Work Text:
You’re 16, and you’re new. It’s all new. It’s kind of scary, but you’re not really scared of it. At least you tell yourself that. Instead of getting more scared, you find a friend. You click like puzzle pieces. He’s really good at hockey. He’s good enough that he was let in a year earlier than the age minimum, and he’s good enough that you kind of get it. ‘Cause watching him score goals feels almost religious. You love playing on a team with him, because that means you can see every time he plays. You also love playing on a team with him because you like being around him. You call each other names that aren’t really exactly the ones your parents gave you, but feel somehow more concrete than those. You keep going through the year, and you keep getting impossibly closer.
Your friend turns into your best friend. You start to be able to recognize his facial expressions as exact translations into words and guess his expression based on the intonation of his voice. Your main hobby is ribbing him, to which he usually returns the favor. You room together a lot, and you hang out more.
One night, in a dark hotel room, he tells you that he misses his mom. He goes very quiet afterwards. You’re not supposed to share these kinds of things with the other guys. You tell him that you miss your dogs. You both sit in silence for a moment. Very, very tentatively, he asks for a hug. He misses his mom and sounds far younger than 16. You obviously give him one. Try to break his ribs with it, squeeze the upset out of him. It partially works, as a laugh bubbles up from him like toothpaste from a tube. You grin and ask if he wants to watch a movie instead of going to sleep when you’re supposed to. He tries to say no, that you should both go to sleep, but you queue up something anyway. He folds pretty quick. You press close against him and try to absorb any of the homesickness through his crossed legs and gym shorts and old graphic t-shirt. It must work pretty well, because he’s smiling for the majority of the movie. It is a comedy, though. You reason that’s why he looks so soft. The season tears on. You get closer.
You’re 17, and you’re still young. You’re a teenager, and your friends are teenagers, and teenagers are absolute fiends for gossip. They gossip about romance, mostly. Or what passes for romance in a locker room full of teenage boys who are so used to their own b.o. that you could drop a skunk in their room and they wouldn’t notice. They gossip about your other friends’ romantic prospects, their journeys to getting their dick wet, their absolute failures in picking up girls. You don’t really gossip back. The only person you tell about the juicy deets of other peoples’ lives is your best friend. Your best friend is not a gossiper. He’s barely a talker. But he listens to you relay information about your teammates that neither of you really care about. You mostly do it to distract from the inescapable weight that’s been pressing on him, something getting increasingly heavier. You figure that this will make you both feel a little more like normal teenagers. And it kind of does.
You make the mistake of asking about him at one of these pseudo-gossip sessions. You ask if he’s been seeing anyone or like, has a secret girlfriend. He blushes and he shakes his head. You note the weird rush of relief you feel at this but intentionally Do Not Look that far into it. Then he asks you. You’ve had girlfriends in the past, but nothing has really stuck. So you shake your head and tell him that you have him, so why would you really need a girlfriend to boost your ego? His smile is hiding something, but it still makes you feel warm. It isn’t until later that night that you realize when he said girlfriend, he was the first person to cross your mind. Which is bad. Very bad. Because he is your best friend. And he is a boy. The weight of the realization sits on your chest like a boulder, crushing your insides more and more as gravity pulls it down. You go to bed that night and pray you wake up normal again. You don’t. It only gets worse.
You’re 17, and you feel like your brain is just on a constant loop these days. It’s the same song over and over, like some sort of sinister broken cassette. I’m sorry that you have the weight of the world on your shoulders, sorry I can’t fully bear that load, sorry I can’t comfort you the way you need, sorry I can’t erase that stress. You’re my best friend. I'm sorry I want you.
You swear to yourself that you’ll never tell him and that you’ll get over it. You only ever keep one of these promises.
You’re 18, and you’re scared out of your mind. The draft is breathing down your neck, and the draft means that you’ll have to start a new life from scratch, gather new friends, be the youngest on a new team. You’re scared, but your best friend is terrified, and you’re there for each other. You’re sitting in your room in near-darkness, illuminated only by the television playing a movie that you’re half watching through the reflection in your best friend’s eyes. You bring up the one thing you two haven’t talked about. Don’t talk about. You’ve talked about new cities and new teams and new girls to come, but the tension around the subject of your friendship is wound tight like a rubber band. You confess something to him. It’s not the biggest thing you could confess, because that will stay down in the recesses of your brain until the end of time, but it’s intimidating nonetheless.
