Ring
No answer.
Ring
No answer.
Ring
No answer.
Ring
"Come on, Adam." Julie thought, her eyes welling with tears as she cradled the earpiece against her shoulder. "If you're going to get me expelled and ruin my life, the least you can do is answer the stupid phone."
Ring
No answer.
Ring
Asshole.
For the last six hours, Julie had felt like she was trapped on a rollercoaster, her feelings fluctuating from minute to minute. After a tearful hour-long conversation with her parents, followed by an endless string of calls and visits from her fellow Ducks, she'd lost count of how many times she'd gone from scared to heartbroken to hopeful.
Now nearly nine o'clock, Julie sat in bed surrounded by a cornucopia of trashy magazines and bad junk food her friends had brought by in an effort to lift her spirits. Still, what she needed was not Cosmo's 17 Sizzling Sex Tips or a plate of cupcakes stolen from the dining hall.
"Still not answering?"
Connie looked over at her roommate, her brown eyes filled with concern.
"Nope."
"He doesn't deserve you, you know."
"I don't know…"
"Okay, seriously Jules." Connie continued, running a hand through her flowing chestnut locks. "I mean, I love the guy as much as the next person, but take away his fancy car and his absurdly good abs, and what do you have?"
"Guy?"
"Heh, point well taken. This might be a sign we need to run away and join a convent…"
"I just…this isn't like him. Whatever happened to nice, normal Adam?" Julie mused, pulling her knees into her chest as she leaned against the wall behind her.
"I don't think 'normal' is the word I've ever used to describe him…"
"True.
"Well, whatever happened to nice Adam?"
Connie sat quietly for a moment, chewing on a piece of cherry Twizzler as she contemplated what to say.
"Linda went to Breck with him, you know.
"I…don't get the impression that he was ever that nice of a guy. I mean, from the sounds of things, he just kind of went from being horrible to being okay, but I don't think anyone there ever really considered him that great of a person. And they…they all knew him a lot longer than any of us have."
"Yeah, but like, did Linda like anyone at Breck?"
"Well, judging from the time that Charlie got all pissy about the Larson thing, she didn't dislike him."
"Okay, that's just weird." Julie laughed, reaching for a Twizzler herself.
Then again, I'd probably still take Larson over Charlie.
Maybe.
"I just…I don't know."
"I don't, either. Boys are complicated."
"Yes they are."
"Damnit, Scott. How did I raise such a worthless fucking dipshit?"
Over the course of the three hour ride back from Wisconsin, Phil had lost track of new ways to insult his oldest son. As such, the whole thing had taken on an endless loop quality, with the same argument repeating every half hour.
"How are you such a worthless fucking dipshit?"
"Go to fucking hell."
"Don't talk to me that way, cocksucker."
"You're the fucking cocksucker, you fat fuck."
And on it would go, both sides demonstrating an admirable lack of self-awareness in their insults. All the while, Adam sat in the backseat, quietly contemplating what he was going to tell Julie as the war raged on three feet ahead.
"Looks like it's just going to be Mr. Fluffy and I. Together forever." Adam thought, learning back against the passenger side door in an effort to get comfortable. Rolling up his jacket to use as a pillow, he spread out across the leather seat and shut his eyes, hoping to drown out the world around him.
"Fat fucking disappointment."
"Washed up asshole."
"Dickhead."
"Fuckface"
"Asswipe faggot"
…
That night, the Banks family arrived home around 11:30, Scott and Phil hoarse after the hours spent yelling at one another between drags off unfiltered Camels. Adam, meanwhile, retreated to his room, well aware that the next day wouldn't be any better.
As he lay in bed, staring up the ceiling, his stomach rumbled. The way that his day had unfolded, breakfast with Larson ended up being his last meal, and the morning's chocolate chip bagel had worn off hours earlier. Still, that was the least of his problems.
The emptiness that he felt at the prospect of losing Julie far outweighed the discomfort of a rumbly tummy. Rolling over, he reached for the bottle of Vicodin on his nightstand, hoping that it could quiet his racing thoughts.
Hoping he'd forget that there was nothing left in his life.
…..
