Fire and Ice - Chapter 27
Sorry for the last minute delays in posting. Had a rough week. Enjoy!
Pairing: Ennis/Jack
Setting: AU/AU
Rating: NC-17 for the whole story
Disclaimer: The characters of Ennis and Jack belong to the fabulously talented Annie Proulx. No disrespect is intended. Any OCs are mine.
Summary: Ennis del Mar is a defenseman and Jack Twist a left wing on a minor-league hockey team who meet when Ennis is assigned to Jack’s team.
Feedback: Yes, please. Always welcome.
Warnings: M/m smex, drinking, homophobia, foul language, angst, injuries, more smex, and occasionally some hockey thrown in.
Thanks to: everyone who’s been so kind to Heidi and me while we work through the extraneous BS. You guys rock.
Dedicated to: former NHLer John Kordic. Miss you, buddy.
Chapter 27
One week later…
“Hear anything yet?” asked Jeff as he pulled on his t-shirt.
Jack, lacing his skates, looked at him pointedly. “No.”
Jeff sighed. “I’m sorry, man.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
Talking in the shorthand language they’d developed since Jeff learned about Ennis and Jack, they managed to have a conversation about Jack hearing from Ennis without anyone knowing what they were talking about-and in a locker room full of testosterone, it was the only way they could.
Mike and Perry entered the room and sat on the table in the middle. Everyone gathered around, taking care of their last minute preparations for the game.
“We heard from Ennis’s doctor,” Mike began, and a jolt went through Jack. “He came through the surgery just fine. They did a more than we thought-it’s called a double bundle reconstruction. Plus he had a lot of torn cartilage that needed to come out. But he’s doing great. I called Ennis this morning and he says to tell everyone hi.”
Jack’s gaze dropped to the rubber-matted floor. Don’t suppose there was a personal message in there for me, eh, Coach?
“So, that’s good news. Bad news is, tonight we play Madison…”
After that, Jack stopped listening. At the mention of Ennis, all his game thoughts went out the window. How can he still affect me this way? he thought, angry at himself. He’s gone and hasn’t made one move to contact me. What the fuck? He wondered if the poem he’d quoted had been a little too obscure for Ennis to understand. Maybe I reached too far with it, he thought sadly. I hope he didn’t think I was being a snob. Maybe he thought I was doing it on purpose-making fun of him for not having a college degree? Jack felt mortified at the thought. Never, never in a million years would I do that…Ennis knows that…doesn’t he? Aw, shit… But then, just as quickly, he dismissed the thought. Maybe it was the wrong poem…maybe he thinks I blame him for everything. I don’t, I swear to God. I just wanted him to know how much he means to me, and I figured ol’ Walt could say it better than I ever could. Shit. Maybe I should’ve chosen Walt Disney instead of Walt Whitman, he thought, and it actually made him smile. Sounds like something Ennis would’ve said.
***
A few weeks after that…
“C’mon, push! Harder, harder! You can do it, just a little bit farther… yeah!”
Ennis grunted as he did his straight leg lifts, trying to touch his toes to the outstretched hands of Mark, his physical therapist. He finished the requisite number of lifts, and Mark handed him a towel as Ennis sat up, gritting his teeth.
“You’re a bastard,” barked Ennis as he wiped his face of sweat.
Mark just grinned. “I’ve been called much worse.”
“Let me think of something else and I’ll get back to you, eh?”
Mark laughed and threw the towel in the laundry bin. “You do that.” He washed his hands at the sink and turned back to his patient. “So, you think you’re ready to give up the CPM and start on a stationary bike?”
Ennis grimaced. The continuous passive motion machine, or CPM, had been a godsend, moving his knee varying degrees at a time while he slept to increase his range of motion. “Yeah, I guess so. I really liked the CPM, though. Can I keep using it?”
Mark shook his head. “No need. We’re two weeks into it now and you’re ready for biking---but just stationary biking. No road races.”
Ennis grinned. “Aw, c’mon, eh? I’m practically Lance Armstrong.”
“Okay, Mr. Tour de France, where’s your yellow jersey?”
“I said ‘practically’. I haven’t won anything yet.”
