I play over in my head again and again all the things I want to say to Sam. My first thoughts when I stomp out of the arena and return to my dorm to sit on my bed and brood, are to tell him off again for assuming so much crap about me. Then after a couple of hours and a nap, I wake up with some fresh perspective and can see where maybe he’s gotten the signals mixed up. He wasn’t wrong in pointing out that I hadn’t looked his way before I had to pair with him for the tutoring. Then I get righteously pissed off again thinking that this is a big campus, and it isn’t impossible for me to just have missed him entirely and not seen him around. There are so many faces here, and being so wrapped up in my Dad’s death, I may have bumped into him, but not really seen him at all.

Most of my day is spent like this and when it’s finally time to head to the library to meet up for the tutoring session, I grab my books and settle on trying to speak to him in a normal civil tone. When I get to the library, I smile and nod at the librarian, Cindy, and look around in the tutoring corner. Sam isn’t here yet, so I head for the table we were at in the corner, and plunk my bag onto the table, digging out my books and laptop.

Sam had been all about note taking and writing down information about the project, but there is so much of it now, it makes sense to me to start putting it into a word document to be filled out by an outline. I sit and concentrate on typing the information into the laptop and saving the file, when I look up and realize that forty-five minutes have passed since I arrived. I wonder where Sam might be, and have a sneaking suspicion he might be bailing on me, and then the reasonable part of me wonders if maybe he wanted to meet back up in my dorm, so we could get the awkwardness out of the way in private.

I get up from the table, cramming my stuff back into my backpack, and hike it back up to the dorms, first stopping at mine to see if he is there and dropping off my stuff, then I jog down to his dorm and knock on the door.

“Sam? You in there? Come on, open up. I just want to talk.” Silence greets me, and I hear a rustling on the other side of the door. “Sam, please open the door,” I plead. The door suddenly swings open and I’m about to launch into a rapid explanation before Sam can slam the door in the face, but I am greeted by a red-faced, incredibly pissed off Shawn. “Hey man, is Sam here?” I ask hesitantly.

“No,” he grits out. I wonder what has him so bent out of shape.

“Any idea where he went?” I ask, folding my arms across my chest.

“Not a clue. Maybe wherever it is guys like you go to hang out.”

My stomach drops like lead is weighing it down. “What do you mean, guys like me?” I demand.

“He should have told me. We’ve been best friends since elementary school. He should have told me. I found out what happened today after that Stevie guy walked in on the two of you doing it on the ice. He should have said something to me.”

The world stops turning for a moment as my mind takes over, racing with thoughts. I had assumed Coach had walked in on us, but if it was Stevie…then I think about what Shawn just implicated. “So, when you found out, and he came back here, instead of being his best friend and listening, you did what? Accuse him of something?”

“He should have said something!” Shawn hollers. The people passing by in the hallway freeze, looking at us both as I cross my arms over my chest and Shawn’s face goes from red to purple. I ignore them as I continue.

“Yeah maybe. But I can only imagine him coming out to you finally and you getting in his face about it instead of being supportive, no wonder he bailed. Look, I don’t have time to work you through whatever issues you have with your best friend being gay, that’s for you to sort out yourself. If you see him, tell him I’m looking for him to talk, alright?” I glare at him as he stands there looking at me like I’m something disgusting and beneath him.

“I’m sure that’s all you want to do isn’t it? Just…talk.” He spits out the words as if he’s spitting at me and I have a serious moment where I have to work on self-restraint. After a minute I shake my head and turn and walk away. Wherever Sam is, I’ll have to find him myself and figure how we can work this out together.

I’m so pissed off that I don’t realize when I run right into the girl that Sam is friends with. I recognize her by face immediately.

“Hey…ahhh…”

“Gretchen,” she supplies.

“Gretchen, have you seen Sam?” I ask. She seemed protective of Sam the other day, but at least encouraging and open-minded.

“Umm, Jayden, right?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

“Jayden, Sam just, he really wants to be left alone right now.”

