Author's Note: For the Ice Hound conversation in this chapter – I know absolutely NOTHING about hockey, so please forgive anything I say that sounds incredibly stupid. I was trying to write around it without having to show how ignorant I am.
Twitter: AlbatrossTam14
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I don't own Degrassi.
I.
She would spend every lunch hour in the band room if she could, but Tristan and Tori force her to eat lunch with them. Force her to eat, period. Zig she hasn't seen since the hallway on that first day, except for in class, and even then Tori serves as a buffer between him and her. He doesn't come to lunch with them, and she doesn't see him at band practice.
Course, she'd actually have to go to band practice to see whether or not he's there.
Other than Tori's chatter about yoga class and Sizzle Teen's latest issue while trying to inspire Tris to go on about West Drive, things stay quiet around their table. She gums her way through strawberry applesauce despite the concrete lodged in her throat. She can't really taste it (though she doesn't taste much of anything these days), but it's less difficult to swallow than most food suddenly is.
She didn't realize she'd been holding her breath until she feels the burn licking her chest. She gasps, nearly choking on applesauce that bleeds down the front of her sweater. It doesn't escape Tristan and Tori, who look at her with white faces.
"What's wrong?" Tori's voice goes off like a siren.
She coughs. "Nothing," She wheezes. "Just the wrong pipe."
Tori watches her for a moment, then snatches a napkin and blots Maya's shirt. "Here," she says.
Maya grabs it out of her hand. "I got it."
"No, it's okay, I can get it…"
"Tor!" Maya crumples the napkin in her palm. "I got it."
Tori's hand freezes in midair, then retracts back to her side. "Okay," she says quietly.
Maya keeps eating, but has to remember to breathe. When did multi-tasking get so hard? Put food in mouth. Swallow. Take a breath. Repeat ad nauseam. One, two, three.
She catches Tristan staring, and when Maya follows his eyes she spots Zig. He's sitting with his friend, Damon, and a few other Grade 9 boys by the vending machine. Zig doesn't seem to be talking much, but he smiles at a joke someone makes.
Tristan gives Maya a wary look. "Do you think you should talk to him?" he whispers.
"No. And why are you whispering?"Maya swats him. "Talk normal. Act normal."
"Well, Maya…" he trails off, staring at the fruit salad in front of him. "Things aren't really normal." He says the words in air-quotes.
Now it's Tori's turn to smack him. "Tris!"
"Thanks, Tris," Maya says. "That's just what I needed to hear."
Tristan rubs the red spot on his arm. "Fine. Let's talk about something else."
"I heard Rachel Ferrer is getting a boob job for her eighteenth birthday," Tori says. This old bit of gossip used to light her eyes up, but now she throws them around half-heartedly, like she's sick and doesn't quite have the energy to do it all the way.
"The one who has two different sized boobs?" Tristan says. "I think, in her case, it can only help."
"I think my sister and Jake are getting back together," Maya says, apropos of nothing.
"Seriously?" Now that's more like the old Tori. "When? Why?"
Maya shrugs, picking through the bag of grapes her mom packed. "I don't know. He came over last night and the night before that. And Katie started working in the garden again."
"And they just made up after that huge fight?" Tori asks.
Maya shrugs again. "Guess so."
She can't see him, but she knows Zig is still looking at her. She wishes he would just stop. For a moment, she gets mental picture of herself going over to his table and just throwing the rest of her lunch in his face. Then yelling at him until he stops staring at her for good.
Why didn't you just listen to me when I said it was over? She'd grab his stupid jacket and shake him by the neck until his head snapped back and forth, until he shook like a rag doll, keep shaking him, howling, screaming in the ruined watercolor of his face. I told you that it had to end. And you didn't listen. Why didn't you listen?
She'd probably get away with it, all things considered. Isn't that why everyone's staring at her all the time? Why Tristan and Tori are always on either side? Why Katie barely lets her use the bathroom by herself? Because they all think that she'll do something crazy. Kill someone if she hears His name mentioned. Or, more likely, take the first flying leap she can out the closest open window. She heard Simpson put two padlocks on the roof door, now.