You tell him you’re scared. He misinterprets you, thinks you’re talking about the weight of the draft and expectations and a new team, but you correct him quietly. Yes, that, but mostly you’re scared because you don’t know what you’ll do without him. You know that saying that is probably stepping too close to that thin line you’ve set for your own safety, too close to the truth, but you’re 18 and you’re scared and you need reassurance. You start to avoid eye contact as soon as you see his expression morph into one of concern. He puts a hand loosely around your wrist and tells you that it’ll be alright very softly, even though it’s only 8 and he won’t wake anyone up by speaking at a normal volume. You challenge him to prove it, partially as a joke and mostly as an attempt to distract from the vulnerability you’ve placed yourself in. He either doesn’t hear the way your voice cracks or is nice enough to not draw attention to it. He lets go of your wrist and turns to you with a finger out.
He makes you pinky promise to stay friends no matter where you go, but neither of you are as naive as the childish act suggests you may be. You both understand it’s probably a futile promise. You both understand that, now that you’re older, a pinky promise no longer takes up more space than an actual promise. Because an actual promise is too real, too concrete for something as fragile and unlikely as this. But instead of saying this out loud, you join pinkies. And when you look into your friend’s eyes, you can tell he’s thinking the same thing. It’s ironic almost, knowing someone so well that you can recognize the look on their face that says they know that you know that you both know that one day, probably soon, you won’t be able to recognize that same expression. But soon isn’t now, and now you’re in your room watching a movie with your best friend, so you may as well pretend it’s easier than it is to grow older.
You’re 19, and you’re excited. You’ve just reached everything you’ve dreamed of in life. It all culminated and it’s real. Your best friend calls you before the start of the season and tells you he’s excited to play against you. You tell him the same. You mark the dates with a star in your mind.
You get sent back after 7 games.
You’re 20, and then you’re 21, and you’re tired, and then you’re still tired. You get called back, you get sent down. Called back, sent down. It’s an expectation at this point. You’re a draft bust and you know it. You try to stay positive. It doesn’t work very well. You don’t talk to your best friend as much. You watch his games, you watch him win and lose and celebrate and mourn, you watch him make new friends.
He has a new best friend. He wears his new best friend’s hoodie on tv. You focus on your game.
You’re 23, and the world has gone to shit and beyond. Every part of your life is stained by the ink of an infection the scope of which is bigger than everyone you know and more. You’re in the bubble. You still play hockey. You pretend life is as good as it could be and ignore the crushing weight of everything else.
You’re playing your old best friend’s team. You say old best friend, but he still feels fresh in your mind. You miss him unbearably, even though it’s only been two years since he's texted you. He didn’t respond to the last two things you sent, so you got the hint. It hurt, but people grow and people move.
You’ve moved a lot. You don’t feel like you’ve grown as much as you’ve moved. You’re in Chicago with a team you don’t feel at home in. You have one buddy you played with in the ohl, but that’s about where your connections start and end.
Your game ends with a small brawl and a winning score of 3-2. Despite yourself, you can’t help but take pride in proving yourself to him. Proud, not because you beat him, but because you played well and he saw it. You’ve never resented him for being better, and you know he’d feel awful if you did—always quick to blame himself. At least, you know he would if he was the same best friend you once had. But you don’t know, because you don’t know who he is. He could’ve changed in a million ways or stayed the same in a billion others. You wouldn’t know. What you do know is that it’ll never be the same.
He doesn’t give you a handshake post-game as much as he aborts a shake halfway through the action. Instead of the full up-down motion, he uses your hand to skate forward instead. Forward for him, at least. Obviously, in a handshake line, you’re facing different directions. It wouldn’t make sense if he turned back to you. His hand slips out of yours as his eyes skirt over you and he mutters almost the same monotone “good game” he’s given everyone else. Almost the same because it feels rushed, a tampered down panic creeping through his walled-off voice. His voice is forced in the way you remember it being when he would try to tell you that he was fine when he was injured and clearly not fine. You might be imagining things, but your best friend was never good at hiding things like that from you.
