Would You Rather

42 - WYR: Brontosaurus or Brisket?

FIDAN

The last place I want to be after I break my scoring streak and going out for a bar crawl with the guys is sitting, hungover, at brunch with my parents.

I mean, for hell's sake, I made out with someone yesterday. Not successfully, she was speaking, like, an alien language to whatever I was doing and my heart wasn't even close to liking it but I gave it a shot. I tried. I gave rebounding a solid attempt last night and now I'm looking my Dad, who is taking up most of the booth across from me, and he's not impressed.

"So, they took you off the ice for a couple days to heal your... neck?"

I poke my fork at my eggs. "Yes." I don't know if I don't have an appetite because I'm near my Dad or if I'm hungover or if it's lovesickness, I don't know.

"What was wrong with it?"

It's going to be a really, really, extraordinarily, horrifically long hour. "I got whiplash and broke a disc between two of my vertebrae. The fluid was compressing my spinal cord and causing nerve reactions."

I know he doesn't really know what that means. "And the game you weren't injured for?"

"Was being monitored for the same symptoms."

My Dad is kind of a beast. I mean, the guy could've easily done American football. Rugby. Basketball, if he was less stocky. He's got a beard like actual crazy, no hair on top of his head, gnarly and mostly-broken fingers, a fucked up nose that looks sort of like mine, and a good portion of his teeth are missing. He got them fixed after retiring from hockey, but... you can tell. He looks like my brother and not at all like my bird-boned ass. I got his athleticism, that's for sure, my Mom can't even throw a ball, but I got her wiry frame and rather feminine features. Cheekbones, like Finley put it. I looked a lot more like her before Kasper broke my nose and I fucked up my mouth and cut open my eyebrow. Now I look like him more than I ever did.

"So," he starts again. "Have you grown at all recently?"

I look up from my eggs, wondering if he's kidding. "I'm twenty-one."

"But you said last season that you'd put on a centimeter. I was hoping that you'd get a little bigger. I mean, you're not small, they could start playing you on defense like your brother and I."

I keep my blank stare on him. I don't know if he's watched me my entire life, but I am not exactly... defense material. I break a bone about every other check. "I think I'd get killed."

"Well, no, you just need to lift more." He gestures at me. "Have they considered, you know, putting you through a few rounds? You're not real big."

No. I'm not. Despite all the praise that Finley- fuck, why can't I keep her out of my head- despite normal people thinking I look pretty athletic, I really don't keep muscle that well and I really am rather slender. Not to mention that the span of time that I was a defenseman when I was little, I broke a collarbone, a wrist, an ankle, and my femur. The second I got moved up to the front, the checks still hurt, but I could receive them. Giving a check is where I fuck myself over.

"Dad, you know I can't do steroids in the off season like a lot of other guys." I mutter, poking at my food. "My body can't take it."

He sighs. "Are they sure about that?"

"I'd rather not risk dying to gain a few kilos of muscle."

And it's sort of just how it goes. In minors, you're on gear like fucking crazy. I was around it all the goddamn time, but little-bitty string-bean Fidan Koskinen has bad genes and an allergy. Go figure.