The Understatement of the Year

by Sarina Bowen

  After those two, there were a couple of sevens, and a handful of sixes, like Trevi.

  Graham was in the opposite corner, his big legs visible on either side of a press bench. He was a zero on the Rikker scale. I’d been at Harkness a month, and he still hadn’t looked me in the eye, except by accident.

  His avoidance both weirded me out and made me angry. Unfortunately, I hadn’t handled it well. Instead of ignoring him, I’d begun trying to provoke him, just to try to get a reaction. Any reaction.

  It started the day he’d crashed into me at Coach’s house. I don’t even know why I’d thrown down that ridiculous comment. Was that good for you? Cheesy, much? But even though I’d said something patently ridiculous, he reacted as if I’d threatened his life. He went pale and shrunk back.

  I wasn’t proud of it, but I’d tortured him a few other times, too. He just made it so damn easy. Last week, we’d come face to face in the hallway here at the rink. There was nobody else around. I didn’t say anything, I only blew him a kiss. And I got the same horrified expression all over again. Lately he’d been circling the perimeter of the dressing room just to avoid me.

  But I was always aware of him. When he walked into a room, I felt him, like a change in the air pressure. Just an oblique glimpse of him was all it took to put me on high alert. I didn’t want to be so sensitive to him. It’s just that I didn’t know how to stop. We’d been so close all those years ago. My subconscious just couldn’t get over the idea that we weren’t anymore.

  His laugh was the hardest thing to bear. If he were across the room talking to Bella or a couple of buddies, sometimes I would hear him laugh. And the low sound of his quiet chuckle always crushed me.

  I used to love to make him laugh. And I didn’t know how to quit listening for it.

  “Wow,” Trevi said, turning his head. “That’s trippy.”

  “What?” I asked, shaking off my reverie. “Did you feel it release?” I eased up on the tennis ball that I’d forgotten I was holding. I chanced putting my fist against his body instead, probing for a knot. But I didn’t find one.

  “Yeah. Damn.” He rolled his shoulder a couple of times. “It’s so much better. Awesome.” He stood up and turned around. “Thanks.”

  “Sure thing.” I handed him the ball. “If the knot comes back, you can try it by yourself, trapping the ball between you and the wall. But it’s hard to get the angle just right.”

  He held up his hand for a high five, and I met it. “Thanks, man. Seriously. I’m going to hit the treadmills. You coming?’”

  “Sure.” Maybe Trevi would graduate from a six to a seven on the Rikker scale. As they said of football, mine was a war that would be won by inches.

  I followed him into the cardio room, where I wouldn’t have to look at Graham.

  — Graham

  “Yo, Graham. Aren’t you going to spot me?”

  “Sure. Of course.” I hopped over to stand behind Smitty’s head, bracing my hands underneath the barbell. God, I’d been zoning out. Again.

  “So what do you think of our defensive lineup?” Smitty asked just before hefting the bar off the rack. He was a sophomore blueliner. A defenseman, like me.

  What did I think? I only wished I could think. My head was a frickin’ mess. I hadn’t slept a full night since Rikker had sauntered into the locker room. Bella had begun showing up in my room first thing in the morning, rolling me out of bed and looking for empty bottles.

  It didn’t stop me from drinking. But it did make me better at hiding the evidence.

  “Um,” I said to Smitty. Because lately nothing came out of my mouth right on the first try. “I think we’re pretty solid. The French kids work well together. I’ll bet Coach puts them on the same line.”

  Beneath me, Smitty grunted in agreement. For the next ninety seconds, I focused all my attention on the barbell in my hands, and on my teammate’s straining face below me. I could at least do that, right? I could pay attention long enough to avoid killing Smitty with my negligence.

  After six reps, Smitty’s shaking arms set the bar back onto the rack, and it was my turn again. I sat back down on the bench. As I lay back, I caught a glimpse of Rikker joking with Trevi. He never smiled like that when he looked at me. And why would he?

