by Claire Adams
I tried to keep a handle on myself, but I was so upset, so frustrated with my failure to get the full story out of him sooner, so horrified by what my mom had discovered about Claire White and what had led to her suicide, that I started to breathe in little fast, sharp gasps. I was driving well over the speed limit; staying in my lane, but hyper-aware of everyone around me, the few cars were at that time of the evening. I gripped my steering wheel with white knuckles. I was going too fast, and there were too many cars around me for me to change the music on my phone. I couldn’t let myself get distracted. It seemed like even in the post-rush hour traffic, there were at least a couple of drivers who were either drunk or absolutely not paying attention to the world around them.
Just as I was starting to get used to the cars around me, just when I was starting to calm down and keep my mind on getting to the game as safely as I could, a car came rushing up in the lane next to me, speeding and darting around the other vehicles on the road. My heart started pounding as it approached, and I gripped my wheel tighter than ever, starting to breathe heavier as my heart beat faster. It moved to swerve around the car just in front of me in the same lane, and I stomped on the brake, narrowly slowing down in time to avoid being sideswiped by it. I heard myself let out a little yelping shout of fear, and my hands started to shake on the wheel, my leg trembling from the pressure of my foot on the brake. Everything seemed to be spinning; the car directly behind me laid on the horn, and I shook, tears starting to blur my vision.
I pulled over onto the shoulder as quickly as I could, spasms of fear and panic rushing all through my muscles. I was hyperventilating, shaking all over as I put the car in park and leaned over the wheel. Oh God. Oh God. Get yourself together, Becky. I started to sob and the sharp, aching pain in my side flared up again as I lost all control of my breathing. Elliott Smith droned around me in the car, and I heard one or two people honk their horns as they blew past me in the lane; it was impossible for me to know whether they were trying to insult me or if they were somehow trying to signal me to see if I needed help.
I cried until the last of the sobs worked their way out of me, leaving my stomach aching and my side throbbing with pain. I slammed my hand down on the steering wheel. Everything felt so completely helpless; I couldn’t think. I snatched up my phone and changed the music. I had to get myself together. I had to find a way to collect what little composure I had. I didn’t want to show up at the game looking like a total mess. I took a deep breath and grabbed for the tissues in my glove compartment, rubbing at my face. I took another deep breath and flipped down the mirror to see that my eyes and cheeks were red from crying, but I didn’t look nearly as terrible as I had imagined I did.
I swallowed down the last of my tears and wiped at my face a few more times. I pulled my hair back into a bun and found an elastic in my purse to hold it in place. There. I closed my eyes and willed my heart to slow down. I would get to the game, and I would talk to Johnny, and then everything would—somehow—get better. I’d have answers, at least. I couldn’t let my panic make me do stupid things that would get me killed before I could even talk to the man I loved. I flipped through my music library and picked a Yeah Yeah Yeahs album and put it on. I felt stronger already. I was only another hour away from the stadium where Johnny and the team would be playing. I had to focus. I had to get there and find a way to get Johnny alone to talk to him.
I looked into my peripheral mirror and watched the slight evening traffic passing me by. I got out of park and gathered speed on the shoulder, signaling that I was trying to get back onto the road. Eventually, I was able to slip in and continue on my way towards the stadium, towards the site of Johnny’s away game. I sang along with Karen O. and managed to keep myself at a normal pace, managed to keep from panicking as I made my way down the highway. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to the conversation that I had to have with Johnny, but I knew I didn’t have any other real choice in the situation. It would have to happen. I would have to get there on time. I had to keep myself under control until I found out what the situation really was. I had to hope that Johnny would tell me the truth.
Chapter Four
By the time I was finally able to get to the stadium at the college where Johnny was playing, I knew that the game had to be more than half over. I went to the ticket booth, and the woman at the counter gave me a funny look when I asked for a ticket for our team’s section. “Well the game’s in the end of the third quarter, so I don’t know why you’d waste your time coming all the way here,” she said, taking my card and running it. “I’ll give you the ticket for half-price. Not many tickets in your section, so you can have a good seat for it.” I thanked her with a smile and grabbed my ticket, moving into the stadium as quickly as I could. Parking had been difficult to find, and I dreaded the walk back out to my car at the end of the night, especially if I managed to talk to Johnny the way I was planning to. But I would just have to suck it up and deal with it.
I found that my ticket gave me a seat right behind the glass, instead of up in the higher rows; the woman at the ticket booth had been right—there weren’t many of our fans in the stands. I looked out on the ice. The game was still hot and heavy, and I glanced at the scoreboard to see we were ahead by a couple of points. That is good, at least, I thought wryly. I’d hate to bother Johnny with accusations of being a rapist and abuser when he’s just lost a game. I took my seat. The section for our team was small, but everyone was cheering, most of them shouting Johnny’s name.
