Empty Net

by Avon Gale

  “Did he think I wouldn’t?”

  “I think he was worried you wouldn’t take what he had to say well,” she said.

  The honesty both surprised and, oddly enough, relaxed him. “I didn’t. But I don’t take anything well. Not at first. So he should have already known that.”

  “It doesn’t mean he wasn’t worried about talking to you.” She smoothed her hands over her blue skirt. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Isn’t that why I’m here?” Laurent closed his eyes. “Sorry. I’m not—I don’t make very good first impressions.”

  “You’re doing just fine, Laurent. But why do you think that is?”

  Weirdly he’d never thought about that before. “I’m not a very nice person, I guess.”

  “I don’t know. You’re clearly uncomfortable, but you came here because Isaac wanted you to. That seems nice to me.”

  Laurent looked down, tugged at the sleeves of his lightweight sweater, and hoped it covered the bite on his hand. He didn’t want to talk about that, and it wasn’t like it had worked anyway. “What if I don’t say anything?”

  “Then you don’t say anything,” she said. “It’s all right. Sometimes people don’t. They just want to sit quietly. I can give you a book to read, or make you some tea.”

  He raised his head and said, without thinking, “Isaac thinks I have an eating disorder. Like… like bulimia or something.”

  She nodded, seemingly unperturbed at his tone. “And what do you think?”

  That I don’t, and you should tell him so he’ll leave me alone about it.

  “I threw up before I came here because I was nervous.” Laurent stared down at the floor again. “I know it’s… I know I do things that aren’t… normal. Like throwing up. Or… the food thing. But it’s not—I mean, I don’t think it’s bad enough to say I have an eating disorder.”

  Liz was quiet for a moment. “What would make it bad enough for you to say that?”

  He shrugged and continued to stare at his shoes. “If I… I don’t know. If I was throwing up blood.” He almost thought he would a few times, right before he fainted at practice. But he didn’t say that. “Or if I was sick. In the hospital.”

  “Laurent, I want to tell you something. Every single person that walks in this door says the same thing to me at first. That whatever they’re doing, be it restricting their portions or purging, it’s not severe enough to be an eating disorder. They don’t think they’ve earned the right to call it that. Does this sound familiar?”

  Laurent’s head snapped up. It did. “I spend most of my life trying to earn the right to be good enough,” he said. “And I never have been. So, yeah. It does.”

  She smiled kindly. “I think it’s good that you’re here. And I think I can help you if you’ll let me. Do you want to stop throwing up?”

  “No.” Laurent’s face burned, and he tried to hide. “I’m sorry. I don’t.”

  “That’s fine. Most people don’t when they come here the first time. It’s a comfort for them. A sign of control. A way to feel better when things are overwhelming. Am I right?”

  Laurent nodded. He was intensely uncomfortable, but the thought of Isaac’s face at the lake and the faith and trust Isaac was putting in him to get help kept him right where he was. And she was right. It did sound familiar.

  “What if I could help you find ways to work with those thoughts—work through them—that were better for you?”

  Laurent rested his elbows on his knees. “I don’t think they’ll work for me.”

  “Would you let me try?”

  He thought about it for a long time. He could lie and say yes, leave, and never come back. Or he could do what she and Isaac wanted. That immediately made his hackles rise. Why was he always spending his time doing what someone else wanted him to do? It never mattered. He never made them happy.

  Liz didn’t rush him or push him for an answer, so he gave her an honest one. “I don’t know.”

  She nodded again, without recrimination. “How about this—we’ll spend some time talking about why you might need these behaviors and what they do for you. I’ll suggest some alternatives, and you can try them. If they work for you, maybe it’s another tool to have in your toolbox. But Laurent, I do need you to understand that you’re human, and you need to eat. Especially given your profession. There are dangerous health repercussions to what you’re doing, and hurting yourself isn’t going to make the issues you’re dealing with go away. Confronting those issues very well might take away the need to do anything at all.” She paused and then said gently, “Would you like that?”

  “Yeah,” Laurent said, and then, “And I’d like it if aliens abducted my father and took him to a faraway planet too.”

