PAINTED LOVE

TWO

sebastian hayes

. . . . . .

As I skate closer to Elias, who's clearly not paying attention, I take the puck away from him and skate away with it. As I shoot a quick look back, I see the fucker's standing there like a goddamn mom who lost her child. Looking around who took the fucking puck like an idiot.

I shoot the puck at the goal and let's fucking go: I score. If only it would go this easily when we're in a real game.

"Hey, fucker!", Elias shouts.

"What's up, my sweet darling?", I ask him in a British accent. It's something we usually do when talking to Elias. It's just fun to tease him with his British language. He's from some English butthole and moved here, to New York City when his father got a better job.

"Funny, you bastard. Stealing my puck like that, huh?", he accuses.

"Nah, man. Shouldn't leave it to steal it like that."

"Shut up. I hate you." I snicker, 'cause I know he's lying. He and Dean are my best friends on the team. We make the perfect team on the ice, too. I'm in the center: I take the puck. Dean's the left wingman. I pass it to him, I skate forward, Dean passes it back up to me, I pass it up to Elias, the right wingman, who passes it back to me when I'm almost in front of the goalie. I get the puck and score.

That's how it's supposed to go. But lately, our matches have been kinda shitty. I can't score anymore. Don't know how that happened, it just did. Our old defenseman, Marcus, also quit playing because he tore his ACL. So now we got a stupid freshman on our team, I don't even know his name. All I know is that he doesn't play well. He's, like, scared of the puck. Almost everyone can pass him and if they get past our goalie, Jayden, they score. Way too easy.

I'm kind of blaming the new kid of my bad games, even though I actually know it's completely my own damn fault. I'm just going to a rough time in college itself. The last couple of weeks, I had to prepare myself for this huge physics test that would be determining 50% of your final grade. I think I did good on that test, but now I'm still so busy with homework for business economics. And chemistry, too. That bastard gave us a fucking big assignment due next fucking week.

My head's way too filled with assignments, economics, science and family stuff to be thinking about hockey right now.

After practice, Coach Kanter walks up to me and asks (orders, ergo) to meet me in his office after my shower. Stress pops up in my body. I know it's gonna be about the bad games. I'll have to explain myself to him. And then he'll, of course, ask me if I'm dealing with something right now and of course I'll do anything to avoid telling him the truth.

Homework's been taking a shit ton of my time lately, yeah. But the biggest issue is my dad. I noticed he's been drinking more and more. My little sister, Ava, has called me 3 times the last few weeks to help her take care of our dad. If he's drunk, he gets aggressive. Thank God Ava's in college, too, now. But since the college she's going to is closer to our house, she checks in on our father more regularly. Meaning she takes the hits for me, when he's drunk again.

I slam the door of my locker and give it another hit. Goddammit. Ava's too good for this goddamn world. I think about the last time we talked, which is weeks ago already. I promise myself I'm gonna call her tonight, before stepping into the showers.

I let the lukewarm water touch my sweaty body and it feels heavenly. It softens the bruises on my torso and washes away the small amount of blood on my lip. I don't know why, but I always bite it when I'm skating towards the goalie, calculating the time until I should shoot the puck, trying to previse where I should best shoot it.