I spotted him on the ice, playing just as hard and just as well as he ever had when I had watched him—better, in fact than he had been playing when he knew I was in the audience watching him. Georgia had joked that I was distracting the star player just by my presence, but her joke seemed to have a good bit of substance as I watched Johnny dominate on the ice. He nearly got into a brawl with one of the other team’s players. The refs broke it up just in time, and I shook my head, feeling irritated instead of panicky. There was no question in my mind that Johnny was fully capable of being aggressive, but was he capable of hurting a girl he loved? How do you know he loved Claire? Because he told you? But how do you know you can trust anything he says? I chewed at my bottom lip; it was starting to become sore from how often I had pulled it between my teeth in the last several hours, but I didn’t care.
Johnny looked like he was having a great time, and I couldn’t help but feel a little irritated at the fact that he was clearly totally oblivious to what was going on in my life. Where had he been, and what had he been doing when I had texted him before? It had been before the game. I frowned as I watched him streaming across the ice, almost too fast to watch. Certainly no one on the other team had anyone who could keep up with him for more than a few seconds before he blasted past. The goalie on the other team was working overtime to keep the lead that our side had from growing. One of the other team’s players stole the puck from one of Johnny’s teammates and managed to get in a quick shot that our goalie wasn’t quite fast enough to knock aside, leaving the lead to just a point.
There was a break between quarters, and I watched as Johnny went over to the sidelines. I could barely see his face through his mask, but I could tell he was grinning. I felt a surge of irritation. How was he so happy? If he had been behind the torment that had led to Claire’s death, how could he ever be that happy again? I clenched my teeth as I saw him fist-bump one of his teammates. It didn’t seem fair that I had spent the last several hours—and before that, a couple of days—in a writhing torture of fear, worry, and sadness and here he was playing as if nothing else in the world was on his mind, as if nothing could possibly bother him. I saw him laugh at something one of his teammates said to him as he went in to grab a squeeze-bottle of water.
He pulled his mask back and his helmet off, and I watched him take a long swig of the water. His hair was soaked with sweat, his face dripping with it. In spite of my irritation, I couldn’t help but notice how attractive he was, and I felt angry even as
I felt my body warming up in reaction, glowing from the way he’d attacked the game. He poured water over his face, and I felt a jolt rush through me. Stop that, I told myself irritably. You’re here for a reason, and it’s not to ogle Johnny. But as I watched him laughing and joking with his friends in the brief break between quarters, I couldn’t quite hold onto the idea that he was some brutal, abusive psychopath. He couldn’t be that way and have friends; I would ask him about Claire and what had really happened, about what my mother had found out, and he would set my mind at ease. He couldn’t have been involved. It had to be some kind of misunderstanding—something I couldn’t even imagine, but nonetheless, there had to be some way to explain what had happened that would leave him completely and totally blameless in the whole situation.
It was so hard for me to focus as I watched the game, staring at Johnny. He had no idea I was there, which almost made it harder for me to decide how I felt about him; he was totally unguarded, completely himself. I could see that he was the same way with his teammates as he had been with me from the very beginning, but I also saw that he definitely had an aggressive side. He pushed and shoved, he crashed into other players with his shoulder; I saw him send one of the other team’s players sliding sprawled on the ice in a quick sideswipe movement that was all too reminiscent of my near-miss in the car ride up to the college and felt sick to my stomach. But just because someone was capable of being aggressive in an aggressive sport didn’t mean that they were capable of abusing their girlfriend, did it?
Our team once more increased their lead, Johnny getting in a rapid-fire goal. I realized watching them play that I had started, almost without realizing it, to learn the game, to understand what was going on around me. I cheered with the people in the section, though I didn’t call Johnny’s name. No one seemed to know who I was, and at least at an away game like this, I didn’t see the stupid redhead from the dining hall screaming for my boyfriend or flashing him. It was obvious that Johnny was a big fan favorite everywhere—there were plenty of girls shouting for him, but he seemed to ignore them all. I didn’t know whether I should be flattered by that or not. I didn’t know at all how I felt about what I was seeing. I didn’t know what to think.
The game began to wind down, and our team settled for playing defense, holding the other team, already exhausted, but still desperate to even the score and take it into overtime, at bay. As long as they could manage to keep the other team from scoring more than one point, they would win. It seemed almost like a foregone conclusion to me, and I nearly got out of my seat, impatient for the game to be over. I remembered Johnny telling me—about the team he was watching on TV—that his team always won. I hadn’t thought about it much since that night, but there was something almost sinister about that comment.
I made myself hold still and just stare straight in front of me, cheering when everyone around me did, not really paying attention to the commentary or even what was going on. If it was true that Johnny had done something to torture his own girlfriend, then I wouldn’t have to know anything at all about hockey anymore. I was not going to stay with a man who could do that. Do you know he did that? Are you even going to give him an opportunity to explain what happened? Or are you just here to shove what you’ve already decided in his face? I took a deep breath. I was going to let him explain, but I was going to make sure that I didn’t give him an opportunity to charm me out of it or brush aside the need to explain anything. My need to know for sure was more important than the desire to not believe that Johnny was capable of what he was being accused of. I had to know the truth.
Chapter Five
The game finally ended, and I waited for everyone to file out of the stands, watching as Johnny and his teammates celebrated on the sidelines, laughing and cheering and jostling each other like the boys they were. I sighed, wondering just how I was going to manage to get a chance to talk to him. I waited until everyone had left the bleachers except for me, and then I wandered out, clenching my ticket in my hands. There had to be a locker room area I could get to; the stadium wasn’t that big.