  She didn’t appear perturbed in the slightest. “Tell me about your father.”

  Laurent groaned and flopped back on the couch. “I knew we were going to get to this part.”

  “You brought him up,” Liz said pertly. The bit of attitude made Laurent like her better, though maybe he should stop thinking he disliked everyone immediately upon meeting them. “Did your father have expectations of perfection from you?”

  Laurent laughed and slouched down, legs in front of him, arms behind his head. “You have no idea.”

  “Try me,” said Liz.

  So he did.

  Laurent lost track of how long he was there, how much he talked, and what he said. Something about Liz’s comfortable office and her kind smile made him feel safe. And maybe he wanted her to understand why he did things, why he had a bite on his hand, why he went through so much mouthwash, and why it made him feel so much better to only eat half a sandwich after he lost a game. He told her things he hadn’t even told Isaac—about his father’s temper and his punishments—like having Laurent kneel on rice, barelegged, for an hour, or the belt, or the endless repetitions in the rink where he made Laurent skate until he was exhausted. The time he made Laurent deflect pucks from a practice machine with his ankles tied to the posts, so he could learn to move his body faster.

  The puppy that he’d had taken away after he lost a game in juniors. The few times he tried to have friends and how his father had bullied them away. The games he threw in Asheville. Spitting on Isaac and how he’d been happy for one brief moment to have his father’s approval and then felt like shit for what he’d done to earn it.

  When he was finished, his throat was dry from talking and he was covered in sweat. A glance at the clock told him he’d been there for two hours. Liz gave him some water and a cool cloth and sat back across from him. She was quiet for a long time and let him finish his water and wipe his face. His hands were shaking.

  “Laurent. Thank you for telling me all of that. I know that wasn’t easy.”

  He just shrugged, unable to look at her. But he felt like he did after he threw up. Empty. Peaceful. But there was something missing.

  Guilt. You don’t feel guilty. Because you know you shouldn’t throw up to feel better. So that’s why it never works.

  “I do want to try to stop,” he said softly. “I do.”

  “I’m very glad to hear that,” Liz said, her voice warm. “And Laurent, I think it’s important we get something clear right away.”

  He looked up at her. “What?”

  She leaned forward, but not close enough to crowd him. “Nothing your father did to you was your fault. You didn’t deserve to be treated like that by him. You deserve someone who loves you, who cares about you. Like Isaac. That’s what you deserve. All right?”

  Laurent stared at her, and then he started to cry. Having someone tell him “you deserve someone like Isaac” was the secret dream of his hidden heart, and he wasn’t sure how to handle hearing it spoken out loud.

  When he was finally finished, his eyes were swollen, and his face was hot. He was embarrassed and couldn’t look Liz Park in the eye, but he wasn’t acting like an asshole, and he listened while she explained a few things and gave him an honest-to-God workbook about
establishing a healthy relationship with food and another about mechanisms for coping and recovering from systematic abuse. Part of him felt stupid, but he was so worn-out he didn’t care. Much.

  He set up another appointment.

  Outside, Laurent saw a familiar figure leaning against the Jeep in the parking lot. Isaac.

  “Hey,” Isaac said. His hair was crazy in the way that suggested he’d just come from the gym, and he was wearing track pants and a T-shirt and clearly trying not to shiver even though it wasn’t that cold out. “I had Misha drop me off. You hadn’t answered my texts, and I…. Well, I saw the Jeep, so I decided to wait for you.”

  Laurent knew how he must look with his eyes swollen and red, and part of him hated that Isaac was seeing him like that. He had the urge to say something mean and snappish, but it was vague, and Laurent didn’t have the energy.

  So instead he moved in, grabbed Isaac, and embraced him tightly like he had that day at the lake. Isaac had come to check on him. Liz Park had said, “You deserve someone who loves you.”

  “I spent two hours talking about my dad,” he mumbled into Isaac’s neck. “It sucked. Not in the way I like either.”

  Isaac’s laugh vibrated through him, and he hugged Laurent back as fiercely as he did everything else. His voice didn’t sound all that steady when he spoke either. “I’ll make it up to you.”