Mark laughed and Ennis smiled. Mark was a great therapist and a good guy, but he pushed hard--really hard. Ennis grumbled but he knew it was exactly what he needed. And frankly, he wanted it-wanted someone who would guide him and push him to do what needed to be done so he could get back on the ice.
“When can I skate?” Ennis asked, and Mark laughed.
“You’re quite a ways from that, my friend. A couple months at least. We have to make sure your range and strength are back first. Last thing you want to do is lose what progress you’ve made.” Mark looked at him hard. “I mean it. No ice.”
Ennis glowered at him.
“Ennis…”
“I won’t,” he said, throwing up his hands in surrender.
“I mean it,” Mark said sternly. “You get out on the ice and I will whoop your ass myself.”
At 5 feet ten inches and 170 pounds soaking wet, Ennis laughed at the picture of Mark trying to whale on him. “Yeah, good luck with that.”
“Hey, Gimpy McGimperson,” Mark snapped good-naturedly, “all I have to do is trip you and you’re down for the count.”
At that, Ennis slumped. It was true. He couldn’t do anything right now.
“I was just kidding, Ennis. Come on, let’s do some hamstring curls.”
“Fuck you,” Ennis grumbled. “This hurts.”
“Waaah, waaah, you big baby. Come on.”
Mark helped Ennis slide to the edge of the table and he began bending and lifting his leg, once again trying to touch Mark’s hand with his toes. It hurt like holy hell, but Ennis knew it was necessary to get his knee back to normal…although he was beginning to wonder what normal really was.
***
Ennis got home and hobbled into the house to make some lunch. He was in pain, but he always was after therapy. He made his way to the kitchen and there was his mom, Gwen, making lunch for everyone.
“Hi, how did it go?” she asked as she busily stirred something in a bowl.
“Fine,” he answered, setting his crutches aside and hopping to the fridge for a beer.
“Don’t hop!” Gwen admonished. “You might slip.”
Ennis rolled his eyes at her. “I’m fine. Hey, I got my custom brace.”
“That’s great! Do you still have to use your crutches?”
“A little,” he admitted. “What are you making? It smells great.”
“Meat loaf and mashed potatoes. And I’m about to put a peach crisp in the oven. You want to make the salad?”
Ennis agreed. She sat him at the table and got all the ingredients out of the refrigerator for him and he began tearing lettuce and slicing tomatoes, chopping radishes and slicing carrots.
“You got any bean sprouts or garlic?” he asked. “Or green onions?”
She turned and looked at him pointedly.
“What?” he asked, blinking back at her.
“This, from a boy I couldn’t get to eat plain string beans?”
Ennis blushed. “Uh…well, I told you my fr-my roommate Jack was a good cook…”
“Apparently, if he got you to eat those.” Gwen spooned the peach mixture into a small pan, sprinkled the crumb topping over it, and put it in the oven. “And no, we don’t have any bean sprouts. I’m not even sure I know what a bean sprout looks like.” She smiled at her son. “Sounds like Jack’s a good friend.”
Ennis bit his lip. “He was.”
“Was? What do you mean? Have you talked to him since you got home?”
Ennis shook his head, not wanting to talk about Jack to his mother. “Hey, can you finish this?” he asked, pointing at the salad. “I need to call the team and let them know how things are going.”
“Sure,” she agreed. “Why don’t you rest for a little while? I’ll call you when lunch is ready.”
Ennis nodded and grabbed his crutches and headed for his room. He got upstairs, shut the door quietly behind him, and sat down on his bed. He reached for the envelope on the nightstand; the envelope that held Jack’s final message to him, its edges frayed and tired, the paper dirtied by the many times Ennis had opened it, read it, and placed it carefully back inside.
The first few times he had read it he was confused. The thought had occurred to him that Jack had picked the poem to embarrass him; Jack was a smart guy and he was just a simple cowboy from the plains. But he tried; he read it over and over, moving his lips as he read it out loud, trying his best to understand it. It wasn’t until last night that it had hit him. He had been laying in bed, trying to sleep, the CPM machine moving his knee back and forth, when something began to bother him about the letter. Ennis rolled over and grabbed it, reading every word, and suddenly, it hit him clearly: Jack blamed him. Yeah, sure, the words said Jack was responsible too; how else to explain “I talk wildly, I have lost my wits, I and nobody else am the greatest traitor, I went myself first to the headland, my own hands carried me there”? But underneath it all, Ennis knew Jack blamed him, and he carried that guilt into his sleep that night.
