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“Was it helping?”
“I don’t know. Not really. I could tell her about some of this stuff, but I still felt...the same.”
“Depressed?”
“I guess so,” Aiden said slowly. Dr. Gauthier hadn’t put labels on the way he was feeling, but he was, well, pretty depressed. It had been bad even with Matt, the only light in his life at that time, and it had only gotten worse since he’d left. “I’ve been pretty depressed after retiring.”
“That’s to be expected even for someone—someone who wasn’t as intense about playing as you were. I’m glad you were seeing someone, even if it wasn’t helping the way you would have wanted it to.”
“It’s just,” Aiden said. Sometimes when he tried to explain things like this, he couldn’t think of the appropriate words. It was hard to look at his own emotions from a distance. He’d never found it easy to understand them. Would it have helped if his parents had taken him to a doctor? If he could have had a framework for understanding his own brain? It was too late now. “It’s just that I really feel like without hockey, I’m just not the same person . Almost like I’m not even a person. And I don’t know whether therapy can even help that.”
Mom sighed and held out her arms. He accepted the hug, even though the only person he ever truly felt comfortable hugging was Matt. Her arms were tight around him when she said, “We don’t have to figure this out right now. Let’s just get you eating and some of your house in order. We’ve got all the time in the world.”
“Mom?”
“Yes.”
“Thanks. For coming. For not being...” He wasn’t even sure what he had meant to say. He was ashamed, when she saw how he had been living. But that had been in his own head, not anything she’d done.
“I will always come for you. Even if I have court. Even if I have deadlines.”
When Aiden said, “I know,” he believed it.
Mom pulled away, and said, a little gruffly, “We have a lot of cleaning to do, yes? Come. Let’s get back to it.”
It felt good and necessary to have something to do, and someone to tell him how to do it, and so Aiden said, “Yes.”
Matt and Miles didn’t play in the same division, and never had. Both of them had had the unique experience of playing with the same team throughout most of their careers, although it had taken Miles a longer time to crack a major league roster. His brother, at thirty-four, was now a veteran member of the New Jersey Scouts’ blue line. He and Jess had built a nice little life in Short Hills with the kids.
It was still an event when he came to Montreal, and even better when they had a chance to actually catch up and grab dinner together the night before. It didn’t always work out, with the way the travel was scheduled, and Matt was both looking forward to and dreading this dinner.
He’d been dodging calls from both of his parents, which meant that they were really worried about him, if Dad was calling. Daron Safaryan was an old-school kind of dad, the sort of guy who’d rather take you out for a silent walk in the woods or fishing on the lake than ever consider talking about a feeling. Usually that suited Matt just fine. So the fact that he’d missed a few calls from Dad’s number—no voice mail—meant that the news had probably gotten back home, probably through Miles, and Mom was panicking. So Matt had absolutely no doubt that they had probably deputized Miles to try to get some news out of him.
Matt texted Miles beforehand: Hey, I can get reservations at one of my usual spots if you want to meet me?
You’re the expert , Miles replied.
One of the things Matt loved most about Montreal was the variety of restaurants. Pretty much anything you wanted to eat, you could find, and not only could you find it, it would be some of the best food you’d ever eaten. For some reason there were a ton of Italian restaurants, too, which was good because both he and Miles were big pasta guys. It was possible to get a last-minute reservation, mostly because he was a regular and had gotten to know the chef a little. He sent Miles the address and got ready to go.
Miles was wearing a new peacoat when Matt caught sight of him by the door, and he grinned. “Hey, what happened to the guy who used to make fun of me for getting custom-made coats?”
“I realized how comfortable they were,” Miles said, a little sheepishly. “And you know... I can afford it, so.”
“Fancy.” Matt extended his arms. They hugged briefly, and Miles pounded him on the back just once. It was nice to be able to have a quiet dinner without the kids, without worrying about being interrupted, but Matt thought that depending on how this went, he might want to be interrupted. He briefly wished that Aiden was here to rescue him, to send a text that would give him a ready-made excuse to escape. But of course, part of the reason he was dreading this was the fact that Aiden wasn’t here.
“How’re you doing, Matt?”
“Great,” Matt said unconvincingly. “You know. Just getting through the season. You saw we had that little losing streak. Planning on snapping it tomorrow.”
“Ohh, he’s feeling mean,” Miles teased, but followed Matt inside, out of the biting cold, without any real argument.