“I get that he needs time to sort stuff out. I just need to talk to him, just for a minute. I want to apologize and then I’ll leave him be to decide…to figure out if he wants…” I run my hands through my hair, rubbing the back of my neck.

“I get it Jayden. The thing is, I don’t think it’s just you, specifically. I mean yeah, getting caught kissing the hockey team’s star player is a big deal for a lot of people but for Sam, it’s more than that. Before today, he had never confirmed one way or another to people about it. You know?”

“I get that. I went through something similar.”

“That’s just it though. Similar, sure, but not the same. For you, everyone dealt however it is they deal and just moved on because of you being Mr. Popular and all…but for Sam, the few people he has to turn to…well you just saw how Shawn reacted.”

“Yeah I saw. Me being into Sam has nothing to do with being popular. I want to tell him that, reasonably this time. I kind of flipped today when he just assumed I thought he was a game. Something to be played with. But I don’t roll like that.”

Gretchen squeezes my arm. “It’s really reassuring to hear you say that, but you need to give him time. He’s not only dealing with coming out, he’s also dealing with the embarrassment of how it was posted.”

“Posted?” I ask, the weight in my stomach turning to acid. Gretchen looks at me, her face paling.

“You haven’t seen it yet? The whole campus pretty much has.”

I can feel my windpipe beginning to close as the color drains from my face and I shake my head. Gretchen takes her phone out of her pocket and thumbs through her widgets to the social media sites and taps it on. The trending video is a centered camera trained on the whole ice show this afternoon. I look at the source, but don’t need to in order to confirm who recorded and shared the whole thing. Gretchen is looking at me with sympathy as I watch the whole show play out before me, this time the memory of the heat of the moment is replaced by the feeling like someone gave me an ice bath. I get why Sam bailed. I want the very floor under me to open up and swallow me whole.

“I’m really sorry, Jayden.” she murmurs at the thunderstruck look on my face. “Sam, he just couldn’t deal after it went viral, so he left the campus.”

I nod again, willing my vocal chords to work and they come out sounding raw and shredded. “Did he go to his sister’s house?” I ask.

“I’m not sure,” she replies.

“Thanks,” I mumble stonily. I turn and walk towards the stairs, suddenly keenly aware of every set of eyes trained on me as I walk down the hall and stairs and out the door. I catch the University transit to the public transit downtown, and from there I take a cab to Katie’s house and knock on the door.

Katie answers after a few moments, and I stand on the doorstep as she stares at me for a long moment before stepping back.

“Come in,” she says. I enter a long hallway with pictures of family on one side of the wall and an entire wall paying homage to little Devin’s progression since birth. I see the first Christmas picture, the first Halloween, the day he was born, the day he got his first tooth. They’re all there and they’re all pictures representing the vision in my head of what Sam looked like at that age. I rub my chest, willing the ache and worry to go away. Katie leads me down the hall and into an open concept space with the living room just to the side of a kitchen and breakfast nook. She gestures to the table and I look around, hopefully.

“He isn’t here,” she states simply. I glance up at her and she looks away. She goes to the cupboards and pulls out two mugs and pours some coffee. She sets out the creamer and sugar and with shaking fingers. I fix my coffee as I ask, “Do you know where he is?”

“He was here about an hour ago, but when I pushed him to find you and talk to you, he left.”

“So, I’m guessing you have no idea where he went?” I sip my coffee and am grateful for the strong flavor. Somehow the caffeine does the opposite of ramping up my already jittery nerves, but helps to calm them down.

“No,” she says quietly. “Even if I did know, I don’t know if I would tell you.” I look up, sharply.

“Why not?”

“Is this…I want you to be honest with me. Is this some sort of hazing or team prank?” she asks tilting her chin up as if it gives her more confidence.

“You too?” I ask as I set my coffee down and shake my head in disgust.

“It’s a fair question,” she stammers.

“Yeah, I have been getting that a lot today. What’s funny is, everyone has me pegged for being the stereotype, but it’s all of their insecurities which have led them to assume the worst of me. I’d hardly call that fair no matter which friend circles he and I run in,” I defend. Her bravado fades and she lets out a sigh.

