Ice Cold

11

Landon Reilly

My pent up rage over the last few days was what was getting me through hockey practice. I was playing a physical game, something my coaches and Rojas liked to see. But hitting guys into the boards was really the only way for me to get all my anger out without punching someone, namely Wren.

I hated the way he made me feel and the way he knew exactly how to push me, to make me uncomfortable, to make me angry. But part of me also envied him and the way he was unapologetic and that made me even more angry.

As practice went on, I moved through the drills with the precision that was always expected of me throughout my entire time playing hockey. It was like this game had all my focus even though my mind was far away. I was running on autopilot and I wasn't brought back down to earth until Rojas stood in front of me and stopped me.

"The coaches are really liking you," he said. "You might get to start."

"Great," I replied, skating around him. Rojas followed me, the two of us skating in silence for a moment. I didn't even know if I wanted to be a starter or play hockey at all, but to keep the scholarship money I got from the athletic department, I had to.

Rojas and I worked on a few drills together before practice ended. The coaches brought us to center ice for a small meeting before they would let us back to the locker rooms.

"As you all know, we have a couple scrimmage games next week that we have been preparing for," Coach Foreman started. "These games are where some of you rookies are going to show us what you got. I'll post the lineup for the scrimmage against Brown by the end of the week. You're dismissed."

I never wanted to step foot on the Brown campus again.

I was one of the last people off the ice, following the rest of my team back to the locker room. As I was gathering my things after a quick shower, Cooper came up behind me and bumped my shoulder. My initial instinct was to punch him, but I fought of the urge and instead looked at him with narrowed eyes.

"Hey, Reilly, I didn't expect to see you out this weekend," he said. "I'm serious, you should come with us again. It'll be fun."

"I'm not really the going out type," I muttered, grabbing onto my bag.

Cooper chuckled. "That's not what it seemed like last time. Hey, who was that guy you were with when I saw you? I didn't recognize him."

"Wren." I said it automatically, without thinking about it, like it was something I felt like Cooper should already know. "He goes to Brown."

"Oh," Cooper said. "He seemed a little odd. I was wondering how you knew him."

I didn't say anything to that, but a strange feeling crept through my stomach that made me want to leave this conversation immediately. I didn't want to talk about Wren, or hear Cooper talk about how odd he found him. All I wanted was to forget about Wren and that I ever knew him at all.

I especially wanted to forget the way he looked the other morning as he undressed in front of me. I hated the way my mind and body responded to him. He had to have found some way into my brain with whatever weird powers he had and manipulated my thoughts. Because there was no way I saw a bunch of hockey players undress every day and he was the one who occupied my mind, the one who made me feel things that I didn't want to feel.

"But if you're friends with him or whatever, that's cool," Cooper added. He must have taken my silence as offense. I decided I would let him believe that he had offended me. Anything to stop this conversation and leave.

But Wren wasn't my friend and even the thought of that being true gave me inexplicable rage. I hated him and I never wanted to see him again. Not after what he had suggested, not after the way I had reacted to seeing his body. I needed to steer clear of him and forget about him and the way he made me feel.