The layout of Coronado State University was, in my humble opinion, a hot fucking mess. Nestled a few miles north of Lake Havasu City, literally the hottest urban area in the entire country, you’d think the campus would be full of tall sprawling buildings with palm trees, sprinklers, and giant awnings for shade, but in actuality, the whole place was paved over with sizzling hot concrete, broken up by occasional patches of yellowed grass.

All of the buildings were placed ridiculously far away from each other, just to ensure that you would be sweating buckets by the time you got to wherever you were trying to go. I had lived in Arizona my entire life, and even I thought it was ridiculous. You could tell who was new here just by scanning faces for people who looked like they wanted to cry.

I wiped the sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand and looked up from my map. According to the directions in my email, my dorm room was located on the fifth floor of Encanto Hall, which was on the south side of campus, overlooking the life sciences building. Upon arriving there, I realized that much like most things nowadays, the building looked nothing like it did in the picture. It was flat and blocky, and the red paint was peeling off the outside bricks in chunks. Also, even from the ground I could tell that every window was covered in a thin layer of grime.

I took a deep breath and opened the door, pausing to savor the sweet feeling of air conditioning against my sweat dampened skin. The first thing I saw was a small lobby full of what looked like discarded hospital furniture. There was a small couch, a matching armchair, and a couple of side tables in varying shades of blue. There was also a TV mounted on one of the walls, but I suspected it hadn’t been turned on in a really long time. The whole setup made me feel sort of depressed, like I was waiting for someone to tell me whether or not my bunions had grown back.

I quickly took a sharp left and started climbing the stairs, my luggage bobbling along behind me. When I made it to the fifth floor, I emerged slowly and took a look around. It wasn’t what I had been imagining at all. It looked less like an organized living space and more like a commune. The hallway was wide and nearly every door was open. The walls were lined with people congregating, so much so that I had to introduce myself and make meaningless small talk with half a dozen people before I was even able to find my room.

It was the last door on the left and mercifully it was one of the only ones that was actually closed. I rapped three times on the door and nobody answered. I started rummaging around in my pocket for the room key I’d picked up at the office that morning. For a moment I thought I had lucked out and beaten my roommate here, but then my hopes and dreams were shattered when I opened the door, thus granting me a nice up close and personal view of a stranger’s tits. She was splayed out over the top of a bed that I could only hope was not mine with a naked man’s face between her legs.

The people in the hallway who were close enough to see and hear what was going on whooped and cheered for them. I blinked several times and then closed the door with shaking fingers. I knew the dorms were supposed to be coed, but this was taking that concept way too far. This was what college kids did in movies, not in real life. Right?

A man standing next to me must have noticed my shell-shocked expression because he laughed and then clapped me on the shoulder as if we were bros.

“You look like you ain't never seen a pussy before, man.”

That’s because I haven’t, I thought. And hopefully I’ll never have to see one again.

Suddenly, the constant chatter and the pulsing music in the dim light of the hallway was all too much. I didn’t even care that it was one hundred and three degrees outside. I needed some fresh air.

I turned back to my room and steeled myself enough to open it just a crack. Then, with near surgical precision and one hand over my eyes, I slid my suitcase inside and locked the room back up. Hopefully my new roommate would be too busy with his lady friend to creepily go through my belongings, not that there was anything interesting in there anyway. Just basic school supplies, a bunch of clothes, shoes, and my skates. The school would be providing me with everything else; all new sticks, pads, gear. The works. I think they would have happily provided new skates too if I had asked, but as tempting as the offer was, mine were still in perfectly good condition and I didn’t want to deal with breaking in new ones until I absolutely had to.

Outside, I was finally able to breathe again. The hot air which had been so bothersome moments before suddenly felt nice and reassuring. I decided to just wander around and explore for the next couple of hours. I had been here a handful of times and even gotten a full exclusive campus tour prior to accepting my scholarship, but there were still so many tiny details I had never noticed before. For instance, the little cubby of a coffee shop tacked onto the side of the library. It reminded me of a child’s lemonade stand and the girl working inside looked like she hated her life. I bought a complicated juice drink just to give her something to do.

I drank my juice in record time perched on the edge of a black ceramic fountain that was practically boiling. Not for the first time, I was glad for my closely cropped fade. Sometimes when I got real busy or was on a winning streak, I’d let it grow out into a full afro, but now was certainly not the time for that.

Once noon rolled around, I followed the tide of sweaty freshmen over to the designated quad for the official Coronado welcome ceremony. I gladly would have skipped this part, but it was mandatory for new students; not that they had any real way of checking whether you’d been there or not. The freshman dean got up onto the makeshift stage and said a couple of words that sounded directly ripped from a brochure. She then handed the mic to someone equally peppy who started listing off rules and regulations as well as the people to whom we should voice different types of concerns. They closed out by announcing parents’ weekend next month and all of the upcoming events we were encouraged to take part in. I was secretly thrilled to hear the hockey team’s home opener next Saturday listed among them.

After that was over, it was time for my designated check in with my counselor, a middle-aged woman named Maxine. Max had three different visible tattoos of clouds and thick snakeskin printed rims on her glasses. She was in charge of overseeing the credit hours of all of Coronado’s student athletes and making sure we had enough time allotted for all of the games, practices, and events we had to attend; in addition to the credits we needed to graduate, obviously.

“Do you have any ideas about what you might want to major in?” she asked, tapping her pen on the side of her desk.

I shook my head. “I think I’ll just stay undeclared for now.”