She stands up so fast that her bag of grapes spills into her lap, scattering them at her feet.
Tori cranes her neck. She's already spotted Zig, who looks away hurriedly.
"Wait, Maya…" She reaches for her frantically.
Maya steps away. "I'm just going to pee, Tor. I think I still remember how to do that."
Tori sits back in her seat. Maya turns, leaving the cafeteria. This time, she knows she isn't imagining things – the caf has gone silent with her footsteps, every pair of eyes watching her as a thousand questions ring muted through the air.
Maya keeps her head up at the doors, doesn't rush her steps. Everyone expects her to be some insane grieving widow? Well, they can go to Hell. When she reaches the caf doors, she pushes them open and strides through them without looking back, before any of their questions can get free.
II.
Right on cue, the murmurs of conversation he hears from the locker room stop when he enters. Words peter off mid-sentence, and everyone suddenly becomes fascinated with tying their skate laces.
Dallas lets it – tries to – slide off his back like rain. He goes to his own locker, stripping out of his school clothes and into the familiar scent of his hockey gear. Stale sweat and pure adrenaline; victory and dirty socks. No matter how many times Mrs. Torres washed it for him with that detergent that smelled like oranges, the smell never came out. All it did was make his jersey smell like rotted fruit.
Two lockers down from him is the empty space of an unopened locker. The combination lock still hangs on the door, as if daring them to open it up.
Try and guess my secrets, it taunts.
Dallas wonders when Coach will empty it out. He's already retiring His number, sending the jersey back to His family.
He's there now: morning outside a red brick church. The grey-faced father. The mother whose face he never saw; she had her face buried in her husband's arms the entire service, until she disappeared somewhere and left the rest of her family behind. The oldest boy, who looked Dallas's age, broad and blond. The little girl who looked about ten, with dark brown hair in two long braids over her shoulders. She looked like some old picture stepped straight out of one of his history textbooks, the image of someone lost to time and tragedy. And the youngest one, the boy who was being stared at the entire day, because he looked just like Him. The same dark eyes, the same color hair, the same small, tilted face. Now it held the same sadness. It was a shrunken image that made everyone stare in agonized fascination. Even Dallas stopped short when he saw the kid, and promptly ran into Luke's backside. Luke had shot him a dirty look, and behind him, Dalton pushed him forward with a "move it, dude". Coach had been watching them from their place in the stands; the Ice Hounds had been designated to their own row in the church, and they filed in one after the other, a wall of stoic faces and red ties. Coach's idea, just like the black armbands they would all wear during the game against Westview in two weeks.
He can taste the iron in the air from that morning. Feel the dirt under his black dress shoes, feel the mud on the wet hems of his good pants Mrs. T had just ironed the night before. The sky had been steel-colored, hard and unforgiving. A mockery of the mornings just before it, when the sky had been so perfectly blue that it seemed like Toronto would never suffer through cold again. It was that hopeful, that serene. But that grey morning overlooking a cemetery turned everything around them the same bleak color of the sky, with no blue to be seen. Like the entire world had shut its eyes to the day, not wanting to see what had become of it.
His phone buzzes at the bottom of his bag. He knows it's Vanessa without having to look. He grabs it to switch it off, when he sees the message on the screen:
Tmrw night. You cant keep blowing me off.
He stares down at her words for a long time. An image of Jayden rises, unbidden. He's much younger. He's fussing after a nap. As if he had a bad dream, and trying to shake it off. Or maybe he doesn't know what dreams are, and he's trying to figure out if the world he woke up in is as solid as it looks or if it's all just shadows and edges, nothing like it should be.
Pushes that image down. Pushes. Away.
Yeah, he texts back quickly. Txt me ltr with details.
"You got any ideas, Captain?"
Dallas looks up. Cody is talking to him, but staring at his hands as he pulls on his gloves.
The rest of the team is trying not to look at him.
