I pretty much slept all through Saturday and didn’t emerge from my room until team breakfast the next morning. When I got there, Vinny was sitting on top of one of the tables with his plate of scrambled eggs resting precariously on his knees.

“And then he stands on the kitchen counter and starts threatening to arm wrestle people for the last jello shot and some other drunk idiots fall for it and they come over and clear off the beer pong table and switch it over to an arm wrestling tournament and he beats every guy within seconds. Then, he starts to get bored and some girls start challenging him to do other strongman things like one handed push-ups with them sitting on his back and shit. And he actually did it. It was wild, man, I’m telling you.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, sitting down next to them with my giant stack of whole wheat pancakes. I didn’t normally go for so many carbs, but I was still trying to trick my gut into forgiving me for the drinking binge.

“You, big man!” Vinny said with a laugh.

I paused with my fork halfway to my mouth. Dear God. It was worse than I thought.

“I don’t remember doing any of that,” I said, flabbergasted.

Farmer snorted on the other side of the table.

“I’m not surprised,” he said. “You don’t know how to do anything in moderation, do you, Undies?”

I looked down at my plate and then over at Sal who was eating his food quietly and trying to pretend like he wasn’t listening in on this conversation. He didn’t even say a word and he still made me feel like I’d disappointed my hockey dad.

“No,” I said finally. “I guess not.”

Vinny and the boys continued going on about my drunken antics as we ate. I didn’t remember a single one of them. All I could recall was Mark taking me home. I could clearly picture him hovering over my bed and pressed against my side. I remembered the way I’d clung to him much like the annoying raccoon-eyed girl had done to me at the party. Mark had been so patient and kind, coming to my rescue when nobody else was around. My teammates had abandoned me—though that was probably more my fault than theirs—and I had repaid his kindness by throwing myself at him and unloading all of my personal baggage.

Nobody knows I’m gay, I repeated over and over again in my head.

Well, now somebody did. And it was little more than a cute stranger. A cute stranger who I was practically guilty of stalking, no less.

I felt like an absolute idiot.

I finished my breakfast with as little interaction with the boys as I could get away with and half-assed my way through practice. If anyone noticed that I wasn’t giving it my all, they kept it to themselves.

The fog followed me around all week. I hadn’t felt this low and paranoid and down on myself since the injury that had cost me my spot at world juniors. The only difference was that back then I had a whole mess of doctors at my side to help me recover and assuage my fears and doubts. People were promising me left and right that everything would be okay and that I’d be able to play again in no time.

The fear I was experiencing now was an uncertain and lonely one. I couldn’t tell anyone what was bothering me, not without making the situation much, much worse, and the only thing I could do to make myself feel a tiny bit better was hope and pray that Mark Olsen was as kind and good-hearted as I thought he was. But still, even if the only person he ever told was his sister, Shannon would certainly tell Steve and Steve would certainly tell ten more people and it wouldn’t be long before my most closely guarded secret became a thing of the past. Nobody would draft me after that, not unless I started breaking every goal-scoring record known to mankind, and maybe not even then. The world wasn’t ready for an openly gay hockey player.

I was still chewing on all of these poisonous thoughts by the time our next game day rolled around, this one an away game against the undefeated Nevada Cactus Blossoms. I kept quiet through the three-hour bus ride. Sal sat next to me the entire way, but didn’t bother trying to get me to talk. That was one of my favorite things about our captain. He knew when to push us to our limits and when to keep his damn mouth shut.

All of the other guys were begging Coach to let us stay in Vegas for the night, but he expertly froze out their pleas. He had also timed this excursion perfectly so that we would have enough time to eat, warm up, and relax at the stadium, but not much else. We also stuck to residential areas as much as possible, much to the team’s—and McAvoy’s—dismay.

We ended up at an Italian chain restaurant for a late lunch. I ordered some fish and almost everyone else got pasta. The food looked good, but I was too preoccupied to really taste much of it. All I had to do was make it through this game. This was the first step. Win one game. Then another. And worry about Mark Olsen later. As terrifying as it was, I knew that I was probably making a big deal out of nothing. Even if Mark told the whole world I was gay, would anyone who didn’t know me really well believe him?

The knot in my stomach eased a little and I went to take a large sip of water. As I was lifting the glass to my mouth, I caught sight of some of the other people in the restaurant. Our motley crew definitely took up most of the floor space, but there was also a family with three rowdy kids, an elderly man and woman both hunched over their menus, and two gentlemen seated across from each other in a corner booth. They weren’t much older than I was, and at a glance they could be mistaken for two regular friends out grabbing a bite to eat, but thanks to my height and vantage point I could clearly see their feet tangled together under the table. The one facing away from me had a slight redness to his cheek and the other had his eyes closed, laughing fondly. Those two men were definitely out on a date.

The water in my mouth went down hard, making my throat stretch uncomfortably. I set down my glass very slowly with shaking fingers.

“Are you okay?” Sal asked, looking at me with creased brows. Luckily none of the other guys were paying me any attention, too wrapped up in their own conversations to care. I turned my head away and nodded. I picked up my fork, but I didn’t end up eating another bite. My heart was aching and my secret was eating away at me. I had suddenly lost my appetite.

During warm ups, things didn’t get much better. I was distracted and off of my game. In less than ten minutes I almost crashed into three different people because I wasn’t paying close enough attention. I kept apologizing profusely, but Coach Hawthorne looked like he was about to pop a capillary. I didn't blame him. I knew I was not in the proper mental place to be playing a sport with knife shoes right now, and yet, here I was. If I was anyone else, he’d certainly have pulled me aside or yelled at me by now, and part of me wished that he would, but he managed to keep himself together. I understood that part too. It had to be hard to yell at someone who’d been practically carrying the entire team all year. Even the best players had off nights though, and for me, this was as off as they came.

In the first period of the game I hit the post a few times, but did not score. In the second, I took an unnecessary hooking penalty that led the Blossoms to a power play goal. We went into the third period down two to four and then Matty was finally able squeak one in.

Down by one goal and with under two minutes left on the clock, we pulled our goaltender for the extra attacker, which just so happened to be me. This was where I delivered the errant pass that landed the puck onto one of the Blossoms’ sticks down the middle of the ice with a clear path to the empty net. The buzzer sounded and the clock ran out. The Cactus Blossoms would remain undefeated and it was all thanks to me.

I was never drinking again.