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EIGHTEEN

Jethro

With no help from me, the Cougars beat Brooklyn in a close matchup.

Clay—who reappears behind the bench before anyone mentions his absence—coaches the game with great enthusiasm.

His eyes are suspiciously red. I keep sneaking looks at him, trying to understand what the hell is going on with him. As best I can tell, everything should be going great. He’s coaching a winning team—one of the most-loved teams in hockey if the deafening crowd is anything to go by. And he just helped one of his players do what had once seemed impossible—to come out in a major-league sport in the classiest possible way.

The thing about Clay Powers, though, is that what you see is not always what you get. That lead vault where I keep my memories of him is seriously cracked by now, so it’s not a stretch for me to picture him at twenty-four, building team morale one cheese plate at a time.

Even then, he was anxious. Those headaches. And the way he paced our small apartment trying to figure out what could be done to turn our donkey of a team into a stallion.

Coach Powers might have matured by fifteen years, but it’s just dawning on me that the nervous kid I knew is still in there somewhere. Still anxious about his choices. Still trying to get everything exactly right.

He’s managed it tonight. That’s for damn sure. As he coaches his team to a third-period victory, I watch and wonder why he was so upset before the game.

The fascination only goes in one direction. Somehow, Clay avoids looking at me for the entire game. Nobody else does, either. When the final buzzer sounds, the players’ joy is palpable.

Clay is ebullient, patting backs and high-fiving players. His smile is wide, but his face is red with emotion, and his eyes are shiny. I have the strongest urge to push my way into the knot of people around him and grab him into a big, hockey hug.

But then I remember we don’t do that anymore.

And I wonder if Clay still believes it’s my fault.