by Lexie Syrah
I clear my throat and laugh with him. “Blame all the lights from the hockey arena.”
He lets out a small breath, then says, “Hey, Al…”
“Yeah?”
He leans on one arm and looks over at me. “If I went back home, would you want to come?”
I suck in a breath. Hayden wants me to come back home with him? To the place where he hasn’t been in over a year?
But not me. He wants Al.
“We won’t miss any games! I promise.”
I sit up a bit too and give him a small smile. “Sure, that’d be cool. I’ve never been to Winnipeg.”
Hayden lies back down on the Jeep. “You’ll see, the stars there are way better.”
Chapter Eleven
Alice
“HOLY F—” My expletive gets carried away on the wind as we step outside. “What frozen planet have you taken me to?” I try to scream at Hayden, but he just rolls his eyes at me.
“Are you joking?” he says. “This is T-shirt weather!”
I pull my beanie further over my ears and try to bury my face in my jacket. I thought I would be prepared for winter in Winnipeg after growing up near Detroit and living in Chicago, but this isn’t winter. This is icy hell!
The wind whips Eleanor’s scarf around her head as we quickly hurry to the rental car. “Don’t worry, Al!” she says, her voice musical. “Your whole body will be numb soon enough and then you won’t notice a thing!”
Despite the weather, a grin emerges on my face. I have four days in Winnipeg with Hayden for our holiday break. It’s definitely better than spending it alone in Chicago while Mom and Xander frolic in Mexico.
Of course, Xander isn’t happy. He gets on my case just for seeing movies after practice with Hayden. Now that I’m spending four straight days with him…it’s an understatement to say Xander is freaking out.
Inside, I’m freaking out, too. I’m pretty sure I’ve mastered being a boy on the ice, but it’s hard enough keeping my voice deep and my shoulders broad whenever games end. And now, with my heart going into overdrive every time Hayden looks at me, how am I supposed to keep this up?
I look at Hayden. He was in good spirits when we boarded the plane; we passed the time watching bad Christmas movies and ordering junk food from the flight attendant. But now, he sits in the rental car, his shoulders slumped, gaze fixed out the window. Silent.
I want to lean into him, take his hand in mine, tell him it will be okay. But all I can do is stare straight ahead, and listen to Kevin ramble on about every single member of their large family.
Outside, there’s only white. White plains, a white sky; even the air seems white. Kevin’s voice is deep but soft, and my eyes grow heavy.
When I wake up, the sun has set and streetlights dust the snow with golden halos.
“We’re 90% of the way there,” Kevin says.
Hayden no longer looks out the window. He stares straight ahead, his fists taut.
Ten minutes later, we pull up to a house covered in multi-colored Christmas lights.
“It looks like we walked into one of those movies we watched on the plane,” I joke, nudging Hayden’s elbow. He doesn’t respond.
Kevin shuts off the car and a stream of sweater-wearing Canadians exit the house. Kevin and Eleanor jump out, embracing them with huge hugs. Hayden slowly gets out of the car, and grabs the luggage from the back.
I follow him, watching my feet sink into the sloshy snow all the way up the driveway. “Y-you all right?”
He nods, looking up at the house. “Yeah…it’s just…weird.”
Hayden told me that after his parents died, his aunt and uncle bought the place and moved in. Everyone said it was best that the house remained with the family. My throat tightens as I look at Hayden’s face, pale and tense. How strange it must be to go home, but have it not be your home at all.
We lug everything into the house. It’s warm inside; not a perfectly set temperature kind-of warm, but a stuffy-with-people sort. His uncle greets us right away, and thankfully takes our hats and coats.
Then he leads us through the house. The whole thing is made of wood, with big log walls, and soft warm lights. With all the Christmas decorations, it gives off a Santa’s-workshop kind-of vibe. We head into the living room, and in the corner is the biggest Christmas tree I’ve ever seen. There’s a mishmash of ornaments, from homemade to silly Santas playing hockey. Eagerly, I breathe in that real-tree scent. A huge fire crackles in the fireplace, which is surrounded by people.