It was a pleasant restaurant, within walking distance of Jean-Talon, the kind of place that was always busy, but not too loud; sleek and modern, but not too trendy. The servers, who all knew him by now, didn’t make a big deal about it when he came in, and people sometimes asked for autographs but usually left him alone.
They sat down at their table and perused the menus in silence. The restaurant had a pretty extensive wine list, with bottles ranging from $50 to $500. Matt picked one he’d tried before, a midrange Tuscan red that had a nice aftertaste, because Miles was usually a beer guy and couldn’t tell the difference, and then they got into squabbling over the appetizers the same way they always had. It was easy and companionable, and they didn’t talk about anything real, anything of import.
They made companionable small talk about Jess’s work at the hospital, and Ellie’s goalie practices, and Theo’s latest obsession, which was paleontology. Miles asked about his knee and Matt was honest: it hadn’t been great. He’d had to rely on pre-and post-game medication more often than not, and it wasn’t looking like that would let up anytime soon. It wasn’t until Matt had ordered them pan-fried shrimp in vermouth and a dish with breaded veal and seared tuna and a pasta to go with it while they were considering the mains that Miles looked up at him with a frown.
“Hey, Matt.”
“Don’t do it, Miles.”
“You know I have to.”
“Fuck,” Matt said, and looked back down at the marble tabletop. “I mean, you don’t, really.”
“Come on. Mom and Dad would fucking kill me if I got dinner with you and didn’t ask.”
Matt heaved a long sigh, because even though he wasn’t happy about it, it was true. They’d always had an easier time cowing Miles into compliance. “Okay. Fine. What do you want to ask?”
“Things with Campbell. Over for good this time?”
Matt brushed his fingers over the marble and wished the waiter had bought out the wine already. He could have gone for a drink right then. “It looks like it.”
“ Fuck. Jesus. I’m sorry. You want me to...?”
“I don’t want you to anything, Miles,” Matt said. He felt suddenly deflated and exhausted. “You threatening him never helped anything. You know I appreciate knowing you’re in my corner. But we’re not twenty-five anymore, for fuck’s sake.”
“It’s just... I hate him so much , Matt. He’s hurt you so much over the years. It’s just...it’s not fair. You didn’t do anything to deserve that.”
“No,” Matt agreed. “But I don’t think anyone does.”
“Look at you, all philosophical,” Miles muttered, and fell silent as the server did come out with the wine. They both waited while she poured. Then Matt waited while Miles gathered his thoughts together. Miles said, eventually, “What happened?”
“I don’t know.” It was the honest answer. “I thought everything was going pretty well. I mean, not well , he was clearly still fucking...depressed. Retirement has been really hard for him. But things with us were... Jesus, as good as they’d ever been. I think maybe...he thought he was saving me from something. From him .”
“What a self-absorbed fucking asshole,” Miles said, before he could stop himself.
“Please don’t talk about him like that.” Matt was surprised by how mild his voice sounded. “Aiden is—was—is—very important to me.”
“You’re really still going to fucking defend him? After he did this to you? Again? ”
“That’s the thing.” Matt regretted this dinner more and more as it went on, even though the wine was good and the food would be excellent. “I don’t hate him . It’s—it’s hard. I’m not going to lie, it’s been really hard. And he handled it badly. But I just... I can’t hate him, Miles. I’ve loved him for so fucking long I don’t think I can feel any other way about him. And it’s just... I don’t think he could really help it. Whatever’s going on in his head, it’s pretty bad. And I was doing my best. But I’m only one guy. And my best wasn’t good enough.”
Miles was staring at him, wordlessly. “I don’t even know what to say, man.”
“You don’t need to say anything,” Matt said, and smiled up at the server as she brought over the first of their appetizers. He waited for her to move away again before looking at Miles. His brother had always had a bit of a baby face, despite the scar on his cheek that he’d had since they were kids. Matt had been responsible for it, by accident. They’d been roughhousing in the basement, a little too hard, and his face had hit the edge of a metal filing cabinet. “It’s just... I don’t know, Miles. Maybe I’m just getting older and I’m tired, but it’s just, I can’t control what he does. I can only control what I do. And I don’t have any regrets about any of this. Nothing that happened over the last few months.”
“ None? ”
Matt poked at the food with his fork. “Is it weird to say that even though it ended badly, I’m glad it happened? It was kind of like... I’ve been wondering about him for all of these years. What he’s like. What he’s doing. Whether he’d still fall in love with me. It’s felt like an itch I can never really scratch. And this has been kind of a weird closure. In a way. He’s still the same in so many ways. And whatever he did, I know he does still love me. Probably too much.”