Dallas shakes his head. "Nothing new. Just keep the same formation we've been using."
"We were thinking about putting Luke back on right wing," Matt says. For a minute he looks at Dallas, then looks away quickly. "He's the best right shooter we have…" Matt gulps. "Now. And he was playing right wing at the start of the season."
Dallas shrugs. "Then put him on right wing." He looks over at Luke. "That work for you?"
Luke stares at his knee pads. "It's what we all talked about, yeah."
"Then I guess you don't really need my opinion, do you?"
The room ripples with silence. Words stick in between their teeth, rotting away as they lace up and grab their sticks.
The ice looks just the same as ever. It gleams, untouched, under the stadium lights. Their steps echo through the empty stadium. It always amazes Dallas, how small the arena looks when it isn't packed with people. The place seems to shrink ten times when it's just them, the sound of their sticks slapping the ice and the smooth glide of their blades, crossing the surface like fault lines.
They circle the ice like birds, red flashes in a colorless sky. Dashing and darting, drills and plays memorized, simple twists and turns and speed as they rise, fly, soar. The memorized dance calms him. It's instinct, at this point. Head up, stick on the ice. Slowly, the rank taste of iron fades off his tongue, and the grey hillside recedes to the smooth emptiness of the ice. Nothing but the roar of his heart, the rhythm of his own breath, the heat of sweat already slipping down his skin. Push forward, don't stop. Keep up the hustle. It pushes everything else out of his mind, and he shakes off the hillside like forgetting a dream; letting go of the tatters that cling to waking. This is here, this is pain, this is real. Nothing but the wind of movement in his ears, the smell of the cool ice, and the sweet ache in his limbs. Keep going.
III.
As far as Maya can tell these days, her sister and her sister's ex are working through erratic hours to keep mutual custody of their nursery. Like, in return for her time with the rhododendrons, Katie listens to Jake talk about summer squash. And they don't spend the entire time wishing they could shove their tongues down each other's throats.
Katie used to just walk there, but since Jake broke his Spring Break-imposed exile a few days ago, he just comes to pick her up. Maya's watching TV and inhaling a mushroom pizza when she sees her sister come to the door in eye shadow and mud boots.
"You know there's a place on Valley Street selling hyacinth bulbs for eight dollars?" she hears Jake say, as soon as her sister opens the door.
Maya can smell the waft from the truck all the way at the couch. The bed is filled with fertilizer and bursting sunsets that wave to her from outside the window. She gets up and closes the blinds, the light slanting across the dusty floor like knives.
"Think you might have gone a touch overboard?" Katie laughs. She bats at the air, waving away the scent. Maya rolls her eyes.
There's a moment Maya sees where Jake and Katie look at each other, both grinning. They hold it for just a second, then it evaporates. Jake looks down at the doormat, and Katie's eyes linger a second longer than they should before she turns away.
"Feel like tagging along, Maya?"
She blinks. "Uhh, no, thanks." There's a serious magnetic pull towards her dark bedroom. She can see the door from here, the shadows beckoning for her in the unwashed sheets.
"Just for an hour or two?" Katie asks. "Come on, Maya. We could really use the help."
Maya puts down the rest of her uneaten pizza. The act alone suddenly makes her feel exhausted. "No offense, Katie, but I don't think I'll ever be THAT bored."
"What are you gonna do, sleep? It's four thirty in the afternoon."
She stops in the hallway to stare Katie down. "And I'm tired."
Katie stares back at her. She's got her Ferocious Look on, but it takes a lot more than that to send Maya scampering. It hasn't really worked on her since she was about seven; she doesn't know why Katie still uses it.
"Fine," Katie relents. "Just tell Mom I'll be back by dinner."
Maya waves one hand in the air, already turning to her bedroom. She can smell the sheets from here, the scent of unwashed hair and restlessness. She lets the bedroom door click shut, then pulls the rumpled comforter over her eyes. It's comforting, the sourness of the smell and the dark snugness, the way the sheets don't expect her to do anything but lie there and breathe. In and out, in and out, the sheets tightening around her as she holds herself together.