They all jump up and start talking at once, running over to Kevin, Eleanor, and Hayden. I meet my teammate’s aunt and uncle, their two girls, a bunch of cousins, Eleanor’s family, some old guy named Uncle Eldy (who isn’t even a real uncle), an old hockey coach, a pastor, and more kids under two than I can count.
I look around for Hayden, but he’s nowhere to be seen. Then I catch a glimpse of him heading up the stairs.
“Hayden sweetie!” his aunt Ginger calls. “You’re in the last room to the right! There’s some boxes to sort through up there, if you like.”
Hayden doesn’t respond. He turns robotically and storms up the stairs.
Why would Hayden run away from this? This is amazing. I was too young to care that Mom stopped doing holidays once Dad left. Xander and I would just hang out, make food, give stupid presents. I didn’t realize what I was missing.
But since Hayden has decided to turn into an emo teenager, I guess it’s up to me to drag our bags up the eight million stairs to the room.
My lungs feel like they’re going to collapse by the time I make it. Here I thought I’d get a little holiday break from working out. When I finally get to the last room on the right, I tap lightly on the door, and creep inside.
Hayden sits on the bed. There’s a big cardboard box in front of him, with his name scrawled on top.
“Hey,” I say lightly, and walk into the room.
I notice he’s holding a pair of skates in his hands. I wonder if I’ve interrupted some personal reflective moment. I’m not good with that sort of stuff. I take a few steps back. “I’ll come back later.”
He looks up at me. “Huh? No, it’s okay. I was just looking through this junk.”
Shit. I reluctantly sit beside him. The skates in his hands look old and worn, and very small.
“I have no idea why they kept these,” he murmurs and chucks them to the side. He flops down on the bed, sighing.
“Did this used to be your room?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “No, I think the girls use my old room now. This was my Mom’s storage room. It started out as a place for her scrapbooking, but we kind of took it over…filled it with hockey gear, jerseys, trophies.”
I smile and look around. It’s bare in here now. “Yeah, our home was pretty cluttered too. Hockey takes up a lot of space.”
“Tell me about it.” He sighs and turns his head slightly to me. A brown curl falls in front of his face, and I have to resist the urge to push it back. “I never thought I’d come back here.”
“How long has it been?” I say.
He swallows and then sits up, arms falling over his legs. “Kevin was officially drafted by the NHL one week after they died.” His voice hitches. “He took care of everything. I remember him asking if I wanted to stay here, to live with Doug and Ginger until I finished high school. But I didn’t. Our family had always been close—just the four of us. I knew he wanted me to come with him, just as much as I didn’t want to be here. He figured it all out, all by himself. Switched my schools, switched my team. The minute the funeral was over, we boarded a plane to Chicago—and the only thing I could think when I stepped off that plane was that I never wanted to come back here again.”
He looks so broken, so fragile. I want to take his hand, let him know I’m here for him. But I can’t. I put a hand on his shoulder. I don’t have any words for him, but I think this will do for now.
Hayden leans down toward me. Here, in this tiny room, he looks so
much smaller than he does on the ice.
A small smile flickers on his lips. “Thanks for doing this with me, Al,” he says. “I’m real glad you’re here.”
“Me too.” Even though everything I do is a lie, this is not. I am glad to be here.
…
Hayden
“This is definitely not what I was expecting,” Al mutters as we walk into the dining room.
“And what were you expecting?” I say.
“Moose-on-a-spit, fried beaver, everything drizzled in maple syrup.”
“Sorry to disappoint.” I nudge his arm and carve out a spot around the huge table. It’s hard to hear over the ruckus as my family laughs and shares stories. Chinese food cartons are littered all over the table. “I hope everyone’s got their food, because Al is going to eat everything in front of him.”
Everyone bursts out laughing, and Al’s cheeks turn bright red. He blows a strand of hair out of his face and rolls his eyes.
“Hurry up and eat!” Aunt Ginger says, clearing away some of the empty cartons. “It’s almost stocking time!”
A heavy weight sits on my chest. This is why I didn’t want to come. Maybe Kevin thought going through all of this would help me find peace, but it doesn’t. It just means I have to force a smile on my face and bury my thoughts farther away.
