The Cocky Hockey Captain

Chapter 25 ● The Truth About Charlie

"Thank you for joining us, Mr. Bernal," Coach Martel said as everybody took their seats.

"Please, call me Gabriel." That was my dad's attempt at sounding like a man of the people, even though there was no doubt that half of the town still couldn't look at him without hiding their contempt.

"Gabriel, then. Call me Joe."

Coach put one hand on top of the other on his desk. He also doubled as the Lit teacher, which seemed a useful combination when it came to him coming up with creative ways to call us lazy and unmotivated at practice. Next to him was Assistant Coach Florian Gauthier, and finally there was dad and I. We got the call on Saturday morning after the game, and for the first time since memory dad had dropped everything work related, dashed across town and here he was. I hadn't been told what the topic of conversation was, so I was just as confused and stressed out.

Had they found me out somehow? Was it when Dean had put me under the shower spray that maybe they saw my clothes cling in a weird way? Did they see boobs somehow? Should I have put socks down my underwear all the while?

What would happen to dad when this came out?

"Do you know why I've called you in today?" Coach asked.

Dad took such a long time to react that it didn't go unnoticed. Finally said, "Ah, I don't, really. Please enlighten me."

His accent was getting thicker, which was the only sign he had of showing distress. When he was well and truly upset he switched all the way to Spanish, because jumbled up feelings were a lot easier to express in our mother tongue. It made me even more nervous to see how close he was to that point already.

The two coaches looked at each other with a hefty dose of sympathy. To my surprise it was Gauthier who spoke.

"We think your son has something like PTSD."

Both my dad and I remained immobile.

My head raced through the events of the past few days, wondering what gave that away. Hoping that somehow the other, bigger secret was still safe.

I felt dad deflate just a fraction next to me. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"Last Friday on the return from the game, your son here seemed to have very vivid, unpleasant nightmares," Coach Martel said, motioning a hand toward me. "It took quite a few of us to calm him down."

Oh. Yeah. That was what.

I tucked my chin against my chest and looked down at my hands. I could feel my dad's eyes bore two holes into my skull, willing me to look up so that he could extricate the full story through just his glare alone. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of that kinda drama in front of the coaches. It was sure to not go well.

"It may not exactly be PTSD," Gauthier continued. "However he shows similar symptoms. Fretful sleep, panic attacks and a definite violent streak."

I drew in a sharp breath and looked up. Everybody was awfully serene in this room, as though they expected me to blow up at any given second. The problem was that he was right. I'd been diagnosed years ago, and it had become manageable enough that it stopped getting in the way of just living. To be blatantly talked about in these terms in my face was still painful, though. I wanted to lash out, deny it, tell them they were wrong and that they were overreacting. That I was normal.

But I wasn't. And I also wasn't going to show them just how fucked up I was on the inside. So I remained sitting still, my hands clasped on my lap and hoping that outside I seemed just as calm as they were.

I didn't know what dad's thought process was, but he surprised every one of us by saying, "I know that. Has he caused trouble for you and the team?"

I looked at him and he now conveniently avoided my eyes.