“Both of you are fucking crazy,” Miles said, and swallowed a huge mouthful of wine. “You always have been. You’re not even angry ?”
Matt thought about coming back to the condo on New Year’s, and sighed. He’d given in, briefly. But he would be better now. “‘Pain is the opposite of strength, and so is anger. Both are things we suffer from, and yield to.’”
Miles glared at him. “Don’t you fucking quote Marcus Aurelius at me, Matthew. Jesus Christ, I don’t even know how the fuck I’m going to explain this to Mom and Dad.”
“You don’t have to explain it. All you have to do is tell them I’m okay,” Matt said, and he was surprised to find, as he was saying it, that it was absolutely true.
“You’re okay ? Matty, bud, the last time this happened you had to go into player assistance.”
Matt bit down his frustration. “I’m not the person I was back then. You know this. You’re not the same person you were back then either—you’re a husband and a father and a veteran. It’s kind of shitty that you just assume I’d lose it like that again.”
“Sorry,” Miles said, looking down. “I know it’s not fair, it’s just... I love you, man. I worry about you all of the fucking time.”
“You don’t have to. Really. I don’t think I even realized it before we started talking about this, but I am fine.”
They ate without speaking for a few minutes, neither of them willing to be the one to break the silence. Matt thought about a lot of things in that time: how much Miles cared about him but how little he knew how to properly express it, the way that his whole family had frozen him in time like some kind of amber-stuck bug in the middle of an existential crisis, and Aiden, wherever he was, whether he was happy or sad or whether he was eating enough. Matt really hoped he was eating enough.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” Miles said, like he wasn’t entirely sure if he believed it. “I’m still fucking furious at Campbell, though. Jesus, he’s put you through the wringer over the years.”
“Yeah, probably. But... I don’t know. I’d rather have had that and dealt with the pain now than not had it at all. I hope you never find out with Jess. But he was just, well. The love of my life, probably. And maybe it’ll never be the right time for it to work out. But I did the best I could do. And I’m at peace with it. Okay?”
“Okay,” Miles said, slowly, staring at him. “This is fucking weird, you know. Like what the hell have you done with my brother?”
“I’m your same brother. I just went to a lot of therapy appointments and I grew up,” Matt said dryly. “Okay, can we please stop talking about this? I’m okay, but there’s a limit to what I can handle before I kind of want to fucking die.”
“That’s...fair,” Miles said, a little sheepishly.
“Come on, we have a million other things to talk about. How’s Coach Garcia doing, how are your rookies, et cetera, et cetera. Also, the branzino’s really good, and so is the lamb, if you want suggestions.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Miles said, and looked down at the menu. “Give me a second, and then we can talk.”
Matt sat back in his seat while Miles looked at the menu again, still turning over and over in his head the conversation they’d had. He really hadn’t realized it until he’d said it. It felt—weird. He’d spent so much time worrying about his life falling apart after Aiden left, and now that it had happened, he was sad, but he was functional. He was playing games. He was seeing his family. He was functioning, maybe not a hundred percent, but he was...okay.
Matt rubbed at his eyes, which were stinging, suddenly. Getting older was fucking weird, all right. Maybe he’d come to an epiphany about playing hockey, too. Maybe it was just a matter of the puzzle pieces falling into place at the right time.
But right now, he wasn’t going to think about any of that. He was going to enjoy his dinner and time with his brother, and then he was going to kick his ass on the ice. And all was as it should be.
At three p.m. on a Wednesday, Gabe banged on Aiden’s door. Aiden sighed: the news must have gotten out, eventually. He considered waiting him out, but when Gabe was still there five minutes later, he gave in, went downstairs and opened it.
Gabe, mid-knock, almost fell forward with the force of his arm motion but caught himself before he pitched too far. “Soupy,” he said, staring at Aiden with wide eyes. “Uh, wow, your hair is something else.”
“What do you want, Gabe?”
“Let me in, because we’re going to have a fucking talk , okay?”
“I don’t think—”
“Nah, you don’t ,” Gabe said, and pushed past him, like he always did.
Aiden sighed, and followed him back into his own house, folded his arms over his chest in the middle of the living room and watched, awkwardly, to see what Gabe was going to do.
What Gabe did was glare at him, and ask, “Soupy, what the ever-loving fuck are you doing?”
“What?”