The next morning, he put on a brave face. Trying to silence the dread he felt inside, he put on his favorite khakis and a buttery yellow oxford that fit in all of the right places. As he combed his hair and ate his breakfast of toast and coffee, he told himself that he was overreacting. That Julie would probably never even find out about the strip club incident.
Of course, she'll still eventually figure out that you're a loser with no future, but with any luck, she won't figure that out until hockey starts back up next year.
Grabbing a to-go cup of coffee, he headed out the door, determined to make the most of whatever time he had left.
"Today's going to be just fine." He assured himself as he awkwardly fished for his car keys, coffee in hand. "Just fine indeed."
…
"Yeah, no. Just go back to Breck. Ruin their lives."
He could feel the warmth on his hands and chest from a few moments earlier, from when Portman had "accidentally" knocked into him, drenching him with his own coffee. Looking down, his shirt was now soaked from the brown liquid, his goal of looking nice for the day over before it had even begun.
Portman had simply walked away with no apology, leaving the former hockey star with stained clothes and scalded fingertips. The explanation came a minute later, as he saw Connie walking to first period without her roommate.
"What the hell, Connie? I said I was sorry."
"Sorry doesn't fix anything, Adam. Besides, where were you when she was crying her eyes out last night? Because that might have been a better time for 'sorry'."
Well, first I was in jail, and then I was going to pick my brother up from jail…
Probably not an explanation that's going to help my cause.
"I was tied up with a family emergency.
He rubbed at the back of his neck, staring down at his stained oxford and boat shoes. "Look, I know 'sorry' isn't what you want to hear, but that's all I can offer right now. Tonight when my dad gets home, I'll have him make a few calls and we'll get the rest straightened out then."
Connie sighed, turning to walk away.
"You just don't get it, do you?"
"Get what?"
"You don't live by the same set of rules everybody else does. For like, the last three months, you've just come to school when you felt like it, done homework when you felt like it, and in general, done whatever you've felt like doing. That isn't the real world—not for the rest of us. It's your life, and you can do what you want, but you can't go around screwing up Julie's life in the process. That's not right."
Yeah. That's exactly what I've been doing.
Fucking bitch.
He could feel the combination of guilt and anger bubbling up inside: On one hand, he did feel horribly guilty about what he'd put Julie through. On the other hand, it always seemed like the people with the least room to talk about fairness did it the most.
"We skipped school for one fucking day. You're acting like a bigger drama queen than Linda and Charlie."
"They're talking about expelling her. And on a side note, making fun of Linda and Charlie right now is kind of an asshole move, considering what you did."
"Again, you stupid fucking bitch. She's not getting expelled. I'll have my dad give the dean a call and everything will be fine."
Connie's jaw dropped, her eyes going wide with disbelief.
"What did you just call me, you cakeeating prick?"
"Well, I did call you a stupid fucking bitch, but I was trying to be nice, so I left out the 'trashy slut' part. You're welcome to insert that part back in there, though, if you'd like."
For a brief, glorious moment, Adam felt quite satisfied with himself, waving goodbye as Connie stood there in shock. Finally processing that this was an actual conversation that had actually occurred, she stormed off across the quad.
"Have a nice day. Don't fall on a dick." He shouted behind her, happy to get an extra word in for good measure.
For the first time since Julie had left his house two days earlier, he felt good.
He had won the argument.
Turning back towards class, there was a new lightness in his step, content that justice had been served.
.
"You know boys," He could hear Dr. Larson's familiar lecture in the back of his mind. "There's such a thing as winning the battle but losing the war."
Making his way past the rows of limestone buildings, Dr. Larson's words grew louder as the pit in his stomach grew.
The birds above chirping, he shook his head.
Pretty sure I just lost the war.
…..
The rest of the day, he did his best to avoid his fellow Ducks, taking safety in the gaggle of Guys With Roman Numerals After Their Names. Surrounded by Crawford and Thad and Parker and Tripp and an assortment of other guys who lived in crappy McMansions and took solace in the fact that their dads wore suits to work every day, he was able to make it through the next eight hours without any real Duck contact at all, even the Portmans of the world hesitant to go up against his wall of pastel.
Instead, he politely smiled and nodded at stories about making out with some girl at Mackinac Island, or coming in under parr at the ECC. All the while, he did his best to ignore the dirty looks and stony silence coming from his former teammates. To ignore Connie's tear swollen eyes in second period, and the empty seat next to him in chemistry.
