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15

R
obbie and I headed to Heather’s house as soon as we got off the team bus after a great away-win. Robbie absolutely slaughtered the Bricktown Bulldogs, getting a hat trick in the first period—but, alas, no hats on the ice, with the whole away high school hockey thing—then a fourth goal in the third period. I actually got an assist on his second goal, too. For once, I kind of felt bad that we weren’t going to be able to hang out with the guys, especially since Robbie looked so happy.

Durrell drove Heather in his car while I followed in mine with Robbie, taking the roads slowly. The snow had melted quickly, too quickly, and the rapid change in temperature made the streets extra slippery. We crossed the soggy lawn to where Heather and Durrell stood on the porch by the front door. “
You know why the rest of the guys didn’t come?” Robbie asked. “A bunch of them were free. And I mean, I’m sure they would have paid for beer and pizza.”

“They weren’t invited, and I didn’t feel like beer and pizza,” Heather said as she led us into the kitchen, pulling out bags of Doritos and cans of Pepsi. “Private party.”

From behind me, I thought I heard Robbie.
Memo to self: never hang with Tristan’s lame ass friends. At least not without Raiden.

“What about my friends?” I asked him, a little defensively.

Robbie quirked his brow. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You just said—” I cut myself off. Heather and Durrell looked just as confused as Robbie. I must have imagined it.

After stocking up on Pepsi and Doritos, we tromped up the steps to Heather’s guest room with the two double beds. I hopped on one and looked at Heather. She sat on the other with Durrell. Robbie stared at the bed I was sitting on, swallowed, and sat on the floor, putting as much distance between the bed and himself.

“Figure we could all watch a movie,” Heather said as she flipped through Netflix with her remote. She lingered over
Mean Girls
for a few seconds, then clicked through the dramas until she landed on
The Virgin Suicides.

My chest tightened. My mind went to Robbie holding his hands over his mouth, foamy vomit spilling between his fingers. Then a grainy, flickering vision of him falling with a broken ceiling fan crashing down, like it was a film reel.

I asked, “Is there anything else we can put on? Something that’s not a million years old and morbid?”

“I’ve been dying to watch it again. It’s such a great movie,” she said. I glanced at Durrell. I couldn’t remind Heather about Robbie’s suicide attempts, not with him there, not when she wasn’t supposed to know.

We locked eyes. My stomach sank. This was a test, something to see if I could make it up to her. So I said nothing.

The movie started. My attention moved to Robbie, who gripped his Pepsi tightly. After the first daughter committed suicide by jumping out of a window onto a spiked fence, his hand began to shake. My heart rate sped up.

“We could change movies. This one’s kind of dragging,” I said, trying to meet Heather’s eye.

“It gets so good, though,” Heather answered, not budging.

When the movie got to the part where the girls picked out fabric to make their prom dresses, Heather said, “You know, the man who lived here before us committed suicide.”

“Seriously?” Durrell asked, bewildered, maybe a little freaked out. I was caught off-guard too. Heather never mentioned this to me before. Not once.

“She’s joking,” I said, sitting up a bit straighter. I don’t know why she was being this insensitive. Did Durrell’s presence make her stupid?

“It’s true,” she insisted. “It’s why we got the house so cheap. Hanged himself right here.” Heather climbed on the twin beds, reached her hand to the ceiling, and touched the paint. Stroked it gently, like with a doting pet. She came back down and snuggled up to Durrell.

I turned away from her, then froze. Robbie was staring at the ceiling. Immediately, I moved from the bed to sit on the floor next to my brother. For a moment, I thought about touching his shoulder or patting his back, but I didn’t. He’d take it the wrong way. Like I was patronizing him in one of those Public Service Announcements.

“You okay?” I whispered. Robbie’s head snapped down. His pupils were dilated and hazy. “We can turn it off if you want. Put on something else.”

He blinked, then smiled and shook his head. “No, it’s cool. I want to know what happens.”

“You sure? I’m not really enjoying it.”

“
I told you, I want to see what happens.”

I looked back at Heather and Durrell, ready to insist we put on another movie, but stiffened. They were making out like we weren’t even there, Heather straddling his lap as Durrell gripped her hips.

I grabbed the remote and hit stop. “If there’s no objection, I’m putting on something else.”

Heather and Durrell said nothing; they were still making out. Her shirt was snaking up in the back. I could see the red band of her bra.

“Do you guys want to order a pizza or anything? Chinese?” I asked, raising my voice. Heather opened her eye, glanced at me, then closed them to keep making out with Durrell. My chest felt like an anchor pulling my shoulders down.

It sucked being a third wheel, even though Robbie was there as well. Guess we were both just spare tires. Training wheels.

