:: 21 ::
Introspection: both a wonderful experience and the most depressing kind of reflection that you could ever indulge yourself in. But, Michael has never been one to be such a pessimist and believe in the latter. Until recently, anyway.
Which actually brings him to his final thought in his weeks-long self-reflection: happiness seems to make up for in height what it lacks in length—put beautifully into words by Robert Frost, horribly ad-libbed by Michael.
(Thank you, fourth period Frost-obsessed AP Lang teacher. Michael didn't learn these things on his own time.)
In such a moment where you are at the peak of your teenage years and feel unstoppable, as if you could take on the world and conquer it all, it never crosses your mind that you will one day plummet from the cloud you are walking on and meet your impending depression. It sits and it waits on the ground for you, too. It's always immediately after that depression latches, it doesn't believe in giving a victim time to recover from their reality check.
And Michael is bitter. He knows within him that his depression never left (his denial certainly hadn't, either), but the fact that he was so blinded by the good streak he had going was infuriating. It should've been a sign, really, should've come with a forewarning that after years of such a beautiful, confidence-boosting routine everything would be ripped from him in the event of just one panic attack. Slipping back into bad habits does that to you, Michael thinks.
He wants to tell his dad, he wishes he could. He's afraid and he's not supposed to be and he's not supposed to be bad again either but, fuck, he's so much worse than he's ever been.
There's not even a chance for Luke to help him again, he's in New York. Calum couldn't deal with Michael the first time this happened, though it's not impossible for him to.
Michael just needs someone because he's gone so long without someone that he's finally pushing himself to stop being so blindly pretentious. He has to work on himself. He needs to coax himself out of the mindset he's had and, even if it happens slowly, everything will be okay.
As for his attitude toward Calum, he's put that friendship through a lot of neglect and ignorance lately. The only time he sees him now is during practices, and even then, Michael goes to Luke in the stands directly after. During today's practice, though, his dad made the team divide into groups of four to practice drop passes and assists. Perfect opportunity, he thinks.
"I'm trying to fix myself," he tells his best friend once they're next to each other, looking to the two fellow teammates they paired up with—Trevor and Noah.
Calum nods, softly nudging his elbow into Michael's side to warn for the puck headed his way. "What made you realize that you're kind of a dick?"
"Thanks, Calum," Michael rolled his eyes. He snapped his wrist with the stick in his hand to send the puck soaring toward Noah, who had difficulty stopping it. Sorry, unnecessary wrist shots are his thing. "I don't know. It's been building lately and I keep snapping."
"Maybe stop pushing yourself, then," Calum suggested. "You've gotten a lot worse in the past few months, ever since you set out on a quest to capture Andrew Hemmings' attention. Using Luke, if you've forgotten."
"That plan with Luke isn't a thing anymore," Michael admitted. "I don't think it ever really was." He knows it was, knows that in his own selfish mind he had every intention of using Luke and then leaving him like everyone else has done to the boy, but he can't bring himself to admit it. Anything else at this point, he's willing to, but not that.
"Does he know about it? Have you told him?"
Michael scoffed with wide eyes, "Of course not."
"It's a thing," Calum shrugged, not glancing away from Trevor, the goalie of their team, or the puck that hadn't come their way since Michael passed it to Noah. The other two boys had taken it upon themselves to leave Calum and Michael alone.
"But—"
"You're afraid he'll be upset and angry, right? Because of what your original intentions were?" Michael nods meekly. "You're only afraid because you know that it—"
"I'm afraid because he's the only other person that knows almost everything about me besides you, okay?" Michael interrupts, "He knows about my mom, Cal." And that comes to be as much of a surprise for Calum as it was for Michael, because even Calum found out years into their friendship. Granted it wasn't in the middle of a mental crisis, but even in the event of those Michael rarely liked to be bothered.
"When did you tell him?" Calum finally questioned after looking at him for a moment.
"I called him on the six-year mark."
"You like to be left alone on the anniversaries, though," the boy realizes in a quiet voice. "That's why I never check up on you until the next day." Michael hates that word: anniversary. Isn't an anniversary socially synonymous to celebration? There's nothing celebratory or happy or enjoyable in any sense at all about his own mother's suicide.
That day is forever known as the worst of his life and will never be seen as an anniversary; that day is a constant reminder that not every murderer is a tangible being. Sometimes it's the chemicals that make up your brain. And their weapon is imbalance.
"I know, and I did want to be left alone," Michael reassured him. "I wasn't in my right mind, and I even embarrassed myself right after he found out about her."
"How'd you manage to do that?"
"I told him I liked him."
"You've always had the worst timing." Michael laughs lightly, teasingly swinging his hockey stick at him before the boy asked, "What'd he do?"
"I hung up."
Calum retaliated quickly and hits Michael in the side. "Michael! You idiot, why would you do that?"
"It's scary, Cal. And it hurts sometimes, you know?" Michael admits. "I don't like this." It's weird for him to be so open and vulnerable, and he's never enjoyed it, which is why it's a feeling that's been avoided—until now, when the fear of not being good enough has gotten to the point that it's practically crippling him, but that doesn't matter.
"You haven't liked anyone since we were, like, fifteen."
"Almost sixteen," he says. "It wasn't that frowned upon."
"Right."
With a dry laugh, Michael admitted, "The worst thing about it is I have to do this whole rugby thing with the guy I currently like and the one that I used to."
"Well, you don't like Ashton anymore, do you?" Michael glares at his best friend incredulously, making the boy shake his head with a chuckle and say, "Okay, okay. Just making sure."
Liking Ashton was short-lived; he and Michael were at the beginning of a 'relationship,' when he was fifteen and Ashton was eighteen. But, while Michael let his Tough Guy guard down for the boy, Ashton didn't really think anything of what they had going. So, to say Michael was kind of upset for a while would be an understatement.
"Ashton barely talks to me, anyway. I think he's afraid of me now." Even if Ashton was two years older (being almost nineteen—he had been held back in the first grade), and arguably bigger, somehow it seemed that Michael had always had a more intimidating attitude.
"Everyone is afraid of you, Mikey," Calum rolled his eyes; of course people were afraid of Michael, he hadn't ever given them a reason not to be.
"You know who I'm afraid of?" Michael wondered aloud. "Penelope. She seems so sweet; I'm rude to almost everyone. No wonder Luke likes her." And, God, he needs to stop with his self-pity and move on. This is getting disgusting.
Calum agrees, apparently, because he scrunched his nose and shook his head. "I forgot how cringe-worthy you get when you like someone."
"Hey! I'm not cringe-worthy, I'm just a heart-felt guy!" Michael defended with a chuckle. His father blew the whistle to signal everyone back to the locker room for the end of practice, making Calum and Michael continue their conversation while carefully making their way off of the ice.
"Heart-felt, my ass," Calum snorts.
"I can't recall a time that I've ever felt your ass."
"Oh, fuck off!"
• • •
[[lost boy starts playing]] i can't remember the last time i felt ur ass
u know how long this took to decide whether some things should happen now or later ????? WAY TOO LONG PALZ!!!! (THE ANSWER IS A MONTH YIKeS this died a lil bit)