Nail biting: it’s a terrible habit that I broke years ago. But here I stand in the chilly arena near the Plexiglas boards, watching the hockey team as they play a game with half of them wearing black shirts and the other half in red. Does he know? He hasn’t looked in my direction once since I got here twenty minutes ago. Maybe he hasn’t seen me. No, I don’t believe that. The last time I came here, it was like he had radar specifically for me. He locked onto me and couldn’t contain his smile for the rest of his practice.

The coach yells at them as they skate around the ice. I can’t follow their movements. I don’t know the rules, and I have no interest in learning them. All I know is number four has the puck and he just passed it to Ozzie, who races forward, slapping the puck hard toward the net when he’s only ten feet away.

The goalie drops to his knees, his legs out to the sides, and the puck bounces off his bulky knee pads. Ozzie lets out a curse and slaps his stick on the ice.

“Concentrate, Oz! The season’s over, you want your career to be finished, too?”

Ozzie shakes his head, and he skates around the back of the net like he’s on rails. He keeps moving along the side, passing me. His eyes flash to me for the briefest of moments, and I swear I see him scowl. My hopeful mood disintegrates.

She got to him first.

Or Sam did. Yes, definitely Sam. She would have loved to deliver the news to Ozzie. It would clear the pathway for her. Compared to me, what she did was nothing. She just wanted to know more about her boyfriend. I wanted to exploit him.

Oh, God. I’m such an asshole.

I lower myself into the seat behind me. With my elbows on my knees and my cheeks in my palms, I watch the rest of their practice. After a poor game, where probably twenty attempts were made on the net and no one got a single goal, the coach blows his whistle and rips it off his neck. He pitches it across the ice. Then he removes his hat and slams that down on the ice, too.

“Mother fuckers! What is wrong with you?”

The players stop and stare. He goes to the closest player and pushes him. He loses his balance and dances on his skates, almost falling over, before he regains his erect stance. The guy spits on the ice when the coach isn’t looking.

“Bunch of mother fucking pussies! You came this close this year!” He holds up his hand and makes a gesture with his index finger and thumb. “This close! I need dedication! I need effort. If you bitches can’t give that to me, then get the fuck off my ice and don’t bother coming back here in the fall.” He skates to the exit and gets off the ice, slamming the thick half-door behind him. All the players look around at one another, shaking their heads. A few shrug their shoulders, and then they file off the ice.

“Ozzie!” I yell. He completely ignores me. I expected it, but it hurts. Somewhere deep in my gut. The punch is sharper than I anticipated. By the dressing room door, I wait for him to change and come out. I plan what I want to say and how I want to say it. But I can’t keep my thoughts straight. There is nothing I can say to fix this.

A few guys come out; each of them glance at me but keep walking. Another handful come out. And then a few more. I swear the whole team has left, and Ozzie is in there waiting me out.

But then his friend Michael comes out. He clucks his tongue at me and shakes his head. He keeps walking. I keep my head up but I want to cry. I’m no stranger to hatred. People hated me all the time in high school. Maybe not hate, but they sure had no problem letting me know they didn’t have time for me. Maybe if I was funny or not socially awkward, I could have charmed them, but I wasn’t either of those things. I was a smart kid with extra weight who was more interested in writing down the stories in my head than making friends.

Another twenty-five minutes crawl by, and I take a seat on the bench for no more than ten seconds before he walks out. He spies me when he comes around the corner. He slows but then picks up his pace, stalking straight past me.

Jack told me stories of how he treated the people who tried to interview him. I’m getting the same treatment.

“Ozzie! Please stop. Can we talk?”

“Sure thing. What would you like to know? Are we on the record or not? Because that might make a difference.” He looks at me sideways with narrowed eyes and gritted teeth. He looks at me like I’m some bug on his shoe he wants to annihilate. No one has ever looked at me like this, and it stops me in my tracks while he keeps walking.

“If you could just let me explain,” I call out to him.

He stops. With his back to me, we pass a long moment of silence. The air becomes thick, and it makes it hard for me to breathe. He turns around and comes back to meet me, standing only a few feet away. My palms grow sweaty. I want to reach out to him, to take his hand, like it might make me stronger, but I can’t do that. He wouldn’t let me.

“You got one minute.”

“Oh…um…okay. I wasn’t really expecting you to hear me out.”

“Should I keep walking?”

“No! Please, don’t do that.” I take a deep breath. “Okay, here it goes. I was asked to write a story about you for the paper, and in exchange the editor said he’d let me join the paper and feature what I wrote. I wanted to write it. I was determined to make it the best damned story I ever wrote, but…”

He raises an eyebrow and then bounces the strap of his hockey bag up higher on his shoulder.

“I started to care about you, and when I realized you were more important than the story, I tried to tell you. Do you remember? When I told you I had something to tell you and you told me not to tell you? I was trying to tell you then.”