I nudged Robbie with my elbow and gestured with my head to the door. He looked at me.
You sure?

Positive,
I answered.

Quietly, we got up and walked out of the house. We crossed the lawn, our Converse sneakers getting soggy with each step. The temperature was dropping. It’d freeze overnight.

Robbie shoved his hands deep in the pockets of his hoodie after he got in the car. “I know she’s your friend and all, but what a bitch. The making out in front of you and stuff,” Robbie said. “I mean, even if she didn’t know you had a complete boner for her, talk about needing to get a room. And what the hell’s up with Durrell? Usually he’s not such a douche canoe.”

“I don’t want to talk about this.”

“But—”

“I said, I don’t want to talk about it!” I snapped as I pulled onto the road. “None of this would have happened if you weren’t a dick and didn’t try to kill yourself.”

I regretted the words the moment they came out. My resentment was a time bomb, years of holding back the words I wished to yell at Robbie. Words I never said out of the fear of him kicking the crap out of me. “I mean, why would you even want to kill yourself? You have
everything!”

“Because I panicked and couldn’t stop, okay!”

I hit the brakes so hard we jerked forward against our seat belts. I hadn’t expected him to answer me, and certainly hadn’t expected him to say something like that. The hell did Robbie mean? Robbie was fearless.

“Pull over,” Robbie said. I hesitated. “Seriously. Pull over.”

I moved the car to the side of the road and parked. Robbie got out and I followed him. He walked quickly, hands shoved deep in his hoodie’s pockets. I followed him down a smooth path to the town park. We climbed up the steps to the gazebo. Robbie sat down. Hesitantly, I sat next to him. My twin rubbed his knees. “I hate being an outsider. It stresses me out. You’re lucky with your theatre friends. You’re all close and everything, you know?”

I didn’t understand what he meant. “You have way more friends than me.”

Robbie snorted. “Everyone’s ‘friends’ when they’re on a team together. It’s like the army. You can’t hate your squad because they’re the ones saving your ass. But there’s only so much space. Only so many jobs. You’ve got friends outside of hockey. I don’t. You’re lucky.”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “I didn’t realize you felt that alienated.” He looked at me, almost hopefully. Like he was beckoning me to go on. “You seem happy enough.” Although right after I said it, Robbie didn’t seem happy. In fact, he hadn’t seemed happy for a long time. I couldn’t remember the last time he laughed. Truly laughed, not the fake laughs he forced out, part of the Robbie Betterby Hockey Star routine.

“If I wasn’t expected to draft high, it’d be different.” Robbie looked at his feet. “
I have to keep a low profile.”

Low profile?

I waited for my brother to elaborate, but he didn’t. I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”

Robbie folded his arms across his chest and tilted his head back. “No one wants to hang around depressed people and get sucked into their mess. People who say they do lie, or they’ve got something seriously wrong in their brain. I mean, seriously, why would you go out of your way to hang out with someone who was completely miserable
all the time
? There’s, like, obligation to watch out for your teammates and shit. If the guys got worried and started asking questions, I don’t think I could lie. Just easier to keep it to myself, you know?”

What lie? What stuff?

Figuring out Robbie was nothing I ever attempted to do in the past. Before, he was just a hockey player. A damned good one who reeked confidence. Now, he was struggling to speak.

Thick clouds covered the stars and moon. The air was thick and heavy. It’d rain later. Almost inaudibly, Robbie said,
“You have no clue how much I hate myself.”

His words cut into me like the blade of a silent samurai. I felt the threatening prickle of unexpected tears in my eyes.

“Why?” I wanted to know. No,
needed
to know. How could someone who had our parents’ undivided attention, the hockey team’s most promising prospect, hate himself enough to want to die?

Robbie bit his lower lip, hung onto the fake piercing, like it’d make talking easier. Just like he was a fish caught on some jerkbait. I wanted to reel him in, but he kept fighting the line.

I asked again, “Why’d you try to kill yourself?”

Robbie took a long time to answer. “I don’t know.” Then, in a whirlwind, he said, “
It was stupid. People do stupid shit when they’re depressed. Even Raiden.”

Raiden?

“Is that what’s getting you?” I asked. “Are you worried that he’s not going to get drafted or something? Or that he’d go to a division rival?”

“You really have no clue, do you?”

I would if you told me anything,
I barely refrained from saying.

Robbie got to his feet. “Come on, let’s go home. I’ve got something for you, anyway.”

“
What? Like a present?”

“Sort of. More like an ‘I’m sorry for ruining your Broadway trip and accidentally getting Heather and Durrell together.’” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I found a torrent of some twenty-fifth anniversary of
The Phantom of the Opera
or some shit. Figured if you weren’t there, you could at least see it.”