Hour by hour, the hole inside him grew, him wishing that it would finally just devour him so that he could get a break from his own life. With every mindless story about about stealing a bottle of Tanqueray from the Halsey's liquor cabinet or making it to second base with some girl named Hollis, he felt more and more empty inside, consumed with the realization that without hokcey or Julie or his friends, this was all his life would ever again hold.
That he too would spend the next decade with no greater goal than getting a blowjob in the back of some girl's dad's Yukon, followed by forty more years of being the guy trying to pay for the Yukon and Tanqueray and country club membership.
.
The final bell of eighth period ringing, he contemplated going by the girls' dormitory to talk to Julie. His books packed, he got up and left, walking by Roosevelt Hall on his way out to the parking lot.
At one point, he turned and made his way up the front steps of the three story building, actually mustering the courage to knock at the door for somebody to let him in. However just as one of the freshman clarinet players walked towards the door, his nerves got the better of him, and he retreated back down the steps without a word.
After all, what he was going to tell Julie? That he was sorry that he hadn't been there for her the day before because he was too busy beating up his friend in a jail cell? That he hadn't meant to call Connie a trashy slut? The harder he thought about his words, the more he realized he was facing a lost cause; no apology quite capturing situation. Instead, he simply made his way to his car, his mind still swimming with the hopelessness of it all.
I have nothing left.
No hockey.
No friends.
No Julie.
No future.
At one point, he could her Charlie call out for him, but he continued on, not even bothering to turn around.
Just another person to tell me how much I've ruined everything.
.
A mile away, his afternoon only continued to devolve, seeing Phil's Mercedes parked in the driveway as he arrived home. Before he could even make it inside, his gut told him that he dad wasn't home at three in the afternoon to spend quality time with his sons…a suspicion that was confirmed by the stench of cigarette smoke that had filtered into the foyer. The closer he came to his father's study, the stronger the smell became, until he he opened the mahogany door and coughed, the nicotine and tar having replaced any traces of oxygen in the room.
His eyes watering from the smoke, he looked over and saw his dad sitting around in just a bathrobe and his underwear, a bottle of scotch in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
Fuck me.
"Whatdoyouneed?" He muttered, staring down at an old family photo on his desk.
"Julie…Julie's in trouble."
"Damnit," Phil sighed, running a hand through his thinning hair. "Did you get girl pregnant, just like your stupid brother? How hard is it for you two fuckwads to just use a fuckin' condom? Or I don't know, Seran wrap or something. Anything, really…"
"Eww.
"And no, not that kind of trouble. She's expelled."
"The fuck?"
"From skipping school. With me."
"God. You stupid sonabitch." Phil sat down his drink down and pinched the bridge of his nose, a look of resignation replacing the usual anger he was known for. "How do you fuck up every single thing you do? This whole damn family…you're like a bunch of Mongolians or something, except Mongolians don't go around ruining everybody's lives."
A part of Adam felt tempted to point out the term was 'Mongoloid', not 'Mongolian', and that moreoever, neither one was appropriate. Already too depressed to care about being shoved into another door frame or having his lip split open, he started to open his mouth. Looking at Phil sitting there in just a plaid bathrobe, though, the scars from last year's triple bypass visible, he realized with defeat that there was nothing to say.
Phil was right.
They were a family of life ruining Mongolians; four people doomed to wallow in their own dysunction until the sweet embrace of death finally decided to take pity on them all.
Turning around, he walked wordlessly out the front door and got in his car, hoping that a drive would clear his head. Hoping that something—anything—would start to make sense.
.
For mile after mile, suburbia passed on, the endless backroads of Edina and Minnetonka and Wayzata seeming to stretch on for forever. Passing subdivision after subdivision, the sun ahead began to set, nothing in life becoming any clearer.
Before long, one hour had turned to two, and the familiar suburbs had been replaced by far flung locales he'd barely heard of; big gated subidivisions giving way to random bungalows and double wides that dotted the highway. Raindrops started to pound the windshield, and the roads grew darker, yet the further he got from Edina, the less sense he saw in going back.
After all, there was nothing there for him.