And now here he sat, reading the letter once again. I wonder if he’ll ever talk to me again, thought Ennis as he fingered the edge of the paper, holding it to his nose to try and breathe in the missing scent of Jack Twist. I deserve everything I get, he resigned himself. I was such a dick to him, I don’t know how he could even write me the letter.
His eyes scanned the words. He concentrated, reading each word slowly and painfully.
Is this then a touch? quivering me to a new identity,
Flames and ether making a rush for my veins,
Treacherous tip of me reaching and crowding to help them,
My flesh and blood playing out lightning to strike what is hardly
different from myself
Was Walt Whitman gay? thought Ennis, confused. Even if he wasn’t, he sure seems to know how it feels. ‘A new identity’, ‘to strike what is hardly different from myself’-that what it feels like, to be with another man.
Behaving licentious toward me, taking no denial,
Depriving me of my best as for a purpose,
Unbuttoning my clothes, holding me by the bare waist,
Deluding my confusion with the calm of the sunlight and pasture-fields,
Ennis thought hard about that one. He tried to imagine it as a man describing a woman doing those things, and it just didn’t compute. It sounds like two men--like me and Jack, Ennis mused as he thought about Jack ‘depriving him of his best’, and that confused him. He knew Jack had never done anything but bring out his best, not deprive him of it. And as for ‘deluding his confusion’, Ennis knew without a doubt that that what Jack had always done: with his confident ways, Jack had always led him and calmed him, trying to show him that there was nothing wrong in what they were and what they did together. And for the first time, Ennis realized that the shame lay not with them, but with others, the others who had a problem with it. And what was the shame in that? That’s their problem, not ours, Ennis reasoned, and he felt a sense of calm wash over him. Jack was right. I shouldn’t let what other people might say or do bother me. It might never happen. And look at me…I’m a fucking mess without Jack. All I want…he paused his thoughts, looking up at the ceiling of his boyhood room. All I want is to be back with Jack. But I don’t know if that can happen; it’s up to him.
He read on.
Unclench your floodgates, you are too much for me.
Blind loving wrestling touch, sheath'd hooded sharp-tooth'd touch!
Did it make you ache so, leaving me?
Wasn’t it Renee who said I was so tightly clenched that I’d crap a diamond? She was right…and if he had any idea how much it killed me to leave him, then he would have never chosen that poem. Jack, I ache every day and especially every night. Jack, I swear…
For the first time in the probably fifty times he’d read the poem, he read of love instead of just blame and guilt; he read love and pain and anger and desire. But he was certain that however much Jack may have loved him, Ennis had destroyed it, had beaten it to death with his own hockey stick out of stupidity, fear, misplaced homophobia and a big dash of self-hate. How can Jack ever love me? I can’t even love myself. I can’t blame him for hating me. He said he was done with me.
The remembrance of Jack’s biting words, I’m fucking done with you, pounded through Ennis’s head like a litany of everything gone wrong. I am fucking done, he said. He’s done with me and I can’t go back. I can’t. He hates me now, and even if I tried to apologize, he probably wouldn’t accept it. I fucked him over twice…twice I turned my back on him and pushed him away. And now he doesn’t want me back. There’s nothing I can do to make it right.
He got his phone off the dresser and pushed the buttons until he got to the photos he had saved. He pulled up the picture of Jack asleep, shirtless, book and iPod resting on his dark-haired chest, that he had taken months ago. An aching, solid and real as anything he had ever known, creeped into Ennis and stayed there, an unwelcome guest-but Ennis had no idea how to make it go away.
***
Two months later…
“You look like shit.”
Jack looked somberly at Catherine as he entered her apartment and handed her the homemade cinnamon rolls he had made. “Thanks, you too,” he said sarcastically as he shrugged out of his coat. Well, actually he had to admit it was Ennis’s coat he was wearing. He’d found it hanging on the hook by the back door the day after Ennis had gone home, wearing his team jacket. Jack had left the coat hanging there and would never admit to anyone in a million years that he often buried his face in it, inhaling the fast-fading scent of his former lover, wondering where everything had gone wrong between them.
