HALLE
THE WHOLE ARENA IS BUZZING and I can’t get myself to feel anything beyond pure nausea.
Cami hands me a giant soda cup that she previously suggested I use as a weapon against Will’s parents if I need to. She also oIered to add a splash of vodka for courage—courage I desperately need with my mom sitting on my right wearing Will’s name on the back of her jersey—but I politely declined.
There’s only one thing that’s going to make me an anxious wreck this weekend: he has blond hair and a bad attitude and will be getting on the ice at any moment.
I’ve always desperately wanted close friends, but I never truly understood what it meant to have them until the moment Aurora bribed the students beside us to switch seats. All so I didn’t have to sit with my family on my own. She said it would be her worst nightmare, and she couldn’t live with herself if she let me go through it alone.
As soon as the 1rst player steps onto the ice, I take a deep breath and shrug oI my jacket, the UCMH logo bright and bold in the middle of my chest with TURNER running across my shoulders.
“Halle,” Mom groans as soon as she sees the orange. “I thought you’d wear Will’s jersey. This isn’t very supportive of you.”
I take a big sip. “I’m making a point to support my school and my friends.” “You’re making a very insensitive point. It’s not fair to rub Will’s nose in it,
knowing you have a new friend. I think you should wear Will’s jersey
tomorrow.”
I feel like I’m going to be sick and nothing’s even happened yet. One by one, the team steps onto the ice. I count them. There’s something wrong. I turn to Aurora in the seat beside me. “Where’s Henry? And Will?”
I watch as every other player arrives, except for the two of them. I can hear Will’s parents start to mutter, then my stepdad’s voice. I wait, counting to sixty in my head like maybe there’s just a little delay and they’ll be out any second. They’re not coming. Something’s wrong.
Standing, I’m immediately stopped by a hand on my wrist. “Where are you going?”
“I’ll be right back,” I say to Mom, handing my drink to Aurora. “Do you want me to come with you?” Emilia asks as I pass her. “No, I’ll be right back.”
I 1ght through the lines on the stairs as people try to get to their seats to watch the game begin. It’s like trying to run through sand, and every person stepping into my way is just frustrating me more and more. My mind is jumping through every possibility and none of them are nice.
Adrenaline is fueling me as I stride toward the no-access door, praying I 1nd Henry somewhere on the other side of it.
“Halle!” my mom shouts behind me. “For God’s sake, slow down!” “Mom, it’s 1ne, go back to Paul. I just need to see what’s happened.”
“That door says no entry; you can’t go in there,” she says as my hand meets the metal.
I turn to face her, frustrated that I’m so close. “I know, but it’s 1ne, it’s to the locker rooms. We use it all the time and—”
“What is going on with you?” Her hands are gripping her waist as she shakes her head. “Is this why you aren’t visiting? Hardly call anymore? Stopped showing any enthusiasm toward your real family and friends? Because you’re busy with a new man? And what? You want to make Will jealous?”
I can name at least one hundred reasons why I do not want to have this conversation with my mother, but I can’t think of any of them right now, because all I want to do is check that Henry is okay. “I don’t care what Will feels, Mom. I’m so beyond worrying about what he’s thinking, and I wish you were, too.”
“I feel like you’re not the same person you were the last time I saw you. What will the Ellingtons think? I don’t know where my caring, loving daughter has gone!” she says, her voice getting louder with every word until she’s shouting at me from six feet away.
“Good!” I yell back, the stress ricocheting around my body 1nally spilling over. I take a few steps toward her. “Because that Halle was miserable! And she was lonely! And she was stuck in a relationship with someone who pressured her to do things she wasn’t ready to do and made her feel like there was something wrong with her! I’m tired of worrying about your reaction to decisions I make about my own life!”
My mom might be imperfect, but I know she’d never want that for me. “Honey…”
“I’m tired of having to think about everyone else before myself. I’m tired of putting everyone else’s needs before my own. I’m tired of feeling like the only way I can make people like me is by doing something for them!”
“Halle, that isn’t true. We love you so much,” she says, her voice softer than before, but it’s too late. I can’t put a lid on it. “Unconditionally!”
“I stopped visiting because when Will broke up with me, we agreed that he
could go home and I wouldn’t, so you guys didn’t pressure us to get back together! And I hardly call, because every time I do you put something on me. I have to speak to someone or organize something or tutor someone or listen to you talk about everyone else without asking how I’m doing. I’m trying to write a book for a competition, and you don’t even know because you don’t ask me about my aspirations! But you’ve never missed a second of Grayson holding a football!”
I can hear myself ranting but I can’t make it stop. Even with Mom standing in front of me, stunned, I can’t stop the words from tumbling out of my mouth. “I hate being the family manager. I hate that the only time anyone ever thinks of me is because they want something from me. I hate feeling like I’m everyone’s mom when all I ever want when I call is my own mom. Being the eldest daughter is a curse and I’m sick of it.”