He took off before I could confirm what I heard, or thank him. I hustled to catch up. Despite the threat of rain that would turn the snow to slush, the night felt almost refreshing. I never had a serious talk with my twin before. The closest we came was a year or two ago at dinner when he started talking about Tori Amos and Fiona Apple and how sad it was that so many recorded female vocalists were rape victims, since people capitalized off of women’s trauma and misery. “Men are pigs,” he had said, disgusted. “If I ever end up like that, just kill me.”
I’d asked him to pass the salt.

Now, we walked with our strides in almost perfect alignment. It was strange to remotely empathize with him, but I wasn’t dumb enough to think one serious talk after eighteen years of not speaking would make us similar. We weren’t. But maybe it’d teach us how to communicate. Maybe we’d understand each other the way twins were supposed to.

16

A
t Monday’s practice, Durrell avoided me in the locker room. I hadn’t seen him since he and Heather thought dry humping in front of us was an awesome idea. Anytime I tried to walk near him, he’d move across the room, picking up a piece of equipment, or going into the bathroom, or rushing out on the ice to work on a strained muscle. Maybe he was just embarrassed at getting carried away. I guess I could see that.

When I stepped on the ice, some of the guys gave me strange looks and a wide berth. When I shot a stray puck at the net as we loosened up, there was whispering behind me.

“Hey, Tristan. Wait up!” Smitty called as he skated up to me. He put his glove over his nose and mouth. “Oh my God. Your breath stinks.”

“Ha, ha,” I said dryly. “Like you didn’t rip that from a Youtube video.”

“I’m serious, though. Your breath smells like dick.”

Smitty was across the ice before I even had a chance to respond.

We dropped to the ice with our legs spread, knees bent so our calves and feet stuck out in a W. I leaned forward to heighten the intensity of the abductor stretch, allowing gravity to split my legs further.

“You look like you’re just waiting for someone to pound your ass,” Durrell commented from behind me.

I turned to face him. “We’re all stretching the same.”

“None of us look like we’re asking for it.”

Some of the guys laughed. My cheeks flushed with anger. “Why are you staring at my ass anyway?” I snapped.

“It’s in the way.”

My brother skated next to me and dropped to one knee, stretching out his quads with a groan. “
Oh. My. God. I seriously must have done something when I was sleeping. I’m sore as hell. What about you?”

I glanced at my brother. Beneath his breath, he said, “Ignore them.”

Coach Benoit set up a course with traffic cones and various obstacles. He scribbled the exercise on a white board. We were to weave through, circle, change directions. A ladder was set on its side for us to work the puck through its grates. Robbie volunteered to go first.

Once Coach blew his whistle, it was like magic. Robbie was so light on his feet, it looked like he was tap dancing. He skated across the ice with ease, leaning into the turns and stick handling like he could have kept his eyes closed.

By the time Robbie finished, everyone was tapping their stick against the ice and hollering.

“Who’s next?”

“Tristan wants to go,” Durrell said suddenly.

I tensed up and shook my head. “It’s okay. I’ll wait.”

“No, really. He’s being shy,” Smitty agreed. “
Let him go.”

“Butter, get up there,” Coach Benoit said.

I hated doing any exercise after Robbie. It made me look even worse than I was. I took my spot and waited for the whistle. I skated quickly toward the first cone, taking the turn a bit wider than Robbie. My hips twisted with each move.

“I think your girly hips are lying!” Henry yelled, setting most of the guys off in peals of laughter.

I missed one of the ladder rungs. Gritting my teeth, I pulled the puck back to pass it through again.

“Relax, Butter!” Ray-Ray yelled. “Just imagine it’s some guy’s ass and you’ll get it right every time.”

“What the hell?” I came to an abrupt stop.

“Keep going, Butter,” Coach Benoit said.

“Seriously, are you listening to them?”

“I didn’t hear anything,” Coach Benoit said. “Keep going.”

Fuming, I recollected the puck as I slowly wove through the ladder, spinning a clover through three close cones.

As I moved to the next obstacle, stick handling through a ton of pucks, I heard Durrell hum
The Phantom of the Opera
theme. My blood went cold. I skated up hard to the net. There were four targets in each corner. As I shot, I kept hitting the crossbar. At my seventh attempt, I felt the splinter and lightness as my stick cracked.

“If you can’t perform out here, how can you perform at all?” Durrell
’s voice rang.

I whirled on Durrell, my broken stick in hand. “What the hell’s your problem?”

“I don’t have a problem.”

“Yes. You do. You’ve been treating me like crap ever since you started going out with Heather.”

“Personal drama off the ice, Butter,” Coach said. “Go get a new stick and finish up.”

“Aren’t you going to do something?”