She stares up at her ceiling. Since she was seven, she's had these plastic stars above her bed, the kind that glow in the dark. She thinks her dad bought them at the dollar store. They make a smiley-face pattern when they light up in the darkness, on the nightscape of her ceiling. They had been there forever, until one day one of them fell, shortening her constellation. She figured it had become unstuck and plunged into the unmade sea of her bed, then sucked up accidentally by the vacuum when her mom made her clean her room.
Occasionally, when she'd turn off the lights and try to sleep at night, she'd look at the blank space where that fallen star used to be and remember its place in her little galaxy. It was automatic, a reflex, even if only the shadow of the star remained.
Her arm reaches up. One eye closed, she traces the low, colorless skyline, trying to guess a shape in the popcorned blankness.
At night, stars drift into the darkness overhead, completing a circle around the sun. The same thing happens during the day, but without the cover of night, we can't see them shine.
The people who heard "he was depressed" seemed happier. It's a logical cause – not contagious, not cancerous. Relief on their faces : ahh, of course. Not something dangerous in all their minds. He was depressed.
This is important to people. Things have names. Names make sense. Names don't leave everyone raw, exposed, vulnerable. Names help.
She glances at her stars, one lost. No sun for them; the orbit of her ceiling just stays there, frozen in place and memory.
IV.
The bird lives in the branch outside his window. He saw it this morning before school, when he was climbing into Mrs. T's car behind Adam. The bird that sings every night, trilling on a sprawling limb in the shadows of the morning. It had the color of the sunrise on its wings, and flew into the east as if to bring the city its dawn.
On the edge of darkness, clouds are soaring above buildings huddled together like they just survived something. The sky is bloody, the sun losing its battle with the oncoming night.
They picked a neutral place, a restaurant close to her hotel. Jayden ran to him, just like before. Dallas met him before the boy could run the short distance; he didn't trust the boy not to trip over his short legs and hurt himself. It overrode the momentary insanity of actually being around Jayden; before he could ask himself what the hell he was doing, the first thought that popped into his mind – after holy shit don't fall – was holy shit, that kid got big.
And before he had a second to second-guess it, he had Jayden, and picked him up so they were face to face. For the first time, in almost two years. Dallas had looked at him, not seeing much of himself. But not much of Vanessa, either. He was a warm and sure weight in his arms, and the sturdy realness of the boy was oddly comforting.
He wanted to be held up, but Dallas gave him back to Vanessa. She kept him held on her waist; Jayden's legs were so long they could wrap around her middle.
"So," she says, once they settle into a booth, "the famous Mike Dallas." Her hands clasp over the booth. "Making time out of his busy life for some girl who had his kid."
His hands go around the sides of his water. When he pulls them back, he sees his own handprints in the condensation.
"You wanted me here," he says. "You got me. Why are you here?"
She sighs. "You're not much of a host. Oh wait, I knew that from the other day. What was her name? Alli?"
"I thought this was between you and me," he says, narrowing his eyes at her.
"Did you really like her? She sure seemed into you." Vanessa rolls her eyes. "You're still exactly the same, aren't you."
Dallas leans closer to her across the table. "Did you actually want something, or did you just come here to take shots?"
She picks the cherry tomatoes off the top of her salad and puts them aside. He didn't remember she didn't like tomatoes.
"As a matter of fact," she says after a moment, "I did come here for something." She looks up at him. "You remember my aunt and uncle?"
He shrugs. "Why?"
"They offered to adopt Jayden when I was pregnant. And for a while I thought I'd do it, but right before I had him, I changed my mind."
Vanessa takes one of the cherry tomatoes off the plate and starts peeling the soft skin with her long fingernails.
"My family and I have been talking," she says. "For a long time."
She picks at the tomato too hard, and it bleeds onto her hands.
"I want them to adopt him."
Dallas stares at her for a long moment. Vanessa looks away, her eyes focused on the hazy window, the world spiraling into night around them.