“That’s a fair point. And one I tried to make to him myself.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, after I got done raging of course. You have to be real here though. This isn’t the first time a college guy has been pranked, or hazed, or whatever it’s called these days.”

“You have a good point too. But I didn’t take that video. And I sure as hell didn’t post it online.”

She sits staring at me for a moment and sipping her coffee. “I believe you. I’m just really worried about Sam and what this has done to his self-esteem and how he’ll cope with it all. Especially after the fight with Shawn.” She says Shawn’s name much like how he spoke to me earlier and I can feel her anger, because I feel the same too. We sit in silence for a few moments.

“If you see him, I want to talk to him when he’s ready, ok? Would you just tell him that for me?” I ask.

“Yeah, of course I will. Likewise, with you ok? We, as in, his family, had an idea and we’ve just been waiting for him to confirm it, but he left here so upset. We just want him to know we love him.”

I nod and stand, finishing my coffee. “I’m going to keep looking for him. I’ll text you if I find him,” I tell her. She walks me to the door, and I pointedly stare straight ahead so I don’t have to see the spitting image of a younger version of him staring at me through the eyes of his nephew.

“Hey, are you going to be ok too?” she asks as I open the door. I look back at her, smiling sadly.

“Yeah. The team will ride me for a while but it’s not anything I can’t handle, the jokes and stuff. Coach will chew me out for bringing an interest out onto the ice for anything other than skating. He’d do the same for any of the other guys if it were a girl. Everyone on campus, as well as everyone else keeps pointing out to me, I’m the popular guy, right? This will blow over after a while.”

Katie shakes her head and then suddenly jumps at me, squeezing me in a hug.

“It’s going to be ok. We’ll find him. And he’ll see it will be ok.” I pat her shoulder, giving her the reassurance she needs as she attempts to console me.

“Yeah, we’ll find him. Then I’ll tell him he’s a dolt for running away because I’m not going anywhere, video or no video. Then I’ll tell him to take as long as he needs because I’ll wait, and while I wait, I’ll beat the tar out of Stevie for pulling this shit.”

I hear a snort as Katie backs away, chuckling and wiping the tears from her eyes. “Sounds like a plan.”

“And even if it takes him the rest of our college years, tell Devin I still want to help out with those skating lessons, OK?”

Katie nods and waves as I turn on the steps and go in search of Sam.

Sam isn’t in the cafeteria, or at the Gazebo. I check the library one last time thinking maybe he circled back and is studying, but the librarian is closing the doors and locking them when I jog up, breathless.

“Hey, have you seen Sam Kingston?”

“No, he hasn’t been in tonight which is unusual, he’s always here,” she says.

“Yeah, I know,” I mutter. “Thanks.”

I turn and walk back to the dorms. It’s ten o’clock and the campus is quiet, given that there are early classes tomorrow and it’s only the start of the week.

Where could he have gone? I wonder to myself. I consider trying his dorm one more time, but figure if he and Shawn are talking, I don’t want to interrupt them. I go back to my dorm, and for once my roommate Jimmy is there.

“Hey man,” he says when I walk in.

“Hey.” I flop onto my back on my bed and stare at the ceiling.

“Rough day huh?” he asks quietly.

“Yeah, one of the worst,” I murmur.

“It’ll blow over soon dude,” he says, and I nod. Jimmy’s cool. He grabs a couple of cold ones from the small fridge we keep in the room and cracks the tops off with a bottle opener. I let the brew burn down my throat as I take a swig, and Jimmy sits on the edge of his bed staring at me.

“So, I’m not good with the talk your shit out stuff, but if you need an ear bro…” He trails off.

“Thanks.” I tell him. I sit up rubbing the back of my neck. My muscles ache from the tension of running around campus and the stress of worrying about where Sam has gone.

“What are you gonna do about Stevie?” he asks. I hadn’t really given it much thought. But the question is a good one. I feel the heat of anger creep along my skin as I think about all of the horrible things I want to do to that asshole. My jaw clenches as I envision pounding his face into the locker at tomorrow morning’s practice session. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to throttle him, but I take another hit off my beer and breath, trying to remember that beating the crap out of him isn’t the answer.

