Darkroom: A Moo U Hockey Romance

by Kate Willoughby

  “I sense a ‘but’ coming.”

  I nodded. “But when he saw my birthmark, he…couldn’t go through with it.”

  “What an utter fucked-up fuckhead,” Hudson said, outraged.

  “He also stood me up for prom.”

  “That’s it.”

  Hudson jack-knifed up so fast, it was clear his abs weren’t just for show. His lips were drawn tight and he seemed to be trying to control his breathing.

  “Indi, I want you to tell me that fuckhead’s full name and address, if you have it. I’m going to track him down and teach him a lesson.”

  I’d never confronted Austin, so it would have been oh so satisfying to see him have to face the music for what he’d done. But this was ancient history. I’d long ago decided to put that on my list of “What Doesn’t Kill You” things.

  “Come on, Indi,” Hudson said. “I know you come from Brattleboro. There can’t be that many high schools or Austins there. It wouldn’t be that hard to find him.”

  “No, Hudson. I appreciate the offer. Really. But that wouldn’t do any good. I believe in what goes around comes around. Someday, some girl will break his heart as cruelly as he did mine and I’ll have to be satisfied with that.”

  “You’re a better person than me,” he said. “I’d rather someone, preferably me, broke his face than his heart.”

  “Again, no.”

  He lay back down, this time on his side, so I turned to face him.

  “I’m glad you didn’t sleep with him,” he said, clearly still angry.

  “Me too.”

  “I want to sleep with you. You have no idea how much,” he said. “Do you want to sleep with me?”

  “I do.”

  I wanted that more than anything.

  23

  Hudson

  After our emotionally fraught conversation, the rain was still coming down in sheets and since Indi had already been soaked once, neither of us thought it was a good idea to go out there again.

  I scrounged up a spare toothbrush for her from the three-pack I had under my bathroom sink and after we’d both brushed our teeth, I’d put on a T-shirt and some shorts and we got into bed. I was on my back and she tucked herself up under my arm, laying her head on my chest and moments later, she was fast asleep.

  I, on the other hand, wasn’t the least bit sleepy. My day had been a topsy-turvy emotional rollercoaster.

  I’d gotten valuable advice from Mac and assurance that he was there for me whenever I needed him and that no one would hear from his lips what I was going through. I was hopeful that if I adopted his pregame routine, I would soon be done with my anxiety attacks. I’d be able to eat normally again, the dizziness on the ice would disappear and I’d be back to my old self, the man the Dragons drafted. It was a huge relief, but I had worried about Indi all day.

  Then she’d shown up in the middle of the night, soaking wet and full of revelations.

  She was the girl in the hoodie from the cafeteria.

  She had a wine-colored birthmark on her face.

  She was a virgin.

  Fuck. I could have used a drink. We had a bottle of vodka in the freezer, but Indi was sleeping so peacefully, I didn’t want to move her. She’d been through more than I had.

  I sincerely hoped I’d convinced her what a non-issue her birthmark was for me. Granted, it was unusual and striking, but not any serious impediment to my feelings about her. Indi was still Indi—the smartest, sexiest most fun, complex girl I’d ever dated, with or without makeup. It was like when my dad had lost that front tooth during a game. At first it was a shock, but eventually I didn’t even notice it. Pretty soon, the newness of her birthmark would wear off like just like it had with the hole in Dad’s smile.

  Her secondary issue presented more of a problem, because the literal last thing I needed was additional pressure to perform. And yet, there were worse things in the world than a beautiful woman trusting you to show her all about the wondrous pleasures of sex. If I’d complained about this to my teammates, I’d have gotten laughed out of the locker room. And yet, I had legitimate concerns. She said she wasn’t expecting fanfare, but I did need a carefully considered plan of action. Winging it wasn’t an option.

  And honestly, it was great. So many curveballs had been thrown at me, I needed the rest.

  But it was a while before I felt asleep because every time I thought about what that guy had done to Indi, or more accurately, what he hadn’t done to her and how it had destroyed her self-esteem, I became incensed. I had meant it when I said I wanted to track that ass wipe down and teach him a lesson. Call me a Neanderthal, but nothing would have made me happier than to use my fists to pay that guy back for all the hurt he’d caused her.

  But as cruel as he’d been, I realized I had the opportunity to teach her that not all men were shallow sons of bitches. And I wanted that more than anything. I wanted to be that man for her and to hopefully repair some of the emotional damage Hurricane Fuckhead had wrought. Luckily, one of the best ways I could think of to accomplish this was to make love to her. I was going to worship her body with everything I had and show her just how sexy and gorgeous she was.

  I just needed to figure out exactly how I was going to do that.

  When I asked Indi for some time to formulate a plan, she agreed, but not without some teasing.

  “I had no idea what I was asking was so hard,” she said, gazing up at me with a wide-eyed innocent expression.

  “Very funny,” I said. “It’s not that hard. I just want to make sure I do it right.”

  “Oh, I see. You need to bone up on the basics.”

  Smiling, I rolled my eyes.

  “Because I’m pretty sure tab A goes into slot B.”

  Compared to the chirps I got on the ice and in the locker room, her jibes did as much damage as a pillow. It was absolutely adorable.