The windshield wipers sweeping back and forth, back and forth, his life seemed to play in a loop through his head, sixteen years of memories all flooding to the surface. His Porsche seemed to careen down the road on autopilot, slowly picking up speed as his mind became less focused on the twists and turns ahead than the thoughts he'd spent so much time trying to quiet.
.
He was five, and hiding under the bed at his parents' lake house. The room was dark, and he was sandwiched between a splintery oak floor and an antique bedframe, his body shaking with fear as a warped floorboard dug into his chest. Downstairs, he could hear terrified screams and gun blasts as bullets pierced through the living room, the cicadas outside chirping, oblivious to the terror unfolding mere feet away.
Earlier that day, his father had gotten the call that a business deal had fallen through. Three hours and a bottle of scotch later, he was pacing through the modest lake house with an AR-15 in hand, rambling about how he didn't want anyone in the family to live through what he was living through. As he turned his sights on Bunny, Scott grabbed Adam and snuck upstairs to a guest room, where he quietly locked the door, turned off the light, and hid both of them underneath the old bed. Downstairs, they could hear the argument raging, at one point punctuated by a series of gunshots as Phil started shooting at the picture frames on an end table. Scott pulled him in closer, neither boy sure if their parents would still be alive when they went back downstairs.
.
He was seven, and curled up on the bench outside the principal's office crying, a cone shaped party hat still on his head as he sobbed into his khakis. It was 4:30, and his mother still hadn't come to pick him up from school. She was supposed to be there at two, to bring cupcakes for his birthday. He'd sat in class for over an hour, watching the minutes on the clock tick by, expecting her to walk in any minute with an arm full of rainbow frosted, funfetti cupcakes. Minute after minute passed, the whole time telling himself that she was probably just stuck in traffic, or that maybe she'd gone to the store to get his favorite sprinkles. Finally, at 3:15, the bell rang. He went to wait outside with all of his classmates, expecting that any moment she'd arrive full of hugs and apologies and promises to bring even yummier cupcakes the next day.
One by one, all of his friends' smiling mothers arrived in their shiny Audis and Volvos, until he was left sitting all alone on the concrete. As the rain began to pour, the principal brought him inside while she called his house, and then his father's office. It was dark by the time anyone arrived, and for 20 minute ride home, all he could do was cover his ears in the backseat as Phil shouted obscenities into the car phone, sleet and freezing rain pelting the windshield.
.
Soon, he was ten, and his father had just shoved him through the Mies Van Der Rohe table. He could feel the warm, sticky blood pouring down his leg, and the sharp pain from where a shard of glass had sliced through the back of his thigh. The pool of crimson down at his feet was growing by the second, yet his mother and father stood five feet away, cursing at one another over the damaged coffee table.
A minute later, Scott walked through the door. Horrified by the scene unfolding in front of him, he grabbed a towel and rushed the bleeding fourth grader to the hospital. Sixty-three stitches later, Phil and Bunny were still standing there in the living room. Still surrounded by blood, arguing about Bunny's beloved coffee table.
.
He was eleven, and biting his lip not to cry after Ben Morgan dumped a lunch tray of food over his head. Chocolate pudding and pineapple juice slowly dripped down his face as the rest of the school looked on, the laughter echoing through the cafeteria.
The day before that, he'd cut his knee open on a piece of metal sticking up from a railroad tie when Larson tripped him on the playground after school, and the day before that, Brian had given him a black eye during gym. His face still throbbed every time he started to smile, and with five staples in his knee, it was hard not to limp. Still, those things weren't bad. Cuts and bruises were par for the course for any self-respecting hockey player. Pudding, on the other hand, was not.
.
Before long, he was 13 and clutching onto Mr. Fluffy as a trainer walked towards him with a giant needle in hand.
He was scared.
He remembered the meeting with the specialist three days earlier—the one with gentle hands and concern in his eyes as he explained the risks of playing through such an injury. He remembered the look the doctor gave his father when Phil tried to insist that all his son needed was Vicodin and a set of balls; his final words as they walked out of the plush office still ringing in his head.
"Mr. Banks. Please. Remember that your son is going to have to live with all of this long after the game has been forgotten."
He remembered the trainer's icy hands, and the jolt of pain as he grabbed Adam's arm with all of the grace normally reserved for farm animals. He remembered trying to swallow back tears as his father's voice echoed off the concrete.