I wandered around and around, wondering if I had lost my mind or if I was going around in circles, until I found what I wanted. The stadium was next to deserted, and I felt my fear creeping back up inside of me. It had to take a lot of time for a whole team of guys to get showered and changed, didn’t it? But I couldn’t tell how long I had been wandering in order to find the visitor locker room. I wasn’t even entirely sure if I had found the right one. I fidgeted as I waited, wondering just how long I could make myself stand there, looking like an idiot. No one, apparently, had waited to talk to the guys after the game. Their smaller group of fans this far away from the college probably just wanted to get home. It wasn’t super late in the evening, but late enough that I was starting to wonder if I had been an idiot to drive so far just to watch the last part of a winning game and not even accomplish what I had come for.
Just as I was beginning to lose hope, players started to come out of the locker room; one or two of them leered at me but kept walking, and I was relieved that I wasn’t going to have to deal with them, too. I kept looking for Johnny to come out as more and more of the players emerged. I knew he had to be there—I had seen him on the ice, hadn’t I? What if he showered fast and just went back to the bus? I pushed the thought aside.
A small group of players came out, walking a little more slowly than the other guys I’d seen, and I recognized them as friends of Johnny’s, and I thought I remembered seeing them at the Phi Kappa party. “Hey, Becky! Johnny didn’t say you were coming out to support us,” one of them said, spotting me. I smiled nervously.
“I didn’t know I was coming out until I did,” I said, trying to keep my voice level. “He hasn’t already gone back to the bus, has he? I kind of wanted to talk to him.” Johnny’s teammate flashed me a grin.
“Nah, he’s being a prima donna in there. You can go on in; we’re the last ones out besides him. It’s a good thing you’re here. If he isn’t out in five, he’s going to miss the bus. At least he’ll have a ride home.” I tried to laugh, but my heart was already beating faster. Johnny was alone in the locker room. I tried to think of why he would still be in there. Maybe he’d finally gotten my texts. He had no idea I was only a few yards away from him.
“Thanks,” I told the player. I let him give me a quick hug before he and the others went on their way towards the parking lot and the waiting bus there, and then took a deep breath. I was going to go in there, and I was going to ask the questions that had been weighing on me all this time.
It felt weird walking into a men’s locker room, even though I could see as soon as I came to the end of the hallway leading into it that the other guys on the team hadn’t been lying—there was no one else in there. I wandered past the lockers, looking around, feeling almost pervy. The smell of sweat and male funk was so strong I almost didn’t want to breathe through my nose. I heard the sound of a shower running and started off in that direction.
I found the line of showers—open, not even a single curtain to give any privacy—just in time to watch Johnny hang his towel on a hook, safely out of the range of the shower heads. As firmly as I’d told myself that I wasn’t going to get distracted, I found myself staring at him. I had seen him naked so many times already that it should have been easy to just call his name and start talking to him, but I had somehow managed to forget just how gorgeous he was. God. It’s not even fair.
My gaze moved down from Johnny’s sweat-darkened hair, along his broad, strong shoulders and muscular back. His legs were built up from hours upon hours of skating, and I could make out every ridge and valley where the muscles had built up. My legs felt weak and in spite of my determination to talk to him, I felt myself getting hot all over, my pussy starting to get wet.
I bit my lip as Johnny stepped into the steaming water, tilting his head back to let it pour over his face and through his short hair. I watched it sluice down his body and leaned against the wall, sta
ring without even caring that I had come there for a specific purpose. Johnny bent over, and I watched his muscles flex and move as he picked up a bottle of shower gel. He lathered up a washcloth and stepped slightly out of the shower’s flow, and my mouth watered as I watched him soap himself up everywhere, spreading foamy white suds over his muscled body. I shook my head. There was no way my mom was right. Johnny couldn’t have lied to me; Mom was just being ridiculous. Who hires a private investigator to check out their daughter’s boyfriend, anyway? It was crazy. It was just the sort of thing that my mom would do to try to keep me from dating someone she had already decided was not rich enough to matter.
But there wasn’t just my mom; there were people online, there was what the PI had found—why would there be a sealed police file on Johnny if he wasn’t somehow involved in the whole crazy mess? I was worrying at my bottom lip, trying to decide how I felt. My arousal at the sight of Johnny naked, soaping himself up, his strong hands moving over his body quickly, was at odds with my deep panic and despair. Just as I was struggling to decide which feeling was stronger, Johnny’s head turned, and then the rest of his body. He was staring straight at me, his eyes wide. “Becky!”
He stepped out of the shower’s flow in an instant and came towards me, an instant smile on his face. “I had no idea you were coming. What are you doing here?” He looked so pleased, so happy to see me, so oblivious of everything that was going on in my mind. His innocent question brought back everything in a rush. I remembered exactly what I was doing in that locker room, exactly why I had driven two hours to come and confront him. My eyes tingled, and I felt my breath hitching.