"You're serious?" he says finally.
She nods. "Yeah."
She's still sticking the tomato with her fingers. Beside her, Jayden is playing with her phone, pressing all the buttons. It sounds like a drunk xylophone.
"They said they're still interested in doing it, and we'd still be living in the same area. He'd still see me, still see my mom and my grandma." She stares at her hands, now covered in tomato juice.
"He'd have a good life there," she adds, but he can barely hear her; it's like she's talking more to herself now.
His eyes slide back to Jayden. He's still banging away at her phone, letting out a shriek when something lights up.
Vanessa shakes her head a moment, then suddenly sits upright, brisk and bristling once more. Her face rearranges itself into her first expression of bitter indifference towards him.
"I came here," she says, "because I need your consent for the adoption. The lawyer we talked to said that if my aunt and uncle are going to adopt Jayden, they need both parents to sign off on it. Both have to give up their rights."
He's still speechless as she reaches into her purse.
"I brought the paperwork and everything. The guy at the courthouse said that we both need to sign here, saying that we surrender our rights as parents up completely." She looks up at him for a moment, as if weighing what she wants to say next, then adds, "I figured that shouldn't be too hard for you, since you've been doing that since before he was born."
"Hold on a minute," he says. He's still trying to wrap his head around her words. "You're serious about this."
She nods without looking at him. "Why else would I drive all the way here? I didn't want to deal with you, believe me. But I need to, for this."
"And you're just signing a piece of paper and that's that?"
She shrugs one shoulder. "Generally how it works."
He glances at Jayden. "I don't get it. Why now? Why wait till he's almost two? Why not back then?"
Vanessa finally looks him in the eyes. "Why do you care?" she snaps. "You have no business judging me for this."
"I'm not! I just want to know! Why come to me now about all this?"
Vanessa suddenly looks around, and Dallas notices what she does – people are staring.
She grabs Jayden and pulls him out of the booth, ignoring his whine of protest.
"Outside," she grits through her teeth.
Leaving some money for the bill on the table, Dallas follows her out the door and to the small park across the street. She stops by a small pond, where Jayden tries to reach in and grab one of the fish with his bare hands.
"So," she says. "Any chance you can at least pretend to care about your son's future?"
He shakes his head. "You're not making any sense."
"What part doesn't make sense? I'm giving you a one-time shot to be done with us forever. I thought, after avoiding us for so long, you'd jump at the chance."
"Then why do you even need my permission, if you hate me so much?"
"I told you," she snaps, "it's a legal thing. The court needs us both to sign off as parents."
"So you just show up here and dump this on me?" he says, a little louder than he meant to. Jayden looks up at him, and Dallas looks away.
"Oh, I'm sorry to threaten your career," she says, sneering in italics. "But as he's your freaking kid, I still need it."
He rounds on her, glaring. "And you're sure about that?"
For a minute, it looks like she'll slap him. She's definitely thinking it, he can tell. He almost takes a step back. Then Jayden starts running towards the water, and she yanks him back by the shirt before he can get any closer.
"Come on, Vaness," he says. "You even told me you weren't sure."
Vanessa leans against the fence and stares at the park. "You're a fucking asshole."
His eyes shift to Jayden, watching the ducks on the grey water. He startles every time their wings suddenly erupt from their sides, like black smoke igniting.
Vanessa's eyes follow his, and she shrugs. She pulls out a cigarette, lighting it and twisting it in her long fingers. Smoke curls around her hands like a halo. Her hands are never still for long; he'd forgotten that about her, too. "He's not listening. And you're still an asshole."
Dallas shrugs. "Call it like you want it."
Vanessa takes another drag. "I am." Turns to Jayden, staring at that water in the boneless way only small children seem to have – squatting down, butt straight out, feet flat and shoulder-length apart.
She suddenly turns towards Dallas, holding out her pack.
He almost laughs at that. "Still don't smoke."
