriced food to get to the breakroom, where Katie stands in a uniform that matches mine: a black T-shirt, a green apron, and tan pants. Her phone's pressed to her ear while tears stream down her flushed face.
"Luke, don't hang up on me. Luke—don't!" A moment of silence, and she stares into her phone like it's a black hole.
"Hey, what's going on?" I ask, but I already know. It's the same old shit. One minute Luke's making her the happiest I've ever seen her, then with the flip of a switch their relationship turns nuclear.
As soon as Katie sees me, she crashes into my chest. I hug her back and breathe in the familiar smell of her vanilla body spray.
"What happened?" I ask and try to ignore the budding fire in my chest, old feelings I try to keep on lockdown. Katie and I will never happen. I've accepted that.
Pulling away, she dabs her eyes with her sleeve. "He's mad at me again. I swear he thinks I'm trying to hook up with every guy at school. Now apparently it's David Fuentes I'm after. How stupid is that? All I did was like his picture!"
"Luke's an asshole, Katie. You can do better than him."
"It's more complicated than that. You don't understand anything, El." She storms off.