“
Here,” Robbie said quickly, skating up to me. He pressed his stick in my hand. It felt warm. Way better than mine. With the extra curve in the blade, I got all targets in nine tries.

“Thanks,” I said as I handed it back to Robbie.

“Careful, Robbie,” Henry said. “You might get gay germs off it.”

My face heated. My fists clenched. Something inside me splintered and snapped, just like my stick had.

“Just ignore it,” Robbie said beneath his breath.

To my surprise, I answered with, “No.”

I pulled off my helmet and skated toward the locker room.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Coach Benoit asked.

“I quit!” I yelled over my shoulder.

My teammates’ eyes burned into my back as I stepped off the ice and pulled on my skate guards. Not a single person spoke. No one came after me. Not to say they were sorry, or that I should stay and gut it out.

None of the guys wanted me there. Not even Coach.

I showered slowly then packed up my bag. With a heavy sigh, I left the locker room for the last time.

Dad couldn’t
look me in the eye. He tried several times as we sat around the dinner table eating pasta and chicken, mouth opening then closing, sighing again and again. I couldn’t touch my food with Dad looking at me like I broke his heart. I almost regretted my decision.

“We’ll get you playing somewhere,” Dad finally said, although it lacked conviction. “Some other school. Or club. Or worst case, get you in sports management.”

I hung my head. My fingers knitted together. “I’m done, Dad. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

Dad was on his feet so quickly I didn’t see him move. His knuckles blanched from his grip on the table edge. “You’re giving up because of what your teammates said? Some stupid hazing? You know what would happen if you were in the NHL? You know what fans would be saying about you?”

“It’s not about what they’re saying,” I said, even though that wasn’t entirely true. A few times I’d wondered if I was gay. I never looked at guys, but I never really had a girlfriend. I loved musicals, and musical theatre was pretty dominated by gay men. Deep down, I knew I wasn’t. I could look at a man and find him attractive, in the platonic sense; I could admit, “he’s a good looking guy,” but I didn’t get butterflies the way I would around Heather.

“What would you even do without hockey? Have you thought about that?”

I lifted my head. Maybe this was my chance. My opportunity to get what I wanted.

“I want to be an actor,” I blurted.

Everything was silent around me.

“After what your brother did, you
still
want to act?” Mom said, almost snorting. “You’re going to quit hockey so you can act? You know what people will think about you?”

“I don’t care.”

“Really? Really, you’re not going to care at all that they’ll think you’re queer?”

“Maybe I am,” I challenged.

“That’s not funny.”

“No, it’s not funny because it’s stupid as hell.”

“What’s gotten into you?”

“You mean me getting a backbone?”

I got up and stomped up the steps, slowing near the top, wondering if Robbie or Dad would defend me. But Robbie remained silent and Dad only said, “He was out of line.”

Mom’s voice sighed. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him.”

I sat on the top of the steps to listen.

“Has he always wanted to act?” Dad murmured.

I pleaded for Robbie to say something. To be my savior and say yes. But Robbie was silent.

“It’s a phase,” Mom said, trying to comfort him. “I’d almost count on it. Probably he’s getting affected because of the draft.”

“You’re probably right,” Dad said with a sigh. “I don’t know if I should start making calls now or later. Surely someone would give him a job as an equipment manager or something.”

“You can’t be too surprised. We’ve known since he was eight.”

“I hoped he’d catch up,” Dad said.

“So, we’ll have him be Robbie’s personal assistant. He can manage him directly.”

What?

I stormed to Robbie’s room, opened the door, then slammed it shut, hoping my parents would realize I overheard them.

Robbie’s personal assistant? My parents degraded me to being his
personal assistant?

I flopped on my mattress face down. I wouldn’t do it. I put up with a lot but that was too much.

So I wouldn’t.

There was something strangely calming in quitting
hockey
—the simple freedom of doing what
I
wanted. I wouldn’t play hockey, I wouldn’t be Robbie’s assistant, and I
would
star in a musical. Soon, I’d be out of there. Off to some college on a scholarship, get a job to cover housing. Change my name, maybe even legally. I would never act under the name Betterby. In playbills, I wouldn’t thank my parents.

I didn’t hear Robbie enter the room but I noticed when he sat on the mattress next to mine. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Why didn’t you stand up for me?” I asked.

“You know why.”

“No. I don’t.” I sat upright. “Seriously, what’s with all the cryptic stuff? Just tell me what’s going on.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

Robbie got on his feet and walked to the door. “I’m getting a shower.”

“You already had one.”

“
So you’re monitoring me now?”

“Pot calling the kettle black?”

“Whatever,” he said, stepping into the hallway.

I snorted and flopped on my back. “Whatever,” I muttered to the empty room.