But of course, this isn’t your best friend. This is someone new. Someone you do not know. Someone who doesn’t know you. He’s made sure you’re aware of that. You push your hurt aside as you leave the ice, and try not to think about what could have been and what never will be.
You’re 25, and you’re getting married. It’s absolutely nuts to think about, and you’re so excited you think you might be going crazy. You know that, yeah, logically, nothing will really change other than some paperwork, a ring, and a word, but marriage has always been kind of magical to you. There’s simply something different about knowing that the woman you love, your fiancée (soon to be wife!!) loves you enough to take her time and energy to plan out something as grand and important as a wedding. Sure, she’s already gone through hours of labor to push out a brand new human being for you, but that’s your daughter, and your daughter is her own person. Sometimes you love her so much it feels like she’s a part of you though. You love her so much that it’s impossible for this little person to not be a portion of your heart pulled straight from your chest. Because that’s kind of what she is, isn’t she? At least for now. You can’t wait to see her grow. But growing takes time, and sitting around waiting for that to happen would be incredibly unproductive, so you’re planning your wedding in the meanwhile.
You’ve sorted most of the logistics for the ceremony, and now you and your fiancée (soon to be wife!!!!!) are compiling a list of guests. Your families were the first to be added, obviously. But now comes the hard part. It probably shouldn’t be that hard, but when is anything easy. The first few friends are pretty simple, but then you land on a name that makes your thoughts halt completely. When you were 16, if you had been asked who your best man would be, you would’ve instantly named him. When you were 18, if you had been asked who you would want to stand on that altar with you, you would have lied and shrugged. But it would still be him. But you were a dramatic teenager, and guest is a perfectly fine title to have.
You almost say his name but stop short. He was your best friend during the years you needed one most, and you’ve never truly found someone like him since. Someone who you knew like you knew him. Who knew you like he did. But now it’s been 7 years of separation and 4 years without contact and 2 years of a global pandemic. And yet, above all time, you miss your best friend. You miss looking at him when another one of your friends said something stupid and watching him try not to laugh when you raised your eyebrows dramatically. You miss losing shitty wagers to him in go fish. You miss the way he would smile at you, the way he laughed, the way he could make anything fun, just as long as he was with you. It would at least be nice to see him again. Your fiancée says your name like a question, and you realize you’ve been straight up silent for probably the better part of a minute. You list your simple names and throw his in the middle. She adds him to the list of invitations.
An RSVP never comes. You reason that there’s always a possibility that he just shows up, but he doesn’t. Later you learn that he visited the United Kingdom. When he was a teenager, he talked about how rainy and depressing the UK seemed. But that was when he was a teenager, when you were still best friends. When he was your best man and ring-bearer and groom. You try not to think about it.
You’re 26, and you belong now. You think of all the years before now, all the teams and the friends that were tied too loosely to cinch together into a knot when the strings were pulled from each side. But now you have a family. You have a team. You have a wife and two dogs and two daughters you love more than anything in the world.
You stopped wishing for his name to pop up on instagram a while ago. You still like a post from him once in a while, but he hasn’t returned a like since 2017. Not that you’ve been paying attention. And obviously social media isn’t the be-all and end-all of friendship. Liking or not liking someone’s instagram posts doesn’t change the status of your friendship. It’s about your contact, your communication, your commitment.
He hasn’t messaged you back since 2018. Also, not that you’ve been paying attention.
You’re a liar for that. Of course you’ve been paying attention. You can never get his name out of your ears, to no fault of your own either. It’s just a constant stream of him, no matter where you go. His accomplishments, his faults, his statistics, his future. He’s on everyone’s tongues. You can’t help but think about it. He was the first boy you loved. The only boy you ever truly loved. It was always him. But then three years passed. And then six more. And now you tell yourself you don’t think about him, because you have a wife and two dogs and two daughters you love more than anything in the world, but you’re a liar, and you know it when you repeat that promise to yourself.
You’re 26, and he’s getting married soon. You check your mail daily.