by Lily Foster
After they left to smoke and flirt with the disreputable girls who hung around the rink, I would stay. I would line up the cones that the figure skating coach left underneath the bleachers and make a narrow path leading to the net. With less than an inch of space to clear the puck on either side, I’d take slapshots from every angle. Line up the cones, shoot, repeat. For hours I did this, making me just about the most accurate wing in my town, able to shoot both left and right handed.
In Maine, like in every bitterly cold, Godforsaken part of the world, hockey was a religion. My skill on the ice became well-known as I grew and packed on more muscle. The starting spot on my high school team as a sophomore was a nod of recognition that few others had bestowed upon them.
Aside from the rink, my only other haven was Tess. After my mother died, I’d pretty much tuned out of the high school social scene. Where I’d once been like every other jock, up for any and every social event, I changed into a quiet and, some would say, brooding young man.
At the beginning of junior year, Tess moved to my town and she and I gravitated towards one another, kind of like two lost souls. Her father had lost his big job in Boston and the family had returned to live in a house inherited by Tess’s mother. They had downsized in a major way and Tess had a hard time adjusting to the smaller house, small-town high school, and the quiet off-season life of a Maine coastal town. I grew up there and have to admit, it’s an acquired taste.
Tess and I became a full-on couple by Christmas. We were pretty much inseparable, holding onto one another like drowning people grasp onto driftwood. We spent that winter at the rink where Tess would sit in the bleachers, on the far side away from those other girls, waiting patiently for me to finish. We would do homework holed up in her room or watch movies huddled up in my den, underneath the blankets, beginning to explore one another’s bodies. That summer was spent at the beach, at my pool, and playing tennis at the courts down the street from my house; feeble attempts to teach a very uncoordinated girl to swim and to play sports that required eye-hand coordination. For a long time, nearly an entire year, I had no need or desire to be with anyone else.
By senior year my outlook had improved a bit and I slowly started to feel a desire to become a part of my old life again. I let the friends whom I’d all but cut out of my life back in, and I started to say yes more often when I was invited to parties.
Tess wasn’t from here so I couldn’t really blame her for being reluctant. Small town girls could be really nice or really bitchy and Tess never seemed to have much luck fitting in with the crowd. She preferred the nights when it was just us, no one else, and she resented when I tried to draw her out. She stayed close by my side at the bonfires held down on the beach every fall weekend and then begged off whenever there were house parties senior year on those cold winter nights. I wouldn’t go without her and she knew it. Even though I had a slowly growing sense of resentment about it, there was a part of me that felt as if I owed her. Her warm, soft body had provided a comforting refuge to me when I was most in pain and in need of love. Yes, Tess was my first and when you’re seventeen and in love, that is a powerful bond.
There was only one other girl I’d ever felt anything like love for before, and because my time with her had been so fleeting, referring to it as love seemed stupid, illogical. But what I’d experienced with her in those few days—in just that one night—had been pretty earth-shattering.
Anna
“Hello, I’m waiting!”
“Easy, bitch!”
Fiona had clearly morphed into a new, free-spirited girl now that she was out from underneath her mama’s watchful eyes. The girl cussed more than I did and that was saying something.
“Fiona, you take so long to get ready. C’mon, Danielle and Lauren have been waiting on us. I don’t even know where this party is so we need to go with them.”
“All right, I’m ready,” she said as she made a pouty face into the mirror, checking out her make-up.
“You’re beautiful, let’s go!”
“Hey, usually I’m the one waiting on you as you insert your…let’s see, five earrings,” Fiona said as she trailed her finger up my right earlobe. “Cut me some slack.”
Fiona and I had become overnight best friends. Like soul sister, attached at the hip kind of friends. We had several other great girls on our floor and I found myself loving being a part of this makeshift family we’d formed in our dorm.