Vanessa runs a hand through her hair. Her lips curl downward, a scowl trying to be a scowl even though it's fighting to be something else. For a minute, they just stare at the concrete world of the city turning to shadows, tumbling into a sky that changes from red to gold to purple. Like tapestry, like royalty. Like a dream; nothing looks solid anymore.
"Thought you quit," he says, breaking their heavy pause.
She shrugs, eyes still on Jayden.
"I did," she murmurs.
She peers at him, hair glowing gold, and he almost smiles at her.
Then it's gone. She straightens up, hair blowing back, and puffs smoke into the horizon.
He shakes his head. "Are we done here?"
"Sure," she says. She laughs, her eyes gone hard and flinty, and stubs out the rest of her cigarette. "Yeah. We're done here. Mr. Big Star. Have a nice night."
She picks up Jayden, who whines in protest. "Bird!" he yelps, pointing at the birds retreating on the water.
"Birds later," Vanessa dismisses. She hoists the boy on her hip, then after a beat, says, "Say bye-bye to Daddy."
Jayden grins. The shadows curl off his face, the last of the sunlight trying to cling to his smile.
"Daddy!"
Dallas isn't really sure how much Jayden understands about it all. He knows a good handful of words, but the concepts of meaning and conversation are lost on him for the most part. He tosses words like skipped stones or confetti. They sparkle and sink, without a response to be given.
Jayden still reaches for him over Vanessa's shoulder. "Daddy!" he repeats.
Dallas could say something to him. The boy's dark eyes are shifting in the darkness crawling towards them across the city, black pools in the awful twilight.
Vanessa looks over her shoulder at him. He turns before their eyes match. The cold sweeps over the park, sudden as death, and threatens to blow him apart.
The bird doesn't come that night. He should have known that it wouldn't, when he saw it fly away that morning. Nothing ever comes back, not once it's gone.
V.
The night is a guardian. Darkness keeps her eyes dim and sheltered, silence a warm blanket after shock. The stars are out tonight, their ragged mendings the edges of hours slipping too slowly by.
She hunches in the oversized sweatshirt from one of Katie's old soccer teams and opens her bedroom window. Briefly, she considers climbing out the window, trying to chase down her moon, but the temperature suddenly shot down this afternoon, and now people are calling for snow. In April.
Snow this late isn't unheard of, but after a mild winter, the sudden nakedness of a world frozen – the closed-off blankness of the sky, the wind once so furious now hushed into a silence so complete it's violent – is almost cruel.
A few weeks ago, there were greens shooting up to reach a sky bright as a smile. Days smelled sweet and blossoms were just coming back. Now it's gone. Cold and cutting as dashed hope.
A sudden wind comes through her window, and a chill goes through the fabric of the overwashed sweatshirt straight to her bones, freezing her blood like glass. It's the smell of a frozen world; the misty burn of ice that always followed Him. It lingered on Him like an illness, no matter how long he spent off the rink; a smell that was like old snow and utter silence; like winter that feels like it will never feel the sun again.
Something may have been enough. After all, she got him to sing karaoke with her – not a small feat. He came to all her band shows, held her hand in the hallway. She laughed with him during Modern Family and made pancakes for dinner when they studied together after school. She texted him good night every night before bed, and he fell asleep with her on the couch, fingers intertwined, while she listened to the sound of his heart thudding through warm, fresh cotton.
What had she even been, when they slept on the couch together? Was she his girlfriend still, then? Or was she his buffer, his security blanket, his dreamcatcher?
Her hands are sweaty as they grip the window sill. She's always sweating, these days. Sometimes she takes two showers a day, and she still feels soaked in sweat, her heart beating too fast to cool herself down. Can you have a heart attack at fourteen? Of course you can; Tristan did. Is she about to have one, too?
A warm hand creeps over her heart under a flimsy t-shirt, and it races in her hand like a fugitive. Sweat is trickling down her chest. Breathe.
She looks out her window. All stars, stars, stars. From where she sits, it looks as if they begin right at the edge of her house, and end somewhere over the sugar maple shadows, at the edge of where she can see. The entire universe, sitting comfortably above her.