Al helps Ginger clean up. He’s all smiles, and even carries the giant, dusty box of stockings up from the basement, straining under its weight. A smile flashes on my face.
My family takes turns picking their stockings out one by one. This is a new tradition. Before, four stockings hung on our fireplace, but since Mom and Dad died, and Ginger, Doug, and their kids moved in, Christmas has become an entire family affair. Or so I’ve been told.
Al bursts out laughing and I walk over. He holds my stocking.
“What?” I say.
“It’s plaid,” he says between laughs. “And has a moose on it!”
I snatch it from him and shove him in the arm. “Shut up.”
His eyes crinkle with mirth and I catch myself smiling again. “Wait here,” I say.
When I come back, I toss him a balled up piece of fabric. “One left.”
Slowly, he holds it up: a plain red stocking. His name is sewn across the fluffy white top.
His fingers trace the lining of his name. “A stocking? For me?”
I throw an arm behind my head and look away. “Yeah, well, I didn’t want you to feel left out.”
“You got this for me…” Al whispers, and his voice is quiet and soft.
“You gotta hang it yourself though, slacker,” I say, handing him the hammer.
He snatches it eagerly. As he gives the nail one last hit, he turns to me, eyes shining. “Thanks, Hayden.”
Usually I would tell him it was nothing, that it’s just some stupid stocking and he shouldn’t be such a sap. Instead, I say, “It’s the least I could do.”
“Announcement!” Eleanor’s clear voice rings through the living room like a knife on a wine glass. Everyone turns to her. Kevin beams up from his armchair.
“I have an early Christmas present,” she says, “for Kevin.” She hands him a small wrapped gift.
He narrows his eyebrows and smiles. “What’s this?” Carefully, he pulls off the wrapping paper.
Tears shine in his eyes and he covers his mouth. In an instant, he leaps from the chair and wraps Eleanor in his arms. She starts crying, too, her smile lighting up the whole room.
Then Kevin snatches up the present and holds it up for everyone to see. A small white stocking, with writing at the top that says, Baby.
“I’m going to be a dad!” he shouts.
The entire family erupts, looking just like the Falcons bench after we score a goal. They surround Kevin and Eleanor, swallowing them in hugs and shouting about champagne.
Al claps me on the shoulder. “Congrats, Uncle Hayden!”
Outside, my face holds a huge smile, and I can feel myself joining in the happiness with my family, walking over to Kevin, hugging him and Eleanor, laughing about buying baby skates.
Inside, I feel nothing.
Chapter Twelve
Alice
The ground is hard. And cold. Very cold.
Damn, Canada.
I roll over and pull the blankets up around my shoulder. When I offered to take the air mattress, Hayden didn’t even put up a fight. I’m super regretting that now, figuring it’s deflated to a very uncomfortable sheet. I bet he would have let me have the bed if he knew I was a girl. I wonder if we’d share the bed if he knew I was a girl…
I open my eyes to stop myself from going there. I have to stop thinking about Hayden like that. He’s my friend. My teammate.
I sit up and look at the bed. Hayden’s not there.
Where is he? I stand up and touch the sheets. They’re cold. He’s been gone for a while, then.
I peer around the dark room, not sure what I’m expecting to find. A glimpse of red catches my eye out the window. I rub away the frost and squint to see him, sitting outside in a snowbank, wearing his bright red hat.
What a crazy person, sitting outside in the cold on Christmas Eve! Well, at least the bed is up for grabs…when he comes back, he can sleep on the cold hard floor. But instead of cozying up under the covers, I find myself creeping downstairs, pulling on my hats, boots, and jacket and heading outside.
Obviously something is wrong. No sane person would be outside in this frozen wasteland. What if he wants to talk? That terrifies me. Yet still, I trudge across the snow to see him.
My stomach twists into a knot as I get close enough to see the clouds of breath gusting in front of his face. I stand behind him, afraid to break through the silence and moonlight. I see what Hayden stares at now. A makeshift ice rink, dusted with a thin layer of snow.