All in all, college was a good fit for me. I was a student who never really struggled to make good grades, so that wasn’t what I’d feared. I was basically leery of moving again, of leaving what was familiar. Specifically, of leaving the emotionally safe, accepting cocoon that was my Aunt Margot’s home. For as composed as I seemed to my friends now, I bore the battle scars of a damaged little girl whose emotions could change directions as quickly as the wind shifted. The rash, impulsive decisions I’d made in those instances had resulted in no less than five changes in hair color and the multiple piercings I now sported.
I was a chameleon. It could be black hair, biker-bitch clothes and every hole on my ear lobe filled with tiny, tarnished silver hoops, or I could wear blonde hair—my natural color—swept over the empty pierced holes, pearl choker at my neck, Burberry ensemble head-to-toe. The auburn hair, dark brown with hombre tinged ends, or the rare, but occasional streak of crayon-colored hues were my in-betweens. Whereas after the accident, this hobby was a form of blatant rebellion aimed at my suck-ass parents, it was now just a more occasional tendency of mine to shake things up. Time had passed and I, to a certain extent, had less reason to rebel. I guess I had gotten better. I was healing.
Tonight I was somewhere in between. My hair was currently my natural honey-colored blond. Piercings were in but my outfit didn’t scream, “Back off or I’ll kill you.” I was wearing battered boyfriend jeans, a snug long-sleeved black t-shirt, and some worn Vans. In other words, I blended in just fine.
Another thing I loved about Fiona was that she treated me the same, regardless of what cover my book was sporting that week. I couldn’t wait to drag her home with me on holidays, suspecting that that Margot, Dylan, and Fiona were like-minded, kindred spirits.
As we made our way through the woods, we were giggling, tripping over stray branches and teasing one another about the probability of a Freddy Krueger-type jumping out and slashing us all to pieces. Thank goodness we had Danielle leading the way. She had been hooking up with some guy Frank since the first week of school and he was running this shindig tonight.
Since we were underage, parties were relegated to far-off clearings in the woods behind the upper portion of campus where the freshman dorms were located. It had probably taken these guys the better part of the day to coordinate this, rolling kegs the quarter mile or so from the nearest road. We had been walking for over ten minutes so I was relieved when I saw a faint light in the distance and the sounds of people and music started to become louder. I’m sure the school knew what went on back here every weekend but turned a blind eye. It was fairly unrealistic to think that a bunch of college freshman, many of whom had been drinking since age sixteen, would be content to talk and dance at the non-alcoholic, on-campus “mixers” that were university sanctioned.
Frank lived in Grafton, which was the dorm where most of the freshman male athletes were housed. As a result, this party seemed especially rowdy, even at this hour. The shots were more readily available, there were some drunken wrestling matches in progress and the girls who were intent on snagging themselves a D-one basketball, football, or hockey player were in nauseating abundance.
Being from Maine, Fiona had been around hockey players her entire life, her brother currently being a star senior defenseman at Northeastern. The puck-fucks, as she so kindly had dubbed them, were the girls who seemed to cling onto the hockey players, happy to wash their sweaty gear after practice or bandage their facial lacerations, all in the hopes of bedding them.
“Be nice, Fiona.”
“I am
being nice, it’s just that they’re disgusting. All of those girls,” she said as her face curled into an unpleasant snarl. “I mean, just look at them. They have to be fairly intelligent to be at this school but they act like mindless, vapid females around those guys. From the looks of them, you’d think they couldn’t do basic algebra or comprehend a fifth grade-level book. Are they afraid those guys won’t be into them if they show their true colors and demonstrate intelligence?”
Lauren chimed in, “Most of those guys, sadly, aren’t interested in what’s in your head, only what’s in your pants.”
Danielle’s back was up. “Not true! I dated a football player in high school. He was great, a total gentleman. And Frank isn’t a douchebag either.”
“My brother is a good person,” said Fiona. “But I’ve seen the girls at his games, throwing themselves at him. I’m pretty sure he’s partaken in some of that.”
“Wouldn’t know and don’t ever care to know,” I said. “Jocks, in general, are not my thing.”
“Since when?”
