Page 45 of The Understatement of the Year

There was a photo, too — an action shot of me in my Harkness uniform, lunging for the puck. Thank God they’d chosen that, and not the goofy one from the team program. In this one, you could hardly see my face.

“Rikker, are you still there?” Graham asked into my ear.

I stood up quickly, feeling a little lightheaded. “Yeah, I’m here.”I’m here, but I wish this weren’t happening. The article had fifty-seven comments under it already.

It would probably be a bad idea to read them.

My phone beeped, and I took a peek at it. “Actually, Bella’s trying to call me.”

“Yeah?” Graham chuckled. “Well you’ll have to call her back, because I need to talk to you for one more minute. Listen, I just wanted to say I’m sorry I freaked out on you the other night.”

Funny. I’d thought of almost nothing else for the last five days. Until right this second, when it suddenly seemed pretty unimportant. “It’s okay,” I told him. When I let Graham jump me, I’d already known that he was nursing some size XXL issues.

It wasalwaysgoing to end like that.

“I just…” Graham stammered. “It made me realize that I just can’t… do that with you again. Oranyguy. I’m not going to be… going there.”

Jeez.Just say it out loud, Graham, I begged him in my mind.Say “gay.”He couldn’t even fucking say theword.

“I forgot for a little while the other night. But it’s still true. And I’m sorry I freaked.” he finished.

What a head case. “Okay, man. I get it. You do what you have to do.”

“But I want us to be friends again.”

Well, ouch. Even in the most fucked-up of circumstances, it hurt to be friend-zoned. “Okay,” I said. What other choice did I have?

“I missed you, you know. You’re the only reason I kept playing hockey. Because it made me think of you.”

Dayum!This was quickly becoming the most tweaked conversation I’d ever had. “You could have called, you know,” I said. Though I didn’t really intend to take the conversation in this direction. I didn’t want him to know how much it had hurt to be abandoned so completely. I lay in that hospital bed for days, and every time someone opened the door, I waited for it to be him.

“I was afraid.”

Yeah, I got that.

“…But it was wrong not to call, and I spent five years feeling bad about it. So I’m calling now. We were always tight, and I threw that away.”

Yeah, you did.

“So tell me how we can be friends again, and I’ll do it.”

Sure, pal!We could be the kind of friends who never, ever drank tequila together. Because if we did, that scene from the other night would probably play out all over again.

“I guess you’re going home to Michigan for Christmas, right?” I asked.

“Yeah. Tomorrow.”

“Cool.” He didn’t even have to pretend that we were going to hang out together, because winter break was here. “You know,” I said on a whim, “you could come to Vermont for a night on your way back.” But there was no way he would say yes to that. And it felt a little mean to call him on it.

There was another silence. “How would that work?”

“You could fly into Burlington instead of Hartford, and we’ll drive down in time for practice on the thirtieth. I’m renting a car anyway.”

“I didn’t buy my ticket yet,” he said slowly. “I’ll look into it.”

“You do that.” But what were the odds? He’d probably just tell me later that the tickets didn’t work out. It might even be true. There weren’t that many flights into Burlington.

“Okay man. Hang in there. You know, with the whole article thing.”