Her face sinks. “Halle. You’re understandably very emotional right now, and I think we should discuss how you’re feeling back at the house.”
“I am emotional because something bad has probably happened to someone I really care about, and instead of 1nding him we’re arguing about Will freaking Ellington and the fact I haven’t had a minute of peace since birth!”
“We are not arguing. I’m just trying to understand what’s going on with my daughter! I want you to be happy, Halle. I hate that you’ve been keeping this ‘friend’ a secret from us. This is him then, the artist? I want to understand! I just need you to make things clear for me, honey.”
“I love him! Is that clear enough for you?” Tears are running down my face and I don’t know when they started, but there seems to be no sign of them slowing down. The reality of 1nally understanding my feelings for Henry at the same time as screaming my grievances at my mom is too much for a Friday evening. “Henry is my best friend and I fell in love with him when I wasn’t supposed to and now I need to check that he’s okay.”
“I’ve always wanted Will for you, but never at the expense of your happiness,
honey. Will has been your only true friend for so long, and I was scared if you guys broke up that you’d be lonely. I didn’t mean to make you feel like you couldn’t make your own choices.” She looks like she’s on the brink of tears and I feel awful. “Would you like me to help you 1nd your friend? Henry, was it?”
The storm inside of me starts to subside. “No, I’ll do it alone.”
“Okay, we’ll talk more in private later. I love you, Halle. All I want is for you to be happy.” Closing the space between us she traps me in a tight hug. “I’m sorry I’ve put so much on you. I promise we’ll 1x it.”
It’s at that point I realize all I really wanted was a hug from my mom. “I’m sorry I just yelled at you.”
“Shush now,” she says, stroking the back of my head gently. “I can survive one outburst in twenty years.”
After kissing me on the forehead, she heads back the way she came toward the seating. I don’t move at 1rst; I just watch her walk away while wiping the tears with the back of my hand. I jump when hands land on my shoulders, but immediately relax as soon as I hear him murmur my name.
Spinning around, I 1nd Henry standing behind me dressed in his normal gym clothes, his bag slung over his shoulder. His face is calm, but there’s
something missing. A spark, I don’t know. I know my instincts are right and something has happened.
“What happened? Why aren’t you playing?” He hears the murmurs of people hanging around behind us at the same time I do.
He nods toward the rink exit. “Can we talk outside? Or in your car?”
“Do you want me to give you a ride somewhere?” I ask. “You’re in your clothes and you’re leaving with your bag, so I’m guessing something has happened? Right?”
“Do you not want to watch the game?” he says, voice steady in a way that makes me want to shake him and 1nd out what’s happened.
I feel like I’m losing my mind a little as I shake my head. “If you’re not playing in it, absolutely not.”
“Okay, let’s go home.”
I’d love to say that the car journey from the rink to Henry’s house is 1lled with a very detailed and interesting conversation about what the hell happened, but the reality is Henry doesn’t say one word until we’re walking into his house.
“Do you want a drink?” he asks, dropping his bag next to the couch and walking toward the fridge.
“Do I want a drink? No! I want to know what the fuck is going on before I actually lose it.”
He sighs, dropping onto the couch. I immediately take the spot beside him, not touching him, as much as I want to, because there’s something about him that’s oI, and I don’t want to do something to push him over. When I’m 1nally close to him I see the top of his cheekbone is starting to swell. “Is that swelling? Did you get into a 1ght?”
“Fighting is for fools, and I’m not a fool,” he says, smiling at 1rst then grimacing when he rubs his hand against the growing bruise. “He fought. I just got in the way of it.”
My hand covers my mouth, because if I don’t I feel like I’m going to scream this house down from frustration. Lowering my voice to a whisper, I give him a look that hopefully shows that I’m pleading with him. “Please give me a straight answer and just tell me what happened.”
“There’s a small area between the home and away hallways that meets before it goes into our respective tunnels. It’s because they confused the designs when they were building the arenas because of the other rink and they’d already started constructing and—”
“Henry, please.”
“Sorry. We call it no-man’s-land, but it’s basically just a short hallway that links us to the visitors. Under no circumstances do we stray into it and mess with the other team; Faulkner would have our heads. Will didn’t get the memo and had some shit to say. I said some stuI, he said some stuI, I said some stuI back. He was being aggressive. I’m not playing.”
“I feel like I’m a sim and someone is canceling the action where you give me a full explanation. He was being aggressive, I’m not playing doesn’t help ease how sick with anxiety I feel right now. I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be hard work, but give me something. What’s so bad that you’re avoiding telling me?”
His face tells me I’m right immediately. He reaches for one of my hands and brings it to his mouth, kissing the back of it. “It isn’t nice, Halle. I don’t want to say it.”