Is this like the one his dad used to make every year? The one his whole family would play on, and then sit and drink hot chocolate by every night?
“Hayden,” I whisper.
He doesn’t move, not for a very long time, then his head bows lower.
I kneel beside him. Tears streak down his face, and his teeth are gritted. “It’s just not fair.”
I don’t know what to say. I’ve never been good at this stuff. And there’s definitely nothing I can say that will make this hurt any less. But I settle down in the snow beside him. At least I can show him I’m not going anywhere.
Hayden reaches up and pulls his hat further over his eyes. A gasp tears from his throat. “I- I just…it’s not fair. They should be here!” He tosses his hat onto the rink, where it lies like a dead beacon on the ice. “Kevin’s having a baby! A baby! Mom…Mom would have loved that. She’d have been such a good grandma. Only she’ll never get to see that baby. She’ll never get to see Kevin get married…or…or—” The strangled cry releases from his throat and he burrows his face in his gloves, gritting his fingers as if he could rip the feelings from his body.
“It’s okay to be sad,” I say lamely.
He looks up, head tilted back. “I can’t even remember how I felt when it happened. Kevin told me. I cried, I think. I don’t remember what I thought. Only that it felt like I was asleep. Like there was fog in my head and all I kept thinking was, ‘This isn’t real. I’m going to wake up soon. This isn’t real.’”
I bite the inside of my lip. I know I shouldn’t, but I reach out and put a hand on his shoulder. He doesn’t pull away.
“I can’t look at pictures of before,” Hayden continues. “Kevin does all the time. He hangs them all over the house. Pictures of me and him and Mom and Dad out on the rink, in the kitchen, driving through town. Why does he do that? How can he stand to remember what it felt like?” Fresh tears stream down his face. “I just can’t do it.”
“Maybe,” I say, “your heart hurt so much that day, it didn’t want to feel again. Anything at all. Sometimes it’s easier to feel nothing.”
He gives a half-hearted laugh and wipes his nose. “Well, I think I’m
feeling something now, Al,” he says, “and I don’t like it.”
I drop my hand. “Should we, uh, go back inside?”
He stares at the rink. “Nah, not yet.”
“Want something warm to drink?” I don’t know about him, but I’m turning into an Alicicle out here.
He nods. “Sure. I’m gonna stay out here.”
I get up and scurry toward the house. My heart hurts, seeing him sit there on the snow. He looks ten years old from here.
A wave of relief and warmth washes over me as I enter the kitchen. Even with so much sadness, this place feels peaceful.
I turn on the light and dig through the cupboards as quietly as possible. There has to be mugs and hot chocolate somewhere. Isn’t that part of the Canadian Starter Kit, along with a jug of maple syrup and a plaid saddle for your polar bear?
Just when I’m on my hands and knees, resorting to digging through the pots and pans for the hot chocolate powder, a voice floats through the kitchen: “Looking for this?”
I turn around, whacking my head on the roof of the cupboard. “Ouch!”
“Easy now!” Strong arms grab me and lift me to my feet. I look up at Kevin’s smiling face, framed by his bushy beard.
My stomach drops. “Shoot, did I wake you?” I rub my sore head and avoid eye contact.
“I’ve been up for a while.” Kevin turns on the kettle and taps a small jar beside it. “Hot chocolate is in here. Ginger makes her own powder.”
“Ah,” I say. An awkward silence fills the room as I wait for the water to boil. What is Kevin doing here? I’m still wearing my big winter jacket, so I don’t have to worry about my binding coming loose.
“You know,” Kevin says, and a wash of relief floods over me at the filled silence, “I don’t think I thanked you for coming here.”
“Thanked me?” I snort. “You paid for my ticket here. This is so much better than spending Christmas alone in Chicago.”
“Y-you’re a good friend to Hayden,” Kevin says, and his eyes look past me, out the window. “And we both know he isn’t the easiest person to get to know.”
“Tell me about it,” I grunt, then catch myself. My eyes follow Kevin’s, to where Hayden sits in the moonlight. “Even so…he’s my best friend.”