"Quit being a fucking pussy."
.
He was 15, his naked body being held down on the cold concrete floor of the varsity locker room, Cole's chubby forearm pressed firmly against the back of his neck as he struggled to breathe. He focused on the peeling red paint of a locker nearby, and the spatter of blood from his nose on the concrete below, trying not to think about what was happening to him.
He'd tried to fight back.
When Rick had grabbed him by the coat on his way out the door ten minutes earlier, he could tell from the sadistic glint in the forward's eye that he needed to get away. He'd fought back with everything he had, but it had been to no avail. All that he had to show for his struggles were a bruised hand and a twinge in his back that would flare up at inopportune times; a minor but lasting reminder of an afternoon that he would have been just as happy to forget.
.
He was still 15, and being labeled a traitor by his friends. After four years of defending the rest of the Ducks to the Garretts and Crawfords and Thads of the world; after four years of surreptitiously paying for lunches and finding "extra" coats or pairs of Nikes in his closet after Charlie's stepdad got laid off at the dock; after quietly taking the worst of Varsity's "hazing" in hopes that it would spare everyone else from the brutality of Rick and his cronies, he was still nothing but a rich snob who'd had everything handed to him. As Charlie's fist connected with his lip in front of the goalpost, he knew full and well that if Guy had been the one to make Varsity, nobody would have doubted his loyalty.
.
Fuck.
A jolt coursed through his body as the Porsche struck the edge of a guardrail, his athletic frame thrown forward.
Before he could fully process what was happening or what he had done, the 911 catapulted into the air, the laws of gravity temporarily suspended his car summersaulted through space. Looking out the windshield in horror, he realized all too late what a mistake he'd made, the moon reflecting off his watery grave below.
.
The people around him didn't necessarily love him, but he still loved them, and there were a lot of things he needed to do.
He thought of his parents, and the mother he had before Susan died; the one he'd seen in seen in the old home movies, reading the Berenstein Bears to him on the couch as he snuggled up in her lap. He thought of the father behind the camera; the one who'd apparently thought those moments were worth capturing.
He thought of Larson, and the chilly Saturday afternoons spent together at the Mariucci Arena, cheering on the Golden Gophers as they gorged themselves on Twizzlers that Dr. Larson had snuck in. He thought of the car rides back to Edina—all of the glorious hours spent over the years in the back of that Subaru wagon, he and Reid being as loud and gross as they liked while Dr. Larson sang along with Billy Joel hits and took everyone through the Krispy Kreme drive-thru. In those moments, there was no Hawk machismo to maintain, nor anyone to yell at him for not being good enough. He was simply a kid, hanging out with his best friend.
He thought of Julie, and how she wouldn't have a lab partner for chemistry anymore. Sure, she hated him now, but it always gave him horrible anxiety if his partner in a class was absent. Being reassigned as the third person to a pair that already had a comfortable routine made him feel like his stomach was in knots; like there just wasn't quite enough air in the room.
He wasn't sure if Julie had that problem, too, but if she did, he didn't want to put her through that.
Julie.
As he stared into the dark abyss below, he realized that Cole and his buddies were still juniors.
Suddenly, the lab partner issue seemed trivial. He had to live.
The icy river coming closer by the millisecond, he found himself praying harder than he ever had before. He didn't care what happened to him—he didn't care if he'd ever play hockey again. He didn't care if he'd ever walk again. But he had to live.
Please God. Plea—
The next thing he knew, he was enveloped in the icy river, water filling his mouth and nose. His senses were scrambled, and his heart was pounding so loudly in his ears that he couldn't think. He strained against the seatbelt, trying to free himself. Trying to get to a place where he could once again breathe. No matter what he did, though, he was stuck, trapped against the leather seat.
Don't let me die.
Just as the pounding in his ears started to muffle, and the world around him began to quiet, he remembered that he hadn't unclasped his seatbelt. As soon as he pushed the button down, he found himself released from his captor, somehow finding the strength to swim through the shattered window and up to the cold night above.
In a haze, he struggled his way to shore, desperately trying to catch his breath. Dragging his battered body, he made it to the muddy river bank just as the world around him went black, collapsing face down into a pile of mud and rocks as the world went dark.