“I don’t know yet,” I answer honestly. “I haven’t been able to find Sam yet. He ran off after…after everything and no one can find him. That’s my main concern right now.”

“Understandable. I’ll text around and see if anyone in the music crowd has seen him.” Jimmy swipes his phone on and his thumbs begin typing madly across the keypad. I give him an appreciative look then turn my attention back to the ceiling. Jimmy’s crowd and the geek crowd sometimes mix. And the musician types and the jocks sometimes mix, but it has always been amazing to me that the gap between the jocks and the geeks seems to always be the biggest. I have never understood why. I could have gone either way when I was in middle school. I thought gaming was kind of cool, until my Dad pointed out that playing an actual sport instead of a virtual one was better for me. He got me into hockey and it stuck, landing me in the jock category. It bugs me. I hate that people have to be one or the other.

Jimmy looks up as I lay back down after finishing my beer. “No one has seen him, but they’ll hit me up if they do.”

“Thanks again man. I’m going to hit the sack and try searching again tomorrow after practice.”

“Alright cool. I’ll stick around tonight in case…you know if you need anything, or whatever man.” Jimmy finishes off his beer and hits the lights. Only the glow of the T.V. with a comedy sitcom is visible and I drift off to sleep forgetting about midterms, hockey, and popularity contests. There’s only one person on my mind and that’s Sam. I have to find him and make it right again.

The next morning, I wake up and head down to the rink. I can’t decide if my mind is preoccupied with thoughts of Sam, or if I’m getting a headache wondering what’s going to happen when I enter the locker room and have to face the team and Coach.

When I push through the door, the whole room goes silent and everyone is trying not to stare at me, while still gawking at me all the same. I walk up to my locker and turn the lock on the door, clicking it open and begin suiting up just like it was any other practice. I have the vague thought that I should have eaten something before coming down to practice, for energy, but the thought of putting food in my stomach is enough to make it roll and the nausea to hit.

I don’t have time to fully wonder if Coach will chew me out before or after practice when I hear, “Fisher. My office, now.” I put down my stick and turn to head into his office. I refuse to keep my head down as I pass by the guys who haven’t even said morning or hey what’s up yet. I refuse to look at Stevie who is grinning broadly with his buddies as I pass by. He leans in like he’s going to say something, but when he does, I turn and give him a look that is full of ice cold fury, and there must be something in my face because he opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again, and then shuts up quickly.

I enter Coach’s office and shut the door behind me. There’s no doubt in my mind, some of the guys are right at the door, listening in and trying to hear everything that goes on.

“Sit down.” His voice is odd. Not angry or upset but not his usual well controlled tone either. I finally work up enough courage to look him in the face. He’s trying to remain passive, but I can tell there is something. I expected this to come, but what he says next completely surprises me. “I am not going to get into the university’s policy on public displays of affection or decency or whatever. I think you are smart enough to know that doing that in a public arena wasn’t a brilliant idea.”

“Yes.” I try to keep my voice steady. I know there will be some sort of punishment for it.

“You’ve got fifteen extra suicides for it today.”

“Ok.”

“I saw the video. The school administration wanted me to speak to you about it.”

“I understand, Sir,” I mumble. I look down and away, feeling my face flush with embarrassment.

“Well, they wanted me to speak to you about the last part, but also about the video itself.” He says calmly.

“What do you mean Coach? I don’t understand.” I look up at him, my eyebrows drawn together. He can’t possibly think I created it and spread it around.

“What I mean is, the university has a very strict policy on bullying, harassment, that kind of thing…”

“I didn’t make that video!” I feel my voice rise as I also rise from my seat.

“Sit down, son. I know you didn’t.” He continues to remain calm.

I sit back down and begin fiddling with the bottom of my practice jersey.

“Well, if you know then why are you telling me not to bully or harass and stuff.”

“I didn’t tell you not to do it. I’m asking if you want to press charges against the person who did do it. Sam Kingston wasn’t the only person filmed without his knowledge and then slandered all over the internet. And don’t think for a second that I’m not well aware of who did create it.”