“You know what I mean,” she said. “Are you eating okay? Your face looks thin.”
He had lost some weight, he knew that, but he didn’t think anyone else would notice.
“Of course,” he snapped, pointing at the cinnamon rolls. “I made those, didn’t I?”
Catherine stared at him. “Like I have to tell you that cooking and eating aren’t even the same thing,” she reminded him, handing him a glass of red wine.
“Where’s Kristina?” asked Jack as he took a gulp of wine, wanting to change the subject.
“She’s not coming,” answered Catherine. “Actually, I never invited her. I wanted it to be just you and me, and I figured if you knew that, you’d find some excuse to get out of it.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” he insisted feebly.
“You’re a liar.”
“Fine. You lie to me to get me here, but then I’m the liar?”
“Shut up and hand me the pepper.”
He handed her the silver pepper mill, and she liberally spread their steaks with the ground sprinkles and some kosher salt, finishing them off by stabbing the meat and inserting slivers of fresh garlic.
Jack watched her and then casually asked, “So, is this an intervention?”
She glanced at him sharply. “No. This is just a friend wanting to know how another friend is doing, that’s all.”
“So there won’t be any lectures about snapping out of it and not letting Ennis get to me?” asked Jack irritably. “Because if that’s what this is, thanks for dinner, but I have to go.”
Catherine sighed as she washed the garlic off her hands. “What do you want me to say, Jack?” she asked quietly. “I’m worried about you. Ever since you called me and told me that Ennis left you, you’ve been a different person. It’s not hard to see that you’re depressed and upset, and I just want to be a friend, that’s all.” She dried her hands and poured Jack more wine, and he was shocked to see he’d almost drained his glass.
Jack said nothing, just stared at the wine.
“You miss him, don’t you?” she said quietly.
He stared down at the glass, the wine suddenly looking thick like blood, and then everything started to swim as his eyes filled. “I do,” he replied in a whisper. “I miss him all the time. I can’t…it’s hard just getting through the days, sometimes. All his stuff is still at my house. I had to close the door to his room because I’d go in there…” Jack’s lip trembled. “I’d go in there and just sit, staring at his stuff…and I…I can’t believe he’s not coming back.”
“Who says he’s not coming back?” she said quietly as she led him out to the sofa and handed him a tissue. “His knee will be better by next season. Jack, tell me what happened. You need to talk this out. You need to get it out of your system.”
“He won’t come back to me, I mean,” Jack sniffed. “I told him I was done with him being a closet case, that I couldn’t do it anymore. He never said a word. He was going to leave without even telling me, and I called him a pussy for it. And he stood there like a rock and never spoke. Like he was right and I was wrong in asking for some decency and respect. And to top it all off, something happened, Cath-something happened right before he got hurt.”
“What do you mean, ‘something happened’?” she asked warily.
“I dunno,” Jack said. “But one night I dropped him at the arena and went to get gas, and when I came back, Ennis was a completely different person.”
She urged him to continue, and he told her his side of what had happened that night. “And I don’t know what it was. He never told me. Then he said he had to think about things between us, and I told him I couldn’t help him. He got hurt, and no matter what I did, it was the wrong thing. He just shut down and locked me out. When he decided to leave without telling me, that was the last straw. I lost it…called him all kinds of terrible names…and left. I never…I never saw him after that. I left the house and when I came back, he was showering. I left again before Porter picked him up to go to the airport. And now I feel…I feel like that was the last time I’ll ever see him.”
“Jack,” Catherine said, putting a light hand on his arm, “why don’t you call him? Just tell him the truth, that you’re sorry about the things you said, and you just want to say hi and see how he’s doing.”
“No. I can’t.”
“He might be missing you even more than you’re missing him,” she opined. “And you wouldn’t even know it unless you talked to him.”
“And what if I call and he doesn’t answer-or doesn’t call me back?” Jack snapped. “He’s chosen to do this-he calls the team to let them know how everything’s going with the surgery and his rehab. Mike updates us all as a group. Ennis and I used to text each other, for God’s sake. It’s not like he doesn’t know my number.”