He chuckles without humor. With one hand, he removes his baseball cap, and with the other, he runs his hand through his damp hair. “I thought you were going to tell me something about your past, something that doesn’t matter anymore. Some bullshit about baggage or some shit like that. I didn't expect it to be about you lying to me. Or you using me. Fuck! I find a girl I like, and I find out she’s nothing special after all. I think I’ll go back to just fucking girls. It hurt a lot less.”

His words are like a slap to the face, and I flinch from the pain. He doesn’t care. He scoffs at me, surveys me up and down, and backs away before turning and leaving me to stand alone in the cool arena. The Zamboni revs up and starts to clean the ice, its engine loud and persistent. I turn and watch it polish the clear ice to a soft shine. A single tear falls down my cheeks. I wipe it away and hang my head.

I’m nothing special. His words pierce my chest and stab at my heart. My shoulders round as the jagged blade sinks deeper. He meant to hurt me as much as I hurt him, and I get that. I’m sure a lot of people would respond that way. But just because I hurt him, it doesn’t give him the right to make me feel like I’m nothing.

Why couldn’t I just listen to that nagging feeling in my gut that told me not to do the story? I ignored this guy’s right to privacy and betrayed his trust all because I couldn’t walk away from the plan I’d hatched when I was still a girl, when my father’s approval and interest meant everything to me—because it didn’t come easy. Maybe Jack was right. I don’t have what it takes. I don’t want that life if it means not being able to look at myself in the mirror. I’m not sure if anything is worth that.

My phone rings early the following morning, pulling me from a deep sleep. I went to bed not long after three, after feasting on cookie dough ice cream and ketchup potato chips. After an epic marathon of tossing and turning, I finally fell asleep and had nightmares about being in the middle of a hockey rink as Ozzie’s team surrounded me and the crowd booed and tossed eggs at my face. My pillow is wet and sticky from dream tears.

With my eyes closed, I feel around the side of my desktop for my phone. When I feel its rectangular outline, I snatch it and hold it up high over my face. I blink rapidly and wipe the sleep from my eyes before trying to focus on the display.

Mom calling.

I press accept and hold it up to my ear. “Hello,” I say, my voice groggy.

“Charlotte? Are you still in bed?”

“Mm hmm.”

“Are you ill?”

“What time is it?”

There is a rustling on the other end of the phone. “It’s after ten. I don’t think you’ve ever slept in this late in your entire life. Not even as a moody teenager.”

“I was never a moody teenager, Mom.” I push up on my elbows and then into a sitting position.

“Debatable. I just called to check in. Is everything ok?”

I sigh and pick at the fuzz on my comforter. “Sure.”

“Charlotte, start talking before I drive up there.”

I chuckle quietly. She thinks this is a threat, but she’s exactly what I need right now. My mom, complete with advice—even if I don’t take it.

“Charlotte?”

“If you came by, I’d be okay with that.”

The phone is silent, and then, “I’m on my way.”

She isn’t joking. She arrives an hour later when it normally takes an hour and ten minutes to get here. She shows up at my room, and the second I open the door, she knows something is very wrong. She frowns at me and opens her arms. I walk into her embrace, and she kisses my forehead as she soothes me and strokes my back. I lean my head on her shoulder and feel my lower lip tremble. Why am I so sad? Why do I feel so much for someone I barely know?

“It’ll be okay, dear. You’ll see.”

I nod, my cheek rubbing against her soft sweater.

“How about we go and stress eat?”

“That would be awesome.”

With her arm around my shoulders, we walk to her car in silence. I pass Sam’s room, but the door is closed. As we leave the building, Sam comes up over the hill with mussed-up hair and her makeup smudged. Her clothes are wrinkled, and when she sees me she smiles.

Immediately, I wonder if she stayed out all night and who she stayed with. Ozzie wouldn’t have been with her, but a spark of jealousy in my gut forces me to think it’s a possibility. Since when am I a jealous person? It’s a nasty emotion, one that makes you scowl without meaning to while irritation and anger grow roots in your gut.

“Hey, Charlie,” she says.

I glare at her.

“Who’s your friend?” Mom says sweetly. “I haven’t met her before.”

I clutch Mom’s arm and pull her forward so she doesn’t stop to talk.

“Missed you at the party,” Sam says over her shoulder.

“I'll bet,” I say under my breath.

“Got a little crazy so I decided to stay the night.”

“I didn't ask!” I snap back.

“Charlie!”

I pull Mom forward again. “She’s not my friend, Mom. And she just broke up Ozzie and me.”

“What?” Mom’s eyes widen as she scowls over her shoulder. “Really?”

I shrug.

“Hussy!” Mom screams.

I put a hand over her mouth, embarrassed. Not because I want to, but because I feel like I should. Mom stares at me, wide-eyed, ready to yell it again, and I burst into laughter before dropping my hand and lowering my head to her shoulder. I start to cry, and she wraps her arms around me.

“There, there, dear. If he walked away from you, then he doesn’t deserve you. No one ever has.”

I pull back and look up at her. “I did a bad thing, Mom. A very, very, very bad thing.”