I blink at him stupidly as what he is saying begins to process. I hadn’t once thought about how I felt about being displayed all over the internet like that. All at once the feeling of shame, guilt, embarrassment and mortification comes crashing down around me. I tug at the collar of my jersey as the room starts to get too hot and the walls begin closing in around me.

“Breathe son!” Coach gets out of his chair and is around the desk in an instant. “Put your head down between your legs and breathe.”

I do as he suggests and put my head down and focus on regaining control. I feel him patting my back as I work myself through the anxiety attack. When I’ve regained control, I sit back up and he hands me a bottle of water from a cooler in the corner, and I take a few sips, trying to cool down my overheated body.

“I didn’t mean to make you panic,” he says gruffly. “We take the harassment of any student seriously, but given that it was used to intentionally harm you and Sam for being gay, we take that into consideration too.”

“What’s going to happen Coach?” I ask weakly.

“Well, I’m supposed to interview you, I think we can consider this the interview. We don’t need to go into details if you don’t want to, but as I’m the closest mentor you have here at school, the board asked me to do it. Then Sam will be interviewed and then a disciplinary hearing will be decided upon after a review of the person who recorded and uploaded the video. I need to tell you it could result in the person being booted off the hockey team, expulsion from the school, and possibly harassment charges depending on what you and Sam want to do.”

“Ch…ch…charges?” I stammer.

“Yes, we need to talk to Sam first though. Do you know how to get ahold of him?”

“Ah, no, Sir. I looked for him all day yesterday to talk to him, but I can’t find him.”

“Ok, I’ll let the board know and someone will contact his family and local authorities to be on the lookout for him.”

“Coach, I don’t want to charge anyone for anything. I just want to find Sam to talk to him.”

“Understandable. Your wishes in the matter will be taken into consideration. Now, go finish suiting up and hit the ice. And I think it goes without saying, but according to procedure I have to say it, don’t speak about this to anyone until the matter is settled. Am I clear?”

“Yes, Coach.”

“And Jayden?” he asks as I stand.

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry this was done to you and your boyfriend. You made a bad choice, but to be exploited like that was disgusting and cruel and you didn’t deserve it. But I want you to know, you have my full support and the school’s, and it’s going to be ok.” I can’t answer him as I try to blink back the tears. He nods, and I wipe my face on my sleeve before entering the locker room. I don’t know who cleared everyone out onto the ice, Barry or Clive, but it is empty, giving coach and I the privacy we needed to have that conversation. I finish gearing up and hit the ice a few minutes before Coach comes out. Practice is grueling, but I get a pat on the back and a “it’s cool man,” rr “we’re all good bro” from everyone except Stevie and his crew. I notice that practice is particularly brutal for him, as the team seems to target him for extra hard checking whenever Coach turns his back. He glares at me in passing and hisses, “I thought you’d like being the spotlight with your little boyfriend. You usually enjoy being the center of attention.”

I skate off and when I look back, Kasey had smacked him into the plexi-glass. Kasey doesn’t usually check people, but Stevie lies on the ice for a minute before getting up and clutching his sides. I blink back more tears behind my mask as I realize the team, with the exception of Stevie, has my back. It’s been an unspoken rule that we watch out for one another and the people we date, but I hadn’t ever really put it to the test being gay, but they seem to be supporting me a bit extra on this.

When the team leaves, I begin my suicide drills. Coach allows me to ditch my helmet and stick so that it’s just me and the ice.

“Suicide drills aren’t just about physical exhaustion boys,” he once said to us. “It’s about learning every area of the arena. It’s about respecting the field of play that you’re on.”

I get it now. Why he picked the suicides as a form of punishment for doing what we did. I throw myself into them extra hard, exhausting myself and getting the most out of the exercise.

When I am done, I hit the showers and dress, returning to my search for Sam and his usual haunts. I fish out my phone in case he texted while I was at practice, and I have a text from my Mom.

“Come home after practice today, Jayden. I need to see you.”