“I shouldn’t say I’ve ruled them out entirely, Danielle, but I do seem to gravitate towards the non-violent, brainy types as of late.”
“What’s Jonathan like?”
“He’s…good.”
Lauren coughed, covering her hand with her mouth to murmur, “Sounds hot.”
I swatted at her playfully, nearly knocking the red cup out of her hands. “He is hot. Good, though, is the best word to describe him. He’s always been really good to me.”
She teased, “So when are we going to meet Mr. Jonathan Good?”
“Jonathan Wallace, you wise ass. He’s at Marquette. I don’t know if I’ll even see him before Thanksgiving.”
“I don’t know why you girls just didn’t come to college free and easy like I did,” Colleen, another girl from our hall who’d joined us, added.
“You’re easy all right,” Fiona teased.
As Colleen dipped a finger in her beer and then flicked it at Fiona she said, “I mean it. I was in love my junior and senior years. We went to prom, had our last summer together and all, but Jason and I were realistic. He’s at Penn, I’m here. I knew he’d be tempted and so would I. I have no regrets about breaking up with him.”
“How did he take it?”
“His status was single last week and he’s now ‘in a relationship’,” she said, smiling. “So I’m gathering he’s ok.”
Breaking up with Jonathan had crossed my mind. Not just before leaving for school but once earlier this summer, once last fall, and—if I’m being completely honest—about one month into the start of our relationship.
Jonathan was like a comfy, well-worn sweater—familiar and warm. He was smart, supportive, honest, kind, didn’t care if my hair was neon green or if I put a barbell through my septum. I hadn’t, by the way.
I knew Jonathan before the accident and after it happened, he seemed to be the only one who knew what to do. While everyone else said, “Sorry about Will,” as they grimaced uncomfortably, dying to get that over with and then get away from me, Jonathan said nothing. He hugged me tight at the funeral, not letting go for a solid minute. Then he moved my hair aside and kissed my cheek, slowly. It wasn’t hot or carnal, no. It was, though, the most touching, tender gesture that I’d received. That crushing hug and that kiss sustained me for the interminable stretch of time following the ceremony.
I wasn’t deemed fit to go back to school on the Thursday or Friday after the funeral, so I spent the time locked in my room. It’s not like the locked door was necessary, as neither parent was seeking me out. They’d each decamped to their own corners of our cavernous house and were likely drinking themselves into a stupor while I was lying on my bed, unable to cry but utterly bereft.
Saturday morning Jonathan called me and asked if I wanted to go to the movies with him. I did. He took me to see some mindless comedy, took me out to lunch and then bought me ice cream. The next day I hung out at his house, his mother making us lunch and making small talk. He met me at my locker that Monday morning, sensing that being back at school would be difficult for me. He practically shadowed me that first week, making jokes, talking about everyday nonsense, and making certain that I didn’t fall down the rabbit hole. He chastised anyone that treated me differently and even rallied my friends, coaching them into keeping things as normal as possible for me.
As a result, my life resumed. I returned to cheerleading at my teammates’ insistence and went out for tennis later in the spring. I attended parties and even though I tended to cut out early, I maintained my place in the social strata of high school. That was all thanks to Jonathan.
Jonathan was incredibly patient with me and he was accepting to a fault. The fact that he’d remained friends with me, that he still continued coming around after what I’d pulled at the end of that summer, said a lot about his character.
I had basically gone off the rails.
Following a month of hanging out with my girlfriends, spending days at Jonathan’s house just lounging by his pool or getting spanked in tennis on his immaculately maintained backyard courts, my parents announced that I would be attending a two-week summer grief camp in the Berkshires. When they decreed this, I stood, mouth agape, staring down at the brochure on the dining room table. Heart Songs? What the fuck does that mean, even? What a dumb name for a place, I thought. Then I looked up to my parents, wanting to revolt but totally speechless. I noticed they were standing side by side, a united front. “Why?” was all I managed to say.