  Rikker’s anger at me was a physical, tangible thing. Every time he leveled me with a glance, my brain short-circuited. And the more often I saw him, the stupider I acted. Obviously, talking to him was the only possible solution. And it’s not like I never considered the idea. I gave it lots of consideration every night from about midnight until 2 a.m. But how do you start that conversation? I’m sorry you took a beating for me. And I’m sorry I was too afraid to ever speak to you again.

  It would be impossible to explain it, because no plausible explanation existed. Fear wasn’t a good enough reason to do what I’d done.

  The only thing that seemed to help me sleep, even a little, was Scotch whiskey. And thank God for that. When I was barely sixteen, and going through hell after our incident in the alleyway, I didn’t even have alcohol to soften the blow.

  After Rikker disappeared from my high school and my life, it took me a long time to process what had happened. Before that awful day, naiveté had made me far too content. I’d never realized just how dangerous it was to be with Rikker. I knew we could never tell anyone. That went without saying. But I’d never been forced to witness what would happen if people knew. I hadn’t understood the sheer repulsion that I’d somehow earned by loving another boy.

  It was the look of disgust on our attackers’ faces that did me in. “Sick fags,” they’d said.

  Sick. I was sick. The word vibrated through my chest for months.

  I’d been so confused. But I knew one thing. I didn’t ever want to see that same look on the faces of my family. If there was something sick about me, I hoped I could stomp it out before anyone else saw it.

  After Rikker left, his parents told everyone at church that he’d gone to stay with his grandmother for a while.

  Me? I spent a couple of months cowering in my bedroom. Sometimes I tried to find answers on the Internet. And we all know where that leads, right? I Googled “same sex experimentation,” and found plenty of articles. For a hot second, they made me feel better. I read that straight teens often experimented with their friends, because that’s who was available and willing. Basically, teen guys touch each other’s junk sometimes, or jerk off together. Then most of them grow up to happily fuck women, eventually getting married and having cute little kids.

  Good on me, right?

  Not so fast. None of these accounts said anything about straight guys who’d basically tried to superglue their mouths to their best friend’s whenever nobody was looking. There weren’t any stories by guys who wanted nothing more than to feel their best friend’s body blanketing their own, or who could light up just from the sight of his smile from across the room.

  What Rikker and I were to each other was so far past the notion of casual experimentation that it wasn’t even funny. And it didn’t matter that we’d never had sex, or even gotten up the courage to blow each other. The more I read, the better I understood that this one was of those times when the spirit of the law meant more than the letter of the law.

  I stopped Googling things after that.

  The basement was off-limits to me, too. It was too hard to be down there and not think of him. Just walking past that couch gave me a sick feeling. I craved him still. And I hated myself for it.

  I brought the video game console up into my bedroom. Only it wasn’t any fun to play without him.

  Then, a few months after Rikker left, hockey season came around again. I tried out for the high school varsity team and made it. Still, every time I laced up my skates, I thought of him. I wondered where he was, and whether he was playing hockey on some team in Vermont.

  In an attempt to flush Rikker out of my head, I started dating girls, and that went well for me. A lot of the other sophomore guys were too
shy. They liked girls a lot. But there was too much at stake, so they were afraid to ask them out. Or they acted like morons when they got their big chance.

  But I was fearless. Getting shot down by a girl wasn’t even in the top fifty on the list of things that scared me. So I asked the prettiest girl in my class to the homecoming dance. And that went so well that I asked another one to the movies the following week.

  Dating girls? It was as easy as shooting fish in a barrel, as my dad liked to say.

  But I still missed Rikker like crazy. Which was stupid. Because even after I blew my chance to visit him in the hospital he was always just a phone call away. It’s just that I couldn’t afford that phone call. The price was too high. Not only was I afraid to face him after I’d been such a coward in that alley, I was afraid to tell him how I really felt. That it was too fucking dangerous to be friends anymore. Because he made me want things that were sick.

