Landon Reilly
My pent up rage over the last few days was what was getting me through hockey practice. I was playing a physical game, something my coaches and Rojas liked to see. But hitting guys into the boards was really the only way for me to get all my anger out without punching someone, namely Wren.
I hated the way he made me feel and the way he knew exactly how to push me, to make me uncomfortable, to make me angry. But part of me also envied him and the way he was unapologetic and that made me even more angry.
As practice went on, I moved through the drills with the precision that was always expected of me throughout my entire time playing hockey. It was like this game had all my focus even though my mind was far away. I was running on autopilot and I wasn't brought back down to earth until Rojas stood in front of me and stopped me.
"The coaches are really liking you," he said. "You might get to start."
"Great," I replied, skating around him. Rojas followed me, the two of us skating in silence for a moment. I didn't even know if I wanted to be a starter or play hockey at all, but to keep the scholarship money I got from the athletic department, I had to.
Rojas and I worked on a few drills together before practice ended. The coaches brought us to center ice for a small meeting before they would let us back to the locker rooms.
"As you all know, we have a couple scrimmage games next week that we have been preparing for," Coach Foreman started. "These games are where some of you rookies are going to show us what you got. I'll post the lineup for the scrimmage against Brown by the end of the week. You're dismissed."
I never wanted to step foot on the Brown campus again.
I was one of the last people off the ice, following the rest of my team back to the locker room. As I was gathering my things after a quick shower, Cooper came up behind me and bumped my shoulder. My initial instinct was to punch him, but I fought of the urge and instead looked at him with narrowed eyes.
"Hey, Reilly, I didn't expect to see you out this weekend," he said. "I'm serious, you should come with us again. It'll be fun."
"I'm not really the going out type," I muttered, grabbing onto my bag.
Cooper chuckled. "That's not what it seemed like last time. Hey, who was that guy you were with when I saw you? I didn't recognize him."
"Wren." I said it automatically, without thinking about it, like it was something I felt like Cooper should already know. "He goes to Brown."
"Oh," Cooper said. "He seemed a little odd. I was wondering how you knew him."
I didn't say anything to that, but a strange feeling crept through my stomach that made me want to leave this conversation immediately. I didn't want to talk about Wren, or hear Cooper talk about how odd he found him. All I wanted was to forget about Wren and that I ever knew him at all.
I especially wanted to forget the way he looked the other morning as he undressed in front of me. I hated the way my mind and body responded to him. He had to have found some way into my brain with whatever weird powers he had and manipulated my thoughts. Because there was no way I saw a bunch of hockey players undress every day and he was the one who occupied my mind, the one who made me feel things that I didn't want to feel.
"But if you're friends with him or whatever, that's cool," Cooper added. He must have taken my silence as offense. I decided I would let him believe that he had offended me. Anything to stop this conversation and leave.
But Wren wasn't my friend and even the thought of that being true gave me inexplicable rage. I hated him and I never wanted to see him again. Not after what he had suggested, not after the way I had reacted to seeing his body. I needed to steer clear of him and forget about him and the way he made me feel.
There was only one way I knew how to do that, so that was how I ended up at the bar that night with Cooper and some other guys from the team. They said they were only going for a bite to eat and a few drinks, but I was there for something else entirely. I needed to get drunk.
I needed to get drunk and forget about how Wren made me feel things that I tried so hard to suppress. He was my biggest problem and the worst part was that he wanted to tempt me. He wanted me to forget about whatever boundaries I had made for myself even if doing that would make me hate myself even more.
The drinking didn't help because all I could see was his stupid face, his stupid body. Every time I tried to think of something else, there he was. He had ruined me, and he would undoubtedly be extremely please with himself to find out that he had. It would make him feel more superior than he already did.
And with the drinking came even more anger and emotion. It didn't work to numb me and make me feel nothing, forget everything that troubled me. It made everything worse, and that was how I ended up walking out of the bar without any of my teammates knowing. My body was on autopilot just as it had been during hockey practice. I stomped down the sidewalk, crossing the street without even looking for cars. My hands were in fists at my sides as I walked down a brick pathway and ended up at one of Brown University's dorm buildings, the only one I had ever been to.
I entered the building as someone was leaving and took the stairs two at a time up to Wren's room. Then I pounded on the door so hard that I could barely stop myself from hitting Wren as he opened it.
"Well, isn't this a nice surprise," Wren said, leaning against the door frame.
I shoved him back with my hand on his chest and walked into his room, slamming the door behind me. His expression was playful and unserious like it was often times around me. It was the look he had whenever he was amused with me and making fun of me in his head.
"To what do I owe this pleasure?" he asked with a grin.
"Shut the fuck up!" I snapped, my hands pulling at my hair. "You fucking ruined me!"
Wren's smile dropped slightly as I continued pulling at my hair. I was breathing heavily, could feel my face getting hot, yet I still wanted to scream at him. Me and my drunken state wanted him to feel my anger.
"You don't get it, you just don't get it!" I yelled, starting to pace his room. "I'm not supposed to be like this! I'm not! I'm supposed to be normal."
"Is this all because I asked you to have sex with me?" Wren asked. "It was an offer, Lance. No one said you had to do it. You don't have to get all worked up about it."