  “You know,” I reminded her, “we’re supposed to be looking for a ‘Human of Burlington.’”

  We were walking in Waterfront Park for a photography project modeled after the work of Brandon Stanton’s Humans of New York project. Stanton had set about posting portraits of New Yorkers along with interviews with them for a blog that drew millions of followers. Along that vein, we were to photograph a citizen of our fair town and include a quote from them or a story about their lives.

  “You want a good grade, don’t you?” I asked.

  She immediately sobered, as I’d known she would. To Indi, school was serious with a capital S, even a throwaway class like photography.

  Finding a subject for this kind of project wasn’t as easy as it seemed. Professor Larkmont instructed us to choose someone with a “visual story to tell,” whatever that meant. I’d asked her for clarification, but she said, “You’ll know it when you see it. Like porn.”

  To be honest, I wasn’t too concerned. I only took the class to fill out my schedule and even though I was really enjoying the class, getting a good grade in photography wasn’t high on my priority list. I had a lot of details to nail down for The Big Night. Both AJ and Ruby were helping, although AJ’s part was just finding somewhere else to be for twenty-four hours.

  Indi and I had been wandering for about fifteen minutes when I spotted a little girl going down the playground slide. Miraculously, she had a birthmark like Indi, but it spread across her eye all the way down to her lip with an almost straight line down the median of her face.

  “Indi. Look.” I inclined my head toward the little girl.

  A broad smile broke across Indi’s face and she went right over.

  “Hi, I’m Indi. I like your birthmark.”

  The little girl beamed. “Thank you.”

  “What’s your name?” Indi asked.

  By then the mother had approached and put her hands on her daughter’s shoulders in a protective gesture. “Excuse me, who are you?”

  “My name is Indi Briscoe and this is Hudson. I was telling your daughter that I like her birthmark.”

  “It’s
not often that people realize it’s a birthmark,” the mom said, warming up slightly.

  “Well, I have one too,” Indi said.

  “You do?” the little girl exclaimed excitedly. “Where?”

  “It’s on my face, but you can’t see it right now because I have makeup on.”

  “I’m Denise Snow,” the mom said.

  “And I’m Leah! I’m seven and a half.”

  “You’re practically a teenager,” said Indi.

  Leah giggled.

  “Mrs. Snow, do you mind if I take her picture for my class project?” Indi asked.

  She produced the form letter Professor Larkmont had given us that outlined the project parameters and gave both her phone number and the website address where the photographs would be displayed.

  After reading the letter, Denise said, “It’s all right with me if it’s all right with Leah.”

  “Is it okay, Leah?” Indi asked.

  Leah nodded.

  “I’ll be right over here watching, sweetheart.”

  While Denise and I made small talk, Indi snapped shots of the little girl, who seemed like a natural. I could hear their laughter as Indi pushed her hard on the swing and then ran around to the front so she could take pictures. Denise was a bookkeeper who worked out of her home. Leah was her only child so far.

  “But there’s a baby sister or brother on the way,” Denise said, her hand on her stomach. She didn’t look pregnant at all, but I was certainly no expert.

  “When are you due?”

  “March. We have a while yet, but Leah’s so excited to be a big sister.”

  “I can imagine. I was an only child and I’d always wished for a brother or a sister,” I said. “Do they know if port-wine stains are hereditary? Will your new baby have a birthmark too?

  “There’s a one in three hundred chance the new baby will have a port-wine stain, but if he or she does, it won’t matter much. We’ll have a matched pair. That’s all.”

  Leah came running up. “Mommy, the monkey bars are empty now. See? Can I go play on them?”

  “Of course, honey.”

  “Can you come help me reach, Indi?” Leah asked.

  “I was going to show your mom the pictures I took…”

  “I’ll help you,” I said. “I love the monkey bars. Race you!”

  I loved kids. Being with them made me feel like a kid again myself, especially the younger ones, like Leah. They always made me laugh.

  I let Leah win the race and then helped her reach the first rung. She weighed practically nothing.

  “I want to make it all the way across today,” she said, her face screwed up with the effort it took to hang on. She swung her legs back and forth and managed to grab the next rung.

  “Atta girl!” I exclaimed. “Keep it up.”

  After hanging there a while gathering her strength, she reached out but missed the third rung by an inch before dropping to the ground.

  “I’m going to try again.”

  We went through the same routine again, and again she missed that third rung. This time, she flopped onto the rubber mat below.

  “My arms are tired,” she said dejectedly.

  “You know what would help?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Once you get going, don’t stop. Keep going. Like this.”

  After grabbing the first rung, I bent my knees so I was off the ground and swung for the second and then the third. “See that? You’ve got to keep up your momentum. Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Don’t stop.” I kept this up until I reached the other side.

  I glanced over to see if Indi had seen me. She was still talking with Denise but she was frowning. I wondered what they were talking about.

  Leah regarded me with wide eyes. “You’re strong.”

  “Thanks. Now try again. Let’s see if you can make it to the third rung.”

  I boosted her up again with one eye on Indi. As before, Leah successfully grabbed the second rung but this time, she didn’t hesitate before reaching out again.