  Laurent pulled away, fished in his pocket for the keys, and pressed them into Isaac’s hands. “Here. You can drive.”

  “Since it’s my car, thanks for that.”

  “It’s Coach Ashford’s car.” Laurent settled in his seat, looked over at Isaac, and answered the unspoken question. “It was okay. I liked her.”

  “Good,” said Isaac, and he started the Jeep.

  They were both quiet, and only the Arctic Monkeys on the radio kept them company when Isaac said in a careful voice, “Do you… need to talk about anything? With me?”

  Laurent groaned and put his arm up over his eyes. “I spent two hours talking. No. I don’t want to do it anymore.”

  “Do you want me to tell you not to?” Isaac hesitated. “I mean, since you like that.”

  He did, but he absolutely was not interested in talking about that, of all things, at the moment. Until he remembered what Liz said about coping mechanisms and what it had been like to talk to Liz and open up. He remembered how it felt to do something that felt good and didn’t make him feel guilty. Which was basically how he felt every single second he was around Isaac.

  Emotion roared up and threatened to make him lose it—and not in a cathartic way, like in Liz’s office. Not because Isaac wasn’t safe. Just because Laurent was exhausted. “Yeah. I want that.”

  Isaac reached across and carded his fingers through Laurent’s hair. “You got it. Now be quiet.”

  Laurent sat in the silence of the car, listening to Isaac’s poor rendition of “Arabella” while Isaac drove them home.

  Chapter Sixteen

  ISAAC SHIFTED his stance and his focus and zeroed in on the shooter barreling down the lane toward him on yet another breakaway. Goddammit. Didn’t his team pay any attention to the drills they’d been doing on defense? Isaac couldn’t win games by himself.

  Luckily the shooter tried to go topside—they all tried to go topside, as if Isaac hadn’t learned to compensate for being shorter than most goalies—and Isaac stopped it easily with his glove, tossed the puck down to the ice, and made a kissing sound at the jackass who thought his “fucking asshole” was a mind-blowingly original insult.

  They were playing the Ravens, though. So no one was looking at them for originality.

  It was the first round of the playoffs, and in contrast to their appearance last year, the current season came with a lot more expectations. Last year the team—and their fans—had been shocked to see the unlikely Spitfires even make it to the first round, much less win. And they’d managed a home and away playoff victory before the Ravens knocked them out. But the Spitfires had gotten hungrier since then, and they had a good chance at making the conference finals.

  The Ravens had avenged their loss from the previous season and taken down the reigning champs, the Jacksonville Sea Storm, in a grueling, seven-game series. The Storm, who’d won the Kelly Cup two years in a row, had a disappointing season when their star goalie, Riley Hunter, had been sent up to the AHL along with a few of their forwards. The Storm had a good young team, but they weren’t quite as experienced, and it was a surprise they lasted as long as they did against the Ravens.

  The Storm probably hated the Ravens, because every team in the ECHL hated the Ravens. No one could say they hated the Ravens as much as the Spartanburg Spitfires, though.

  It was the second period of their third game, the first in Spartanburg, and the series was split 1-1. While things hadn’t started out hatefully—it was the playoffs—they were rapidly turning that way. Isaac watched from his goal as Hux pummeled Tyler Simon and hoped his goalie mask hid his fierce, pleased grin as Hux landed one right in Simon’s gut. Oddly nothing had ever come from that bar fight, even though Misha had been on tenterhooks thinking it would. Either St. Savoy had just as much to lose by raising a fracas about that whole thing, or there was some other sinister reason. Isaac didn’t have time to worry about it, though, and they were three wins away from forgetting about the Ravens for the rest of the season.

  While the linesmen broke up the fight, Isaac found his gaze sliding over to the bench. Laurent was there, dressed and wearing his Spitfires cap and staring at the ice with his usual unfriendly expression. But he glanced over at Isaac, and Isaac thought he saw Laurent smile a little, or give his expression that counted for a smile, since expressing happiness was still a foreign concept to Laurent.