Catherine sighed. “You said it yourself-Ennis is like a rock. This is just my opinion, but I think if you want this to work, you’re going to have to make the first move. Call him. Text him, even. Just let him know you’re thinking about him. That’s all you have to do…just let him know. That way, if he truly misses you, he’ll know it’s okay, that he can come back and you two can get your act together.”
Jack slumped his shoulders. “And what if he doesn’t?”
“It has to be a risk you’re willing to take. And you have to be able to handle the consequences, whether they’re good or bad.”
Jack looked at her then, and she’d never seen him look so devastated.
“That’s the part I can’t get past,” he said grimly. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle it if he rejects me one more time.”
She sighed. “I know. I can’t imagine how…” she let her voice trail off, because she knew that she shouldn’t voice her thoughts to Jack. “Let’s go get more wine.”
He declined as his glass was still full, but he followed her into the kitchen and they continued talking as she flipped the steaks under the broiler. Soon dinner was ready and they sat at her small table and talked throughout the meal and well into the night. Jack had forgotten how nice it was to have someone to talk to. Catherine wasn’t Ennis, but she was a good friend, and when he left that night, he thanked her for it.
***
Jack left Catherine’s tired and a little bit drunk, and he had trouble finding his keys in Ennis’s coat pockets. The coat was too big for him, seeing as how Ennis outweighed him by a good twenty pounds, but it was warm and roomy and smelled like Ennis and that had been enough for Jack when he’d put it on hours earlier. He reached into his left pocket, where he always stashed his keys, but they weren’t there. He frowned and reached into the right pocket, and his hand touched metal and paper. He pulled the keys out and with them came a newspaper clipping, which fluttered to the ground. Jack tipsily bent over to pick it up and started to put it back in the pocket, but a flash of red on the paper caught his eye. He unlocked the truck and got inside, starting it and letting it warm up. He flicked on the overhead light and opened the clipping.
What he saw made his stomach lurch. It was the picture of Ennis and himself from the paper, with an ugly homophobic slur written across their faces. Oh Jesus, thought Jack, confused and scared. Someone gave this to Ennis, and he never told me? Maybe this is what fucked with his head that night! Why didn’t he tell me? Why couldn’t he say anything to me?
Jack sat there breathing hard and collecting his thoughts. This is why Ennis left. This is why he was rethinking everything between us. Some fuckhead thought this would be funny, or they really do hate us. So this is why Ennis got scared and left me, because of this shit. God, in his mind, he probably thought he was doing me a favor by breaking up with me…
Jack laid his head on his crossed arms, supported by the steering wheel. Now I’ll never get him to come back. I’ll never be able to convince him that this is all okay, that we can still do this despite what assholes like this think.
Oh, fuck.
Tbc…
Pairing: Ennis/Jack
Setting: AU/AU
Rating: NC-17 for the whole story
Disclaimer: The characters of Ennis and Jack belong to the fabulously talented Annie Proulx. No disrespect is intended. Any OCs are mine.
Summary: Ennis del Mar is a defenseman and Jack Twist a left wing on a minor-league hockey team who meet when Ennis is assigned to Jack’s team.
Feedback: Yes, please. Always welcome.
Warnings: M/m smex, drinking, homophobia, foul language, angst, injuries, more smex, and occasionally some hockey thrown in.
Thanks to: everyone who’s been so kind to Heidi and me while we work through the extraneous BS. You guys rock.
Dedicated to: former NHLer John Kordic. Miss you, buddy.
Chapter 27
One week later…
“Hear anything yet?” asked Jeff as he pulled on his t-shirt.
Jack, lacing his skates, looked at him pointedly. “No.”
Jeff sighed. “I’m sorry, man.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
Talking in the shorthand language they’d developed since Jeff learned about Ennis and Jack, they managed to have a conversation about Jack hearing from Ennis without anyone knowing what they were talking about-and in a locker room full of testosterone, it was the only way they could.
Mike and Perry entered the room and sat on the table in the middle. Everyone gathered around, taking care of their last minute preparations for the game.
“We heard from Ennis’s doctor,” Mike began, and a jolt went through Jack. “He came through the surgery just fine. They did a more than we thought-it’s called a double bundle reconstruction. Plus he had a lot of torn cartilage that needed to come out. But he’s doing great. I called Ennis this morning and he says to tell everyone hi.”
Jack’s gaze dropped to the rubber-matted floor. Don’t suppose there was a personal message in there for me, eh, Coach?
“So, that’s good news. Bad news is, tonight we play Madison…”
After that, Jack stopped listening. At the mention of Ennis, all his game thoughts went out the window. How can he still affect me this way? he thought, angry at himself. He’s gone and hasn’t made one move to contact me. What the fuck? He wondered if the poem he’d quoted had been a little too obscure for Ennis to understand. Maybe I reached too far with it, he thought sadly. I hope he didn’t think I was being a snob. Maybe he thought I was doing it on purpose-making fun of him for not having a college degree? Jack felt mortified at the thought. Never, never in a million years would I do that…Ennis knows that…doesn’t he? Aw, shit… But then, just as quickly, he dismissed the thought. Maybe it was the wrong poem…maybe he thinks I blame him for everything. I don’t, I swear to God. I just wanted him to know how much he means to me, and I figured ol’ Walt could say it better than I ever could. Shit. Maybe I should’ve chosen Walt Disney instead of Walt Whitman, he thought, and it actually made him smile. Sounds like something Ennis would’ve said.
***
A few weeks after that…
“C’mon, push! Harder, harder! You can do it, just a little bit farther… yeah!”
Ennis grunted as he did his straight leg lifts, trying to touch his toes to the outstretched hands of Mark, his physical therapist. He finished the requisite number of lifts, and Mark handed him a towel as Ennis sat up, gritting his teeth.
“You’re a bastard,” barked Ennis as he wiped his face of sweat.
Mark just grinned. “I’ve been called much worse.”
“Let me think of something else and I’ll get back to you, eh?”
Mark laughed and threw the towel in the laundry bin. “You do that.” He washed his hands at the sink and turned back to his patient. “So, you think you’re ready to give up the CPM and start on a stationary bike?”
Ennis grimaced. The continuous passive motion machine, or CPM, had been a godsend, moving his knee varying degrees at a time while he slept to increase his range of motion. “Yeah, I guess so. I really liked the CPM, though. Can I keep using it?”
Mark shook his head. “No need. We’re two weeks into it now and you’re ready for biking---but just stationary biking. No road races.”
Ennis grinned. “Aw, c’mon, eh? I’m practically Lance Armstrong.”
“Okay, Mr. Tour de France, where’s your yellow jersey?”
“I said ‘practically’. I haven’t won anything yet.”
Mark laughed and Ennis smiled. Mark was a great therapist and a good guy, but he pushed hard--really hard. Ennis grumbled but he knew it was exactly what he needed. And frankly, he wanted it-wanted someone who would guide him and push him to do what needed to be done so he could get back on the ice.
“When can I skate?” Ennis asked, and Mark laughed.
“You’re quite a ways from that, my friend. A couple months at least. We have to make sure your range and strength are back first. Last thing you want to do is lose what progress you’ve made.” Mark looked at him hard. “I mean it. No ice.”
Ennis glowered at him.
“Ennis…”
“I won’t,” he said, throwing up his hands in surrender.
“I mean it,” Mark said sternly. “You get out on the ice and I will whoop your ass myself.”
At 5 feet ten inches and 170 pounds soaking wet, Ennis laughed at the picture of Mark trying to whale on him. “Yeah, good luck with that.”
“Hey, Gimpy McGimperson,” Mark snapped good-naturedly, “all I have to do is trip you and you’re down for the count.”
At that, Ennis slumped. It was true. He couldn’t do anything right now.
“I was just kidding, Ennis. Come on, let’s do some hamstring curls.”
“Fuck you,” Ennis grumbled. “This hurts.”
“Waaah, waaah, you big baby. Come on.”
Mark helped Ennis slide to the edge of the table and he began bending and lifting his leg, once again trying to touch Mark’s hand with his toes. It hurt like holy hell, but Ennis knew it was necessary to get his knee back to normal…although he was beginning to wonder what normal really was.
***
Ennis got home and hobbled into the house to make some lunch. He was in pain, but he always was after therapy. He made his way to the kitchen and there was his mom, Gwen, making lunch for everyone.
“Hi, how did it go?” she asked as she busily stirred something in a bowl.
“Fine,” he answered, setting his crutches aside and hopping to the fridge for a beer.