  Five years is a long time. Eventually, hockey stopped reminding me of Rikker. I kept at it, even as the game changed. Varsity hockey — and then college hockey — was a bigger, more physical game than we’d played together in the bantam league. Hockey was the place I went to get out all the anger. Slamming my opponents into the boards? Nobody ever called that “sick.” When I did it right, the crowd stood up and cheered.

  The world is cracked. It really is.

  And now I was cracking, too. Because Rikker had walked back into my life, and he did it by telling the whole frickin’ team that he was gay. It was the single ballsiest thing I’d ever seen a guy do. Rikker’s appearance at Harkness was like my own personal horror film come to life. I was afraid of what he’d reveal about me. I was afraid of what he might say to my face. I was pants-shitting scared, all the time.

  I was afraid for Rikker, too. He didn’t seem to understand the risks. I’d stared hatred in the face, and I was never going to forget the look of its snarl.

  Over the last five years, I built and polished a set of personal deflector shields that I engaged every time I spoke to a really attractive man. I was careful not to stare, and I knew how to affect the kind of body language that conveyed only polite interest.

  But Rikker was hell on my deflector shields. When he was around, nothing worked right. My eyes went where they weren’t supposed to go, and I felt the thrum of expectation just from breathing the same air that he did. Even now, I tried not to keep tabs on him as he crossed the room with Trevi.

  It turns out that trying to ignore somebody is about the most distracting, exhausting thing in the world. Whenever Rikker walked into a room, I felt like I’d been stripped of all my skin.

  “Are you up for one more set of bench press?” Smitty asked me.

  “Sure,” I said automatically. Hell, I was up for ten more sets. Maybe I could finally get tired enough to sleep all the way through the night.

  Yeah. Not likely.

  — November —

  Pinching: when a defenseman leaves his typical rearward position to push forward into the offensive zone.

  — Rikker

  We were on a bus heading to Boston when I got a text from Skippy, my ex-boyfriend. For a couple of minutes, I ignored it. There were rules I’d made for myself with regard to him. The first rule was: Never text Skippy first. Because that was just pathetic. The second rule was: Always wait a half hour before responding.

  But I was on a bus, just staring out at the highway. So of course I peeked. He’d sent me a photograph, one that made me say, “aw!” and immediately compose a reply.

  “Who are you texting?” Bella asked from the seat beside me.

  “My ex,” I said, hitting the send button.

  “Ooh!” she said. “Can I see a picture?”

  “Of my ex? No. I deleted them all. Off my phone, anyway.” As any self-respecting human being would. “But you can see a picture of his new dog.” I handed her the phone.

  “Aw,” she echoed. I tried to take the phone back, but she moved it out of my reach, still staring at the poodle in the photo. “Why is the dog wearing glasses?”

  “I dunno. In fact, I just asked that question a second ago. Not that I expect a reasonable answer.” Skippy was kind of a nut.

  “You know Rikker…” she trailed off, still squinting at the photo. “I’d kill any guy who ever said this to me. But this dog and I kind of look alike.”

  “What?” I grabbed the phone back and looked again at the picture. And then I let out the sort of laugh that hurts a little, because you tried and failed to hold it in. “God, Bella! You’re right.” The dog had curly hair, in a color much like hers. And a goofy smile. “Okay, let’s take your picture and send it to my ex.”

  “Wait!” she held up a hand, and I thought she’d shoot the idea down. But she turned around in her seat instead. “Hey, Trevi! Can I borrow your reading glasses? Just for a minute.”

  Again I snorted. Bella was just about the best sport in the entire world. And I told her so when she came back wearing glasses that were startlingly similar to the ones the poodle wore in the photo.

  My phone buzzed with a text, answering the question of why the dog wore glasses: Rikky, not everyone has perfect vision. Don’t make her feel self-conscious. We don’t have a name yet. Ross wants to call her Kujo, but I refuse. Ideas?

  “What a goof,” Bella said, reading over my shoulder.

  “Yep.”

  “Who’s Ross?”

  “My replacement.”