  Laurent was doing much better and was having sessions with Liz every two weeks. He’d cooled off on the throwing up—if he felt like he needed to, he just came over to Isaac and asked if Isaac would bite him—and he was markedly better about eating, as long as Isaac was the only person there. He explained in his usual, vaguely defensive Laurent way, that Isaac was safe enough for Laurent to eat in front of. But Liz was making headway in untangling the knots of Laurent’s issues, and Isaac was forever grateful for that.

  The fight was over and the teams were each down a man, so he switched his attention, hit his fist into his glove twice, skated side-to-side once, and settled in to play.

  The Spitfires scored twice in the third, giving them a comfortable 3-1 lead. Isaac was on top of his game. He was in that zone where he felt the ice beneath him, where his body moved as though he were an extension of the pipes, and where he anticipated the puck and trusted his body to do what it needed to do to stop the puck from crossing the goal line.

  What he did not anticipate was Tyler Simon crashing into him with the fury of an incensed freight train.

  Simon and Hux had each been given a penalty for fighting in the second, but both men were back on the ice for the third. Hux, who was a graceless oaf with his stick sometimes, had been hauled off for a high-sticking penalty. But for some reason known only to Denis St. Savoy and the devil, Tyler Simon had been placed on the Ravens’ power-play unit.

  Isaac actually laughed when he saw the players line up on the ice to start the power play. Tyler Simon was not a power-play guy. He was the sort of guy you put in when you wanted a fight, not when you had a chance to get back in the game, late in the third period. In the playoffs, for fuck’s sake.

  But Isaac wasn’t laughing when, two seconds after the faceoff, Simon came racing toward the crease—without the puck—and didn’t stop.

  Isaac felt Simon’s stick hook under his left ankle as Simon wrenched it back brutally, and he went sailing backward as the net crashed off its moorings.

  Simon hissed, “I hope I broke your fucking leg, Drake,” and then climbed up and off him as the linesmen immediately arrived to escort him off the ice—and hopefully out of the building.

  Isaac tried to stand up, but the pain in his ankle made h
im want to throw up, and he couldn’t. He lay on the ice with tears on his face as the pain radiated up from what was either a break or a bad sprain, and he couldn’t believe it was happening.

  The team trainer was there in a hurry, along with Misha, who looked so pissed off that the first thing Isaac said was, “I didn’t let in a goal, did I? Because no way can they count that.”

  Misha’s answer wasn’t in English, but a warm hand on Isaac’s shoulder got his attention. Coach Ashford. “You didn’t let in a goal, Drake. Simon didn’t even have the puck.”

  Misha made an angry sound and looked like he wanted to tear someone’s throat out. “Can you stand,” Misha snapped, making it more of a demand than a question.

  Isaac shook his head. “I think it’s broken.” When he sat up, a wave of dizziness assailed him, and he clutched quickly at Misha to get his bearings. The trainer and Max helped Isaac to his feet, and Isaac immediately lifted his foot so there was no weight on his ankle. It still hurt like fuck, and he tried very hard not to whimper at the pain, but he probably failed.

  “It’s okay,” Max said over and over as they made their way toward the tunnel.

  The crowd’s applause was thunderous, and there was an undercurrent of angry muttering as Isaac left the ice, because that had been the literal definition of a dirty hit.

  Laurent was suiting up in the tunnel, and his eyes met Isaac’s. Isaac had never seen Laurent look so furious. Max somehow knew that, in pain or not, Isaac would want to say something to Laurent, so he nodded at the trainer, and they came to a brief stop.

  Isaac tried to offer some encouragement, though the pain made him woozy enough that it was hard to speak. “Avenge me, Saint.”

  “This game is over.” Laurent smiled as he pulled his mask down. It was not a nice smile, but if Isaac weren’t in severe pain, it probably would have gotten him hard. He gave Laurent a weak head bump, and he could hear the crowd cheering as Laurent skated out on the ice.

  They took Isaac to the hospital, which he thought was overkill. But the trainer said they needed an X-ray to make sure his ankle wasn’t broken. It felt broken, although admittedly a lot less so when they gave him some morphine. Then it felt great.