Page 95 of On His Mind

Theo’s name goes past me and lands nowhere. It’s strange, actually — a month ago it was a lever I pulled when I needed to feel nothing, and now it’s just a name at a party I might not even go to, because I know exactly what I want now, and it isn’t Theo Marsh.

Mara’s saying something about the party. I let it move on. I don’t think about it again.

I get home from Gianna’s a little before midnight, ears still ringing from the noise of it, my face done up in Mara’s eyeliner, and my apartment is quiet. Ivory must be out again.

I sit down at the table. The mill’s been waiting for me all day. I’ve been thinking about it in the back of my head through crit and through Renata’s markups, the riverside of it, the problem of the loading dock that wants to be a door. I pull the sheets toward me, and I’m gone again, the way I’ve been gone all week, my hand ahead of my head. It’s the best feeling I know. And he’s in it. That’s the thing I keep not saying, even to myself, even here where no one will know. Every line I’ve put down this week has come easier since Sunday.

When it’s past midnight again, my tea’s gone cold, and there are three new sheets on the pile. The first thing I want — before I’ve even stretched my neck — is to tell him, so I pull out my phone and tap on his name.

Me:I’m drawing again.

I set the phone where I can see it and go back to the mill. It doesn’t light up. I don’t notice. I’ve got a river and a hundred-year-old wall and a run of windows to solve, and he’s got earlyice. I’m so full that I work until almost two and never once look at the dark screen on the corner of the table.

Chapter 31

Percy

Stanley’sanswerisstillsitting in me, five days later, and it won’t move.

You give everything to the net, or you give some to a person. It’s not fair to her.

He’s right. And it’s a problem. I’ve got a real shot at the net if I do nothing else but chase it for four years. Stanley laid it out plain, in good faith, that a guy who wants what I want has nothing left over to give somebody. Scraps. Years of coming second to a sport for a maybe.

And if all I’ve got to give her is scraps, the decent thing is to not give her the scraps. She’s got a life, a future, and a plan. She’s a good girl. She doesn’t need a foster kid with no room in him dragging her through years just for a maybe to the NHL. Thekind thing, the right thing, is to step back before I take anything from her I can’t give back.

I’m on the ice at six every morning that week. I let myself in with the code, and Blue and Benson are already there, half-dressed, because the three of us have been the early group since September, and nobody ever says a word about it — you just show up.

Benson shoots. Blue shoots. They take turns feeding me pucks off the wall while I work the high glove side, the half-inch that beat me back in October, over and over — glove up, track it, catch it in the pocket and not the heel. Benson picks up on what I’m doing without me saying it and starts putting them there on purpose, high blocker, high glove, the shots I hate, and I stop them. He grunts and does it again harder. Blue works me post to post until my legs are shaking.

By Thursday, I’m sharper than I’ve been all season. Coach Fuller watches me for a while from the bench and says, “Stay on that.” I do until the building’s empty and my legs are done and there’s nothing left in me to feel anything with.

Thursday night I almost break.

I start typing on my phone.

I can’t stop thinking about Sunday.

My thumb is over the arrow, and I want to send it so bad that my hand aches with it. I delete it and put the phone down. Instead, I sit down and do my homework because I’m determined to reach a 4.0 this semester. Nothing’s going to stop me from that.

Halfway into this report, and there’s a flicker of doubt that maybe Stanley’s wrong. There are guys that do both, aren’t there? And maybe I could have the netandher.

The thought is gone just as fast as it came because I can’t do it. It would mean breaking the Hawthorne House rules, and I don’thave it in me to betray the one place that has come to feel like home.

Tonight is a home game. We’re at the rink by four for a seven o’clock puck drop — tape and stretch and video, then the long slow dress-down where everybody’s got three hours to kill and nothing to do but get in each other’s business. I’m in my stall pulling my gear on in the order Josh taught me. Two down from me, Stanley’s already going.

“I’m serious, Marsh. Roll the tape. You had the whole lane—”

“I didn’t have the lane.” Theo doesn’t look up from his skate.

“You had a highway. You had all day. I’m cross-ice screaming for it and you walk into two guys like it’s a dare.”

“You were covered.”

“I was open.”

“You’re always open in your own head.” Theo pulls his lace tight. “That’s not the same as being open on the ice.”

Stanley points a roll of tape at him. “We lost that game by one, and it’s because you’d rather stickhandle into a wall than make the simple pass. You know how many goals you’ve cost me this year holding it too long?”