"Shut up!" I screamed. "Don't say that again! I can't be like this. I'm not like this. It's you and the stupid things you say that are messing with my head."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Wren replied. "Why don't you sit and calm down, alright? Before you have a panic attack or something. I do not want to deal with that."
I was still pulling at my hair, but I couldn't feel the pain. My vision was blurring and I was seeing red. I didn't know how to get my anger out or what to do with all these emotions, with all this self hatred. Sometimes I wished I could have been born into a different world, or not born at all.
"Landon," Wren said, taking my hands in his to pull them from my hair.
I stared at him for a moment, my breathing slowing, before ripping my hands from his grasp and putting distance between us.
"Don't fucking touch me!"
Wren stared at me with a bored expression. He turned and picked up his keys, sliding them into his pocket before nodding toward the door.
"Come on. Let's go," he said, moving toward the door.
"No, I need to tell you..." I trailed, one of my hands moving to pull at my hair. "I need to tell you how fucked up you are!"
"You can tell me in the car," he said. "Let's go for a drive."
"I'm not going anywhere with you."
"Well, I'm going, so are you going to come with me or stay here and scream at the walls?"
He looked smug as I followed him toward the door and out of his building. My mind was clouded and I barely understood exactly what I was doing when I got into the passenger's seat of Wren's car. He had an audio book playing, but I couldn't focus on what it was saying. My mind was in a fog, my head felt heavy even as I leaned it against the cool window, and my anger was dissipating just because I felt so tired.
I still wanted Wren to know I was angry, and I wanted him to feel as bad as I felt, but it was like nothing could bother him. He didn't care what I thought of him and he didn't care how he made me feel.
"Where are we going?" I mumbled, my voice quiet and slurred. But Wren still somehow understood me.
"Anywhere, nowhere," he replied. I hated the vague way he spoke and how he looked so at ease while I was crumbling in the passenger's seat.
"You're fucked up," I said.
"What?"
"I said you're fucked up," I repeated, louder this time. "You want me to feel like this. You like messing with my head and you know exactly how to do it."
He was silent for a moment. We were passing through the night like phantoms. There was no one around to see or hear us. It was like we entered another dimension where it was just us.
"Lance, I think you're a lot more angry at yourself than you are at me," Wren finally replied.
It was possible for me to be angry at the both of us, at him for being the way that he was, and at myself for letting him get to me and being unable to suppress the part of me that desired him.
The part of me that desired any man was something I had been long suppressing and I couldn't slip up now, not for Wren of all people. That would only make me hate myself more.
"You know, this whole taking care of you while you're drunk thing is getting old," Wren said after we sat in silence for a few moments, the audio book playing in the background forgotten.
"You're not takin' care of me," I slurred.
"Only I am actually," he continued. "And this isn't me. I don't do this sort of thing."
"Then why are you?" I snapped.
Wren didn't say anything. He pursed his lips and looked at me briefly before turning his attention back to the road.
We sat in silence again and I closed my eyes as I leaned my head against the cool window. Wren stopped through a drive through for food, but I paid him no attention until he stopped the car.
I opened my eyes and saw that we were parked in front of the ocean. The beach was deserted this time of year and this time of night. The moon reflected over the rippling water and the sky was so clear it was like we could see every star in existence.
Wren sat beside me, eating french fries. He noticed me looking at him and motioned downward toward the cupholder which held another carton of fries.
"I can't eat those," I said.
Wren stuffed a fry into his mouth. "Why?"
"Because they're not healthy."
The strict diet my father used to make me follow never allowed for fried foods. There were times I would sneak some with the hope of him never finding out, but he almost always did.
Even now, living on my own at school, I found it hard to stray too far from that diet even with the temptation of the food at the dining halls.
"But they're good," Wren said. "Try one." He held out a fry in front of my face, bringing it closer until it touched my lips.
I smacked his hand away and he chuckled, popping the fry in his mouth.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" I spat.
Wren just shrugged then spent the next few minutes glancing over at me and looking away. Eventually, I had enough and snapped at him again.
"Why the fuck do you keep looking at me? Just say something if you have something to say!"
"You'll just get more angry if I say what I'm thinking," he replied.
"Just say it."
He paused and put his carton of fries down in the cupholder before turning his body to face me completely.
"You always resort to anger to deal with any emotion you're feeling," Wren started. "If you're feeling sad or insecure, you turn that into anger. And right now, instead of dealing with your emotions, you chose someone or something to be angry at. That being me."
"This has nothing to do with how I'm feeling. You make me angry," I told him. Wren grinned and I hated how my eyes focused on the way his lips moved to form it.
"And why do I make you so angry?" he asked. "Is it because you just don't like me? Am I irritating? Would that cause such a visceral reaction from you?"
I didn't respond, so he just kept going.
"Or is it because things about yourself? So you have to find someone else to blame and I'm right here?"
I looked away from him, staring out at the ocean. My vision started to blur and it took me a moment to realize tears were forming in my eyes. I didn't want him to see me like this, but there was nowhere for me to go. All I could do was sit there in his car beside him while my emotions got the better of me.
I figured he would make a comment or say something to make me feel even worse, but he said nothing. I felt the heat of Wren's gaze, but I couldn't face him.
"Have some fries," Wren said after a few moments, picking up the carton and handing it to me. So I did. And that was the last thing he said for a while.
I didn't know how long the two of us sat in that silence, the only sound being the faint voice on the car speakers and the crashing of the waves before us.
**
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