“What,” Gabe said, carefully, “the fuck. Are you doing. Back. In New York.”
“It’s complicated, Gabe.”
“Is it? Really?”
“ Yes , it is, I—”
“Because you told me you were in love with him, but this doesn’t seem like—did he end it? Do I have to go to Montreal to kick his ass?”
“No! I came home. It was me . Just because you love someone doesn’t mean things just work out.” He swallowed hard after it came out of his mouth, louder and more frustrated than he’d intended. “There’s other things that—”
Gabe seemed unfazed by his anger, narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, of course they don’t work out if you don’t fucking try .”
“I was trying, you don’t know what I—”
“Yeah, you said you were going to therapy. Talking about shit without actually doing anything to change your behavior isn’t the point of going. At that rate, fucking pay me $200 an hour just to talk. Like, Soupy, you can’t just fucking run away from everything forever, shit doesn’t change if you do that. You’re just gonna stay miserable forever.”
“Gabe, you don’t understand—”
“I don’t know, Soup, I think I kinda do,” Gabe said. He chewed on his lower lip, frowning at Aiden. “I mean, I get it. You’re scared fucking shitless, I bet.”
“I’m not scared!”
“Yeah, you are. If you stayed, and you actually fucking tried to change how you felt about things, if you actually tried to talk to Safaryan, and it didn’t work? Holy shit, that would suck, right? So you just fucking run away from it because that way you fucking control how miserable you are.” Gabe wasn’t yelling at him, exactly, but his voice was just as high and agitated as Aiden’s, his hands cut through the air decisively. Gabe had always been a hand talker, and now it seemed as though he was two steps away from trying to fight Aiden, right there in the living room. “Jesus Christ, Soupy, you are fucking choosing to be this miserable right now, do you know that? You chose this! You did this to yourself .”
Aiden wondered whether he had slipped into some kind of alternate universe, whether any moment he was going to blink, and wake up, and find that he was twenty-six again and back between the posts. “I’m not choosing anything. I didn’t choose anything.”
“Okay, fine. If you won’t do it for you, can you at least fucking do it for me?”
“What?”
“I get that you don’t love me like that—and it’s fine, I’m over it—but can you at least fucking give things a chance with him? So I can see that it’s just possible. To play and retire and be in love with another man and have a life after hockey and shit. Can you fucking try to ?”
“Gabe, I...”
Gabe put his hand square in the center of Aiden’s chest and shoved him down on the couch. He didn’t sit down himself, just kept pacing back and forth, arms hugged over his chest. “Soup, it’s just...you’ve been my role model for so long. I’ve modeled my game after you, I modeled my fucking personal life after you. You’ve got everything I thought I wanted. The Cups, the awards, the franchise career. But there’s always that question mark, right? Like what comes after. And it hurts me so fucking bad to look at you like this, and it scares me to think that this could be waiting for me , and I just want you to—I don’t know. Fucking give it a chance. So I can see you do it. So I can feel like I can do it. For fuck’s sake .”
“Gabe—”
“Look, Soupy, don’t say anything else to me right now. Just think about it? I don’t know why you’re so fucking scared of maybe being happy, but please? Please. For me. Think about it.”
Aiden took a deep breath in. “Gabe, you’re the oldest twenty-two-year-old I’ve ever met, I think.”
“Yeah, well. I grew up fast. I had to. Soupy, I love you. Please, like, fucking forgive yourself?” When Aiden stared at his hands and couldn’t answer, Gabe gave up, and sighed. “Okay. I said my part. Think about it.”
He let himself out.
Aiden did think about it.
He thought about it a lot, over the next week. He thought about what his mother had said and what Gabe had said. He thought about second chances and how he ruined his, and how he probably didn’t deserve a third. He thought about figuring out a way to translate his vague ideas about coaching into a reality, how much time that would actually take up if he let himself do it. He thought about the last thing Gabe had said to him. He thought about how anyone could know they were actually ready to start moving on.
He thought about Matt. He thought about how he’d hurt him, over and over, throughout the years. He thought about how his whole life had circled back around to Matt again, so many years later, a long and wobbly but ultimately inevitable orbit.
He thought about a lot of things.
The funny thing about it was that, even though Matt was holding it together pretty well, the rookies had noticed that something was wrong. He wasn’t sure whether they’d discussed it among themselves, whether they had a group chat specifically for shit like this, or whether Koskinen and Cormier had cornered Jack and forced him to do the hard work of approaching Matt about whatever it was they thought was going on.