I knew it was vain and terribly presumptuous, but I was kind of banking on the fact that I’d be offered an MLH contract before I really had to decide. Nearly all of the best players in the country became prospects within one or two years of being draft-eligible and this year would be my first.

Maxine nodded her head and scribbled some more things down on her notepad. When she was done, she tore off the sheet and handed it to me.

“You’re all set, sweetie,” she said with a grin. “Now go follow those directions and head on over to see Casey, the team’s nurse. I know you’ve already had a checkup and a psych eval this year, but Coach Hawthorne wants you to have a physical before hitting the ice tomorrow.”

I nodded, thanked her, and stepped out of her office and into the hall, blinking at the difference in light. I looked down and did my best to decipher her handwriting. So far today I felt like a pinball being bounced around inside of a machine, and not even one of those cool vintage ones with themes and characters, more like the kind of pinball machine you’d find at the back of a really shitty bowling alley.

Dr. Casey Ann Spacek was the hockey team’s nurse/general physician. All the school’s major teams had one. She specialized in athletic injuries and sat in at every game along with a local paramedic, just in case. She had me strip down to my underwear and sit down on top of the plastic covered examination table while she measured and evaluated all of my muscles, took my blood pressure, and checked my reflexes. Then she took my height and weight, telling me that both of those matched what was in her records—she said this as if it was supposed to be a compliment. She had me do a couple of jumping jacks and then run on a treadmill, so she could monitor my heart and lungs and then finished off by asking me to confirm all of my past injuries.

“Broken wrist at nine, broken collarbone at thirteen, concussions at fourteen and sixteen, and a slightly separated shoulder last fall.”

Dr. Casey nodded and conferred with her notes. Ten minutes later she gave me a clean bill of health and told me I was free to go. By the time I got redressed and wandered out of the infirmary, the sun was starting to set, thus marking the beginning of the end of my first day of college. I felt like I had simultaneously accomplished way more and also way less than I thought that I would.

As much as I didn’t want to, I made my way back to my residence hall. The floor was still bustling and there was still loud music playing from nowhere discernible, but at least most of the interlopers had dispersed into their separate rooms to party. I stood nervously before my own room and took a deep breath. I reached up and rapped twice on the door with one hand and crossed my fingers with the other. There was no response. I didn’t take that as a green light though. I’d learned my lesson earlier. I pressed my ear to the woodgrain in an attempt to discern any potential sounds of debauchery, then, hearing nothing in response, I finally surmised that it was safe to go in.

I stuck my head in the door, followed by my shoulders, then my feet, and flipped on the light switch before taking a tentative look around. It was a pretty standard dorm room, similar to the one I stayed in during my summer tour, if not slightly scummier. On the east side of the room next to the window was a plain metal-framed bed and on the west side next to the door was the other. There was also a quietly humming mini fridge in the corner by the long double-sided closet and two small combination desk/dressers pressed against either wall.

A skinny boy with thick wavy hair and medium brown skin was lightly snoring on top of the west facing bed, AKA the sex bed. Thank God. At a glance he appeared to be the same guy from earlier, though it was hard to tell now that he had clothes on.

I spotted my suitcase on the floor and rolled it over to my own bed as quietly as I could. I knelt down and removed my newly purchased sheets from the front zipper pocket and maneuvered them into crisp hospital corners over the mattress in record time. I then set about unpacking my clothes and neatly arranging them in my dresser. I set my laptop on the desk and hung my gray backpack over the back of the chair. Then I slid my suitcase with nothing but my skates inside under my bed. The whole time my roommate did not stir.

I fished my phone out of my pocket and looked at the time. Only 7:49, but it felt so much later than it was. I flopped down on top of my bed and clutched the warm device against my chest like a security blanket as I stared up at the beige ceiling.

This is only temporary, I told myself. I repeated it over and over again in my head until the sudden bout of nerves and nausea that had overtaken me started to fade away. I’d been fine when I had places to be and appointments to make, but now that I was left to my own devices, the reality of my situation was crashing in on me. I was in charge of my own well-being from now until morning skate at seven a.m. My body just couldn’t take the anticipation. I had never been good at waiting things out. I was a goal scorer, an initiative taker. Passiveness was not in my nature.

To pass the time I started thumbing through the contacts on my phone. They were pretty sparse to say the least. Mostly old teammates who never talked to me and distant relatives who I sometimes wished would do the same.

Then there was Peter.

My relationship with Peter was...complicated. We hated each other, but we also loved each other in our own way. We had an understanding that hockey came first, then sex, and then other things. Maybe. We hadn’t talked since he’d gone to world juniors without me. I was having a bad year thanks to my shoulder injury and had completely fallen off the international radar. It seemed I’d also fallen out of Peter’s thoughts, though in actuality he’d probably just been too busy. He was an Angel’s prospect now and was playing for their minor league affiliate in New Jersey.

My fingers were itching to text him. Nothing important, just a small message out into the ether. Something to remind each of us that we were here… that our tumultuous feelings for each other were real even if they weren’t perfect. And that we weren’t alone in this hypermasculine and heteronormative sport. A quiet reminder that both of our sexualities were valid.

I didn’t text him, ultimately choosing my pride over that small comfort. Instead, I stared at our old messages until the screen went blank and then placed the phone on the floor next to my bed. I pressed my palms into my eyes and sighed, waiting for my thoughts to settle enough to even consider sleeping. Then I changed into a T-shirt and sweatpants, dug out my charger and plugged in my phone next to my bed. I set an alarm for 6:30 and with one last weary look at my unconscious roommate, I switched off the lights, climbed into bed and went to sleep.