“If it was worth 1ghting over, I think I have the right to know.”
“I didn’t 1ght; he fought. I know you don’t like 1ghting, so I didn’t,” he says seriously.
I’m confused beyond words. “So if you didn’t 1ght, how come you’re not playing?”
Henry rubs his jaw and looks everywhere but me. When I don’t look away, he kisses the back of my hand again. “Because I wouldn’t tell Faulkner what Will said. He said if I wasn’t going to be honest with him then I wasn’t going to play. I said 1ne. He said if I wasn’t prepared to do things I didn’t want to do for the sake of my team, maybe we needed to talk about if I have the right attitude to be captain.”
My heart is breaking for him. I know how hard he’s worked. “Oh, Henry.” “And then I walked out after he was gone.”
“What can I do?” I ask, the desperation clear in my voice.
“I need to feel you. Can I?” I nod as he holds out his arms, and I’ve never needed to touch someone as much as I do right now. I think he feels the same
because he tugs on my leg to pull it over his until I’m straddling his hips. He keeps my head to his chest, breathing deeply as he kisses my forehead.
His mouth works down the bridge of my nose gently, until he kisses my mouth, hesitant at 1rst until it deepens. We don’t talk as we begin to pull at each other’s clothes. I have this frantic need to feel close to him, to keep him near me, almost like somehow deep down it feels like he’s slipping away when he’s right in front of me. I can’t explain it, but I think he feels it too.
Henry holds me close as he lowers me onto the Roor. Every touch serves a purpose to get us closer together until he sinks inside me. He’s careful and tender, telling me everything and nothing in every kiss, every thrust. I cling to him tighter, and when stars burst behind my eyes, I still don’t want to let him go. I want to believe that it’s grounding to him, that it rids him of all the extra energy plaguing him. But it feels like an apology. Or maybe, it feels like a goodbye.
Henry rolls oI me, pulling up his sweatpants and immediately helping me pull my panties back up. It’s dirty and emotional, and yet neither of us is saying anything when we stare up at the ceiling of his living room. We’re both breathing heavily, but it’s the only sound.
“I need you to tell me what he said. Please, Henry. I’m going to create my own answers if you don’t tell me, and it’ll probably be far worse than the actual truth.”
“Even though it’s disgusting and will hurt you?” he asks quietly.
“If something is so bad you’ll risk the thing you’ve been working hard for all year, then I feel like I need to know what it was. I know adjusting has been hard, but you’re such a great leader. You can’t throw it away. I’ll only make you say it once, I promise.”
He takes a breath and tells me as calmly as he can. My stomach twists as I hear how Will talked about my body. Henry pauses, which gives me a chance to apologize. “I’m so sorry, Henry. I know how hard you’ve been working to beat him fairly.”
“He asked me if I liked the things he’d taught you,” Henry adds, and everything that comes after makes tears 1ll my eyes, but I don’t let them fall.
Will Ellington isn’t worth crying over, and he never has been.
Henry is right, it is disgusting, and it’s a weird moment where the anger and the upset 1ght against each other in my body. But as horrible as Will is, as embarrassed as I feel, I would never want Henry to lose something over me. “You should tell your coach what he said. I can drive you back to the rink right now, and you can tell him and all of this can be 1xed so you can play tomorrow.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Now isn’t the time to be stubborn, Henry. We can 1x this. I’m not worth getting in trouble over. I’ll get over the embarrassment. Please let me help you. Don’t make me watch you spiral.”
“I felt relieved, Halle. When he said I might not get to be captain anymore, for the 1rst time all year I was happy about hockey. And I don’t know what to do with that information. I feel really lost about the things I have and the things I want. I think I might need a bit of time to sort my head and my feelings out.”
I 1nd his hand on the Roor beside me and hold it tight. I make up my mind about what I’m going to say, then change it, then decide again. A lifetime passes before I speak. “I broke a rule, Henry. It’s a big one; number four. Anastasia was right.”
He brings the hand clutching his to his mouth, kissing my skin gently. “I know. When I feel better, I’ll ask the board to forgive me for not doing number 1ve.” He isn’t going to break my heart. “Can you give me time? I’m worried that if you’re around when this all hits me that I’ll push you away. I promise you and Joy can have me back when I feel better. I just don’t deal with things well when everyone is around me. I feel a bit numb now, but I don’t think that will last, so I’m going to go to my parents’ house.”
I want to beg him to let me help him, but he clearly doesn’t want my help. As hard as it is to accept, especially when it comes to someone I love, I can’t 1x everything. “Yes.”
“This is the one thing you’re allowed to say no to me about,” he says, voice soft.
“I can give you time to get your head straight, Henry. As much time as you need. Just promise you’ll come back to me as soon as you feel better.”
“I promise.”