“Anna, sweetheart, we know this has been so difficult for you,” my mother crooned. She was on painkillers, I’d surmised by her slow speech and saccharine sweet demeanor. And, the thought struck me, how would she know this had been difficult for me? She’d hardly seen me since Will’s head had been blown off.
Dear old Dad chimed in, “We think you need counseling. This place is highly regarded. It’s very pricey and upscale so you won’t be forced to mingle with any…you know—”
“Common folk?” I’d intended for it to sound sarcastic. My father was a pretentious prick, which is fairly common among those who do nothing to earn their money. He seemed relieved, though, to think that we were, for once, on the same page.
“Yes, exactly. It’s two weeks, Anna. Beautiful grounds, lots of activities. It will be good for you.”
“What if I don’t want to go?”
He looked to my mother, lips in a tight line, and then looked back to me. “We think it’s best, Anna. You’re going.”
If they tried to pull that shit now—well, let’s just say they wouldn’t dare. Back then, though, as a fifteen year old honor student do-gooder who’d just lost the one person who mattered most in the world to her, I did not have the strength or desire to fight with them. Up until that time, disobedience had not been in my nature.
I held the tears back until I closed my bedroom door and flopped onto my bed. Even at that age I knew in my heart that I had been coping pretty fucking well and it was my mother and father who were in dire need of mental health services. After letting myself wallow in it for an hour or so, I got up, packed my largest duffle and then turned off my lights and went to bed.
A car was waiting to take me to camp at nine the next morning. I was not foolish enough to expect that either of my parents would to drive me to camp. I was actually shocked that my mother was even home to see me off in the morning. She flitted about, which was her time-honored strategy of avoiding the act of actually talking to, or connecting, with anyone. At least she isn’t high, I thought to myself as I sat on the couch waiting for my ride.
When the horn sounded, she met me at the door and held me in a stiff hug. “I love you, Anna. Be good, ok?”
I nodded and smiled at her before turning to walk out the door. She didn’t walk me out. Says a lot, I guess, that she didn’t even feel the need to introduce herself to the stranger she was about to let her teenaged daughter get into a car with.
I don’t recall exactly when
my relationship with my parents had withered to nothing. I guess it had been a gradual process. I remembered family vacations when I was younger, birthday parties, the trappings of family life. I do not remember, however, feeling a sense of warmth radiating from either my mother or father. I don’t remember being hugged frequently by anyone other than Will, and he was the one I instinctively went to for comfort when I was upset. I didn’t really notice how odd this was until I got a little older and became more observant. I saw how other mothers doted on their daughters, stroking their hair or hugging them when they walked in the door after school. I never, for example, recall opening my lunchbox to reveal a napkin with a heart-encased note like my classmates did.
The day I returned from camp, my relationship changed with my parents irrevocably. I no longer felt young, I no longer felt innocent, and I no longer felt capable of tolerating their bullshit attempts at parenting me.
Declan
“Hi.”
“Hi, yourself. What are you doing up so late?”
“I can’t sleep. My roommate is annoying. She’s sleeping now with her earbuds in, like I can’t hear her music playing. She snores too. I should have insisted upon a single.”
“I’m betting the singles are a lot more money, though, right Tess?”
She laughed, ruefully. “Yes and extra money is something I’m constantly reminded that I do not have.”
“When I sign my NHL contract you’ll have a big house with as many rooms as you want.”
“Yeah, you’ll probably drop me for some bimbo groupie.” She paused. “You won’t ever do that, will you, Declan?”
I hated when she did that—said things that made me feel the need to reassure her, to pledge my love to her. Lately, I’d started to think I should hold back on making those pie-in-the-sky statements anyway. I meant them tongue-in-cheek and figured most girls would take it that way, laughing it off as a sweet intention and nothing more. Tess, on the other hand, seemed to take these as blood-sworn promises. When I was really at my lowest and she was the only light in the deep dark tunnel of grief I’d buried myself in, maybe I’d meant them as a commitment. Now, though, her insecurities felt like a weight bearing down on me.
