Only to Feel This Fully [Completed]

Ch. 12: Gotta Learn to Live with Regrets

The thought of faking illness and staying home from the game passed through my mind more than once on Friday. The school's palpable enthusiasm for the game, which I'd normally find thrilling, was nauseating in this context. Much of the student body would be in attendance for the game, which had an added importance now that Theo was out.

As a sign of how much the administration cared about rivalry games, the hockey team was allowed to wear our jersey over the school uniform on game day. The principal was loathe to ever permit anything other than strict adherence to the dress code. This did nothing to boost my morale.

By the end of the day, I honestly felt sick, but I also knew that missing the game after completing the school day would draw the type of unnecessary scrutiny that I was practiced at avoiding. Hockey games were typically later at night than the average high school sport, owing to the expense of renting out a rink for that extended period of time. This installment in the St. Sebastian-Pine Wood rivalry would take place at nine, leaving five hours between when I got home from school and the game.

I hid in my bedroom for most of that time, refusing multiple offers of food from my increasingly-concerned mother. She had taken note of the falling out with Theo and more than likely had discussed it with Mrs. Broussard. The thought crossed my mind that Mrs. Broussard could easily have let slip enough contextualization for my mother to realize my feelings for Theo were not platonic in the slightest. In my already-anxious state, this just added to my worry, which I saw no way to alleviate before game time. I sent Theo a quick good luck text for the game, which was soon read but I received no response. I hadn't couched the good luck with something like "but not too much" as would be normal between friends on opposing teams before a big game. Theo didn't need luck with hockey. He never did. Support and friendship were what he needed right now. I couldn't provide those things now or maybe ever, so I was hoping he was lucky enough that his team could suffice for now. The bare minimum I could do would be to not add a veneer of jocularity to my tepid and limited support.

Emotional turbulence had left me feeling physically fragile since our falling out. I felt ready to burst at the seams at any moment or collapse like a deck of cards. The years I'd spent carving out pieces of myself to suppress my individuality and numb my emotions had failed to guard me against this hurt. I felt hollowed out in pain; Theo having taken my last ounces of hope with him as he exited my life. There was no choice no. I had to soldier on. "Time waits for no man, can't turn back the hands/once it's too late, gotta learn to live with regrets," Jay-Z's clarion voice broke through my inner turmoil. For times like these, I had compiled a "sad boi hours" playlist and "Regrets" had come up just at the moment its words would sting the most.

Coach always had us show up an hour before game time. We did our pre-game warm-ups in an empty section of the parking lot as usual, but we passed Pine Wood on the way back in. The Trojans were going out to do their warm-ups after we'd finish. The floodgates of heckling opened as we passed them.

There were two logics of mockery employed by my teammates. First, that the rest of the Trojan hockey players were "fag lovers" for allowing Theo to continue on the team or simply that the entire team was homosexual like some modern Sacred Band of Thebes on ice, although I was sure none of the tormentors knew that part of Greek legend. No response came from the Pine Wood contingent, no defense of Theo from the lot of them. Most Trojans were expressionless and kept moving. However, Theo did not appear to be segregated from his teammates, still amongst them and not at arm's length, so maybe there was begrudging acceptance underneath those hard stares. I remained hopeful, despite most signs pointing in the opposite direction.

The game itself was a mess from the start. Coach had warned the team against allowing any distractions to get in the way of winning the game. Like the commissioner's email, the wording was vague as our coach was obviously not in his normal element, but his intentions were made clear. His words still largely fell on deaf ears.