  She made a face. “Sorry. Let me see the poodle one more time, so we can get this just right.” I showed Bella the photo again, and she adjusted the barrette in her hair to make it poof up like the dog’s. “Let ‘er rip,” Bella said, smiling.

  I switched my phone to the camera setting and framed the shot. “Hang on.” I reached up to gently tilt her chin to the side, like the poodle’s. “Okay. Can you make your smile a little… doggier?” But that made Bella laugh, which made me laugh, so we had to take a minute to calm down.

  “What eez so amusing?” asked Frenchie from across the aisle.

  “Nothing,” Bella giggled, and I lost it again. Several people were turning to stare, now. We were like the loud, raucous table at a restaurant — annoying, unless it’s you. “Okay,” I took a deep breath. “We can do this. Let’s see your pose again.” She made her doggiest smile yet, and I clicked the shutter button.

  For a caption, I wrote: Dear Skippy, your new dog and my new friend…separated at birth?

  “Hit send!” Bella giggled.

  I did, and it only took about sixty seconds to get the first response. OH MY GOD. Of course, that made us howl. Then he wrote: I can’t even… What is her name?

  Bella, I replied, and my phone rang almost immediately. “Hello?” I chuckled into the receiver.

  “Rikky! Let me talk to Bella.”

  Figures.

  I passed her the phone. She took it with laughing eyes. “This is Bella. Nice to meet you, Skippy.” There was a pause. “I’d be honored if you named her Bella. Seriously. You’re welcome.” She handed the phone back. “He wants to talk to you.”

  “What’s up, Skipster?” I asked, dropping my voice.

  “I’m glad you made a friend, Rikky.”

  Just what I needed — a little patronizing from the ex. The ex who seemed to be doing so much better than I was. “Um, thanks?”

  “Can’t be easy being the new guy for three years in a row.”

  I sighed, because it was true. “I’ll live. Always do.”

  “Of course you will. Where are you, anyway?”

  “On a bus to Boston for a tournament.”

  “That doesn’t sound bad. A bus full of big, muscular athletes.”

  “It has its moments.”

  “Glad to hear it. Take care, Rikky. Ross sends his love.”

  Seriously? “Uh, thanks. Bye, Skip.”

  I hung up with him, to catch Bella watching me. “He seems fun. Do you miss him?”

  “Sometimes.” That was the truth. And Skippy was fun. Yet I’d so
mehow decided about a year ago that he and I had outgrown each other. I even told him so, which he did not appreciate. Then, when he made it official by dumping me, I was less sure.

  Ugh. Next topic, please.

  I stashed my phone and took out the book that I was supposed to be reading for English class. After Bella returned Trevi’s glasses to him, she pulled a folder out of her backpack. “Now that you’ve been with us for two months,” she said, setting her backpack at her feet, “you’ve had time to decide who’s the most attractive man on the team.”

  “Nice try, babe,” I said, looking out at highway 95, which was currently flying by the window of our bus.

  “Seriously, Rikker. How can you be my gay BFF if we can’t dish about guys?” She clicked a ball-point pen and began to write numbers down the left side of a legal pad. From one to twelve.

  “No can do. I’m not getting my ass kicked just to fulfill your Hollywood fantasies.” In my duffel I’d hidden a big bar of dark chocolate with bits of salted caramel in it. Bella could joke as often as she wanted. But my true role as gay BFF was to keep her supplied with fine chocolate.

  It worked for both of us.

  “I’m only half kidding,” she whispered. “For the past two years I’ve made a close study of who has the nicest ass on the bus. It’s difficult for a girl to keep that kind of thing to herself.”

  “You don’t keep it to yourself,” I pointed out. “Not a day goes by when you don’t tell each ass’s owner just what you think of it.”

  “Not true,” she countered. “I’m very liberal with my praise. A good manager knows to motivate the troops.”

  I snorted. Bella’s School of Management was a peculiar institution. But it was our peculiar institution.

  “The best ass is on Hartley,” she said in the barest whisper. “And that’s why it’s such a buzz kill that he’s my biggest failure.”