  “You did!” I exclaimed as she grabbed the third. “Keep going, girl!”

  Despite a valiant effort to make it to the fourth, she missed and dropped to the ground. Her face was red from exertion, but she was beaming.

  “Did you see me?”

  “I sure did. You did a great job.”

  She took off running back to her mom. “MOMMY, I MADE IT TO THE THIRD BAR!”

  As she recounted what she’d done, Indi strode toward me at a quicker than normal pace.

  “Let’s go,” she said, passing me by.

  Waving, I called out a goodbye to the mom and daughter then turned to catch up with Indi.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Stopping abruptly, she made a hand gesture toward where Denise was still sitting and made a frustrated sound. “That woman!” she exclaimed then started off walking again. “She suggested that because I wear makeup, I’m ashamed of my birthmark. I’m not ashamed.”

  I wasn’t sure this was one hundred percent true, if only because she’d been so afraid to show it to me. Then again, I’d been blessed with a fair amount of good looks and had zero body issues, but I could see that Indi might have had a rough time of it, growing up Asian in an all-white community and having the birthmark front and center on her face. If she was hesitant about going out without makeup, I could understand why.

  “I just don’t see the point in flaunting it all over the place,” she said. “I mean, makeup was invented for a reason. And she’ll see.” Indi waved her hand again so violently, I ducked instinctively. “My parents tried to convince me my birthmark was a beautiful part of me, just like Denise is trying to do with Leah, and that’s a nice sentiment, but it’s not real life.”

  We had been walking on the wide boardwalk along the edge of Lake Champlain. It was a sunny and slightly warmer day, and plenty of people were taking advantage. Bikers galore, parents with strollers, joggers. But they were all giving us a wide berth, maybe because my girlfriend looked like she was ready to take someone out.

  “Sooner or later,” Indi said, “probably in junior high, she’ll want to cover it up with makeup, I guarantee you.” She gave me a piercing stare. “When I went to a new school where people didn’t know me, they weren’t aware that it was a birthmark. That’s when they started in on me.”

  As we walked, she began to tell me some of the ways kids at school bullied her or made her feel shitty. The more she talked, the more my heart broke for her. Sometimes it had been as easy as stuffing a note into her locker that said “Why are you so ugly?” or “You should just go kill yourself.” or “I hope you’re not contagious.” One particularly motivated person graffitied a face on the wall of one of the buildings. The face had a bright red splotch on it and in all caps, “INDI = UGLY.”

  “That is seriously fucked-up.”

  “That was my life. In fact, remember the interview question, ‘What do you strongly suspect but have no proof of’?”

  I nodded.

  “When I was in seventh grade, people spontaneously started calling me Juicy. They said it was because I looked like I fell asleep in a puddle of grape juice. And I strongly suspect, but have no proof, that Jessica, the girl who came up to us when we were having dinner with my parents, was the one who got people doing it.”

  Hudson frowned. “See? I knew there was something off about that girl. She seemed like one of those people who are uber-polite to the parents but are actually little shits behind their backs.”

  “You nailed it. That’s exactly what she is. I mean, we were never friends; she could have just ignored us that night. But she didn’t. I’m pretty sure she came up to us specifically to call me Juicy.”

  “I gotta tell you, Indi, you went to school with a lot of winners. It’s easy to see why you started wearing makeup. I would have too just to shut those people up.”

  “Exactly. Thank you. So that’s why what Denise said really frustrated me. It’s admirable to teach Leah
that her PWS is nothing to be ashamed of. My parents did that too. They told me I should display it proudly as something that was uniquely me. And I did for years, but eventually I just got so tired of the stares and the whispers and the bullying.”

  Indi went to stand near the gray railing which stood between the boardwalk and the lake. I came to stand next to her. The water was a good five feet below the level of the walking path and there was foliage and rocks. No beach to speak of.

  “Did everything get better once you started using makeup?” I asked, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. She put her arm around my waist and snuggled closer.

  With a small smile, she nodded. “Yes. For the first time in my life, I looked normal, like everybody else. I could go to the mall or to the movies or wherever and not draw any attention.”

  “That must have been incredible.”

  “Honestly? It felt like I’d been stuck in a chrysalis and finally emerged as a butterfly.”

  24

  Indi

  When I got home after my last class on The Big Night, Ruby leapt up from the couch.

  “Finally!” she exclaimed. “A package came for you from Hudson and I’m dying to see what’s inside.”

  On the kitchen table was a box about a yard long and a foot and a half wide. I picked it up and shook it. It didn’t weigh much and a rustling noise came from inside.

  “What do you think it is?” I asked, going to get scissors from my desk.

  “I don’t know for sure, but I’ve spent the last three hours imagining. Hurry up!”

  Inside the plain ordinary brown cardboard box was another box, this one white with the words “One Night Only” in an elegant script on it.

  Ruby squealed. “One Night Only is a company you can rent designer formal wear from and it’s about time too. Men have been able to rent tuxes for like forever.”

  Intrigued and excited, I opened the white box inside of which was a two-layered, long sleeved black cocktail dress. I gasped as I shook it out then went to the mirror and held it up in front of me.