Over the course of the next couple of weeks, Vipers Men’s Hockey just kept winning and winning. I was on one of the highest point streaks of my life and it had seemingly inspired the rest of their guys to step up their games. More often than not, I would see at least a few of them in the gym when I went in every morning, working on some skill or another. Also, optional free skates were becoming increasingly crowded, to the point where people missing out on the extra ice time was incredibly rare.
I had also grown attached to many more of the guys than I ever imagined I would. Sal and his girlfriend, Tiffany, whom I’d discovered was in my eighteenth century lit course, would often invite me along on various dates and school functions. I usually declined, not wanting to be a third wheel, but I did really appreciate the thought. Matty would sometimes sit down and chat with me when he saw me sitting alone in the dining hall, even if he wasn’t eating himself. Recker and Onti were teaching me how to play golf, because the school had a green, and I was the only serious hockey dude they knew who didn’t know how to play. Their kindness made me feel like an absolute monster for previously judging them on their inability to score.
Some of the younger members of VMH had also made it their mission to help me “get the stick out of my ass.” That was their exact choice of words. And they didn’t even know about the gay thing.
Point is, they were constantly trying to get me to go out drinking with them or to show my face at this house party or that. I honestly didn’t know how they managed it. Just the thought of partying as often as they did, made me feel tired. I liked to be in bed before ten, so I could get up early and train before all the good machines were taken.
However, that all changed on this one particular Friday. I had just gotten out of the shower after practicing and the boys were doing their usual weekend spiel about me needing to loosen up and go with them to a frat party. For some incredibly dumb reason, I found myself saying yes. Maybe it was because I was still feeling sorry for myself over my brief and torrid love affair with Peter or maybe I was just overconfident due to my recent string of good luck on the ice. Either way, I’d given the boys an inch and it was too late to back out now without looking like a complete and utter pussy. We didn’t even have a game this weekend for me to use as an excuse.
So, after a brief trip back to my room I met Vinny, Phony, Farmer, and Stole outside of the gym dressed in some clothes that were pretty basic, but still slightly nicer than anything they’d ever seen me in. Vinny let out a whistle when he saw me and gave me a huge clap on the back.
“Look who owns clothes outside of athletic wear,” he said.
I rolled my eyes and didn’t bother explaining that I’d worn this exact outfit last Tuesday.
“I’m already starting to regret this,” I said.
Vinny laughed and we all piled into the cab of Phony’s pickup truck. He drove us a couple of miles off campus to an actual real-life frat house. The house itself was pretty plain with fake grass out front in the tiny yard, beige paint on the surface, and black curtains blocking out all of the front facing windows. What gave it away were the bright red Greek letters, I had no idea which ones, painted across the door. Not to mention the bumping music and sounds of drunken chatter spilling out from inside. I swear, the longer I was at college, the more I realized that movies weren’t as far off about this kind of thing as I had always thought they were.
The boys and I hopped out of the truck and dusted ourselves off before approaching the marked-up door. We walked right inside without knocking. There was nobody posted anywhere to stop us.
Inside was a spacious living room with all of the furniture pushed to the sides in order to create a makeshift dance floor. Somebody had managed to mount two industrial-sized speakers to the wall on either side of a giant TV that featured some sort of music video with half naked girls dancing around in a nightclub. The lights were dim and flashing various colors in time with the music. To the right of that was a long spiral staircase that led up to a landing that appeared to be just as crowded with people as the lower level. There were red plastic cups and beer cans littered everywhere for as far as my eyes could see. I instantly felt way out of my league.
Farmer and Vinny quickly broke off from the group and dispersed into the crowd, presumably to find some willing “hot-enough” girls to grind on. I followed Phony and Stole into the wide-open kitchen where there were yet even more people gathered around a table playing beer pong. Stole expertly maneuvered around them to get to the absurd amount of booze splayed out over the granite countertops. When he returned to us, he was carrying three cups that smelled vaguely like fruit juice mixed with lighter fluid. He handed one of them to me and I only pretended to take a sip of it.
Normally I would have taken this opportunity to talk with them about hockey stats and how the season was going so far, but the music was too loud to have any conversation that couldn’t be conveyed through nodding and hand gestures. So, the three of us hovered there in the kitchen for a moment before the silence started to get awkward and my teammates pretty much left me to my own devices.
Here’s the thing about social anxiety. It can be easy to forget you have it when you rarely ever socialize. Just standing by myself in the kitchen was making me feel kind of nauseous. I wandered out into the living room and stared down at the greenish liquid in the bottom of my cup in contemplation.
Like I’d told my mom on the day she’d dropped me off here, I wasn’t prone to making dumb decisions. I had always abstained from drugs and alcohol out of fear that they would interfere with my performance on the ice. My body was my temple. I didn’t very much like the idea of introducing any kind of substance that would inhibit my cognitive abilities, no matter how temporary. Plus, it’s not like pro hockey players ever got to drink during the season. Not with three or four games every week and practices every morning. It was easy enough to tell myself that I wasn’t missing out on anything so much as preparing myself for the future. Also, at only nineteen, I was still technically underage. I was black, gay, and into a sport that nobody really cared about. The last thing I needed was a criminal record on top of all that.
Every moment spent in this cramped godforsaken house was making my chest constrict tighter. I was starting to get a headache from squinting so much in the dim light and the music felt like it was pounding its way through to the inside of my skull—and I’d had a concussion, so I knew what things bouncing around the inside of your skull felt like.
Each of these uncomfortable sensations on their own wouldn’t have been enough to break my resolve, but all of them combined had me considering it. Nobody else on the dance floor looked like they constantly wanted to hyperventilate. They were carefree and loose in the face of my suffering. That fruity poison was looking better by the minute.
My final straw came when some blonde girl wearing a white crop top and jeans that looked like they were painted on made herself comfortable wrapped around my torso like a spider monkey.
“Excuse me,” I said, trying at first to politely disentangle myself, but the girl only clung to me tighter.
“You’re cute,” she said with a giggle. “Like a thug, but awkward.”
I blinked a few times. It wasn’t a bad description of me honestly.
“Uh, thanks?”
She pulled back so that I could see some of her face, but kept her arms circled around me. She would’ve been pretty if it wasn’t for the mountain of smudged makeup covering her whole face. It made her look like a doll that someone had dunked in nail polish remover. How do I know what that looks like, you ask? I fell into an internet hole of doll repainting videos this one time, okay. Stop judging me. Point is, Count Smudge-ula was looking at me with a terrible approximation of bedroom eyes, and I was so not having it.
“Do you wanna get out of here?” she asked.
I mean I did, but definitely not with her.
“No, thank you,” I said decisively.
I thought I saw the girl’s smile waver for a moment, but then it was right back. “Oh, okay. Well, there are bedrooms upstairs. Let’s go somewhere a bit more private.” She said the word private as if I got to decide what it meant.
Before I could even open my mouth to refuse her she was grabbing me by the wrist in an attempt to get me to climb the staircase, but I had about one hundred pounds on her and I wasn’t budging.
She turned back to me with a frown.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. She had to shout to be heard now that she was no longer standing all up in my personal space.
“You seem really nice,” I lied. “But I’m just not interested.”
Her eyebrows scrunched together incredulously as if I’d just called her ugly or fat.
“Why not?” she demanded.
“You’re not exactly my type…”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m every boy’s type. Try again.”
“Uh...I, uh, have a girlfriend?” I supplied. It sounded as ridiculous as it felt.
She made a point of putting a hand over her eyebrows and cartoonishly scanning the room.
“Well, I don’t see your girlfriend anywhere so…” She tugged at my wrist one more time and tilted her body so that her breasts were practically spilling out of her shirt.
Finally, I was annoyed enough to ignore my manners completely and yanked my hand away from this unnamed girl. Without my rock-solid body mass to tether her, she lost her balance on her impractical stilt-like shoes and went tumbling to the ground.
“What the fuck?!” she shouted at me. “What the hell’s your problem, dipshit?”
She didn’t stay angry for long though. After less than a second of being on the floor, not one, but two new guys appeared at her side, offering to help her up. She ate up their attention, instantly forgetting all about me. Thank God.
I turned away from the human train wreck, exhaled loudly, and downed the contents of my cup in one go without a second thought. Then, I went back into the kitchen for more. I drank everything I could get my hands on. I didn’t want to remember what’s-her-face or my stupid team or anything else about this awful night.
With every new sip I could feel my consciousness blurring at the edges. Hockey was fading rapidly to the back of my mind, like I was stuck in a suddenly widening tunnel with nothing but new and interesting opportunities ahead. There were so many cool things to look at. Why would I ever spend my time and energy worrying about a silly game?
Through the fog I was vaguely aware of some people laughing at me and cheering me on as I stood near the beer pong table and drank. Then, all of a sudden my vision started getting fuzzier than my head. I was dizzy and my legs were too wobbly to stand on. With the help of a kind stranger, I found my way over to a nice soft patch of carpet where I laid down and stared up at the ceiling. The sounds that had been so obnoxious earlier had settled into a thick pleasant wave in the back of my thoughts. Every time I blinked the noise grew fainter and farther away, until I stopped blinking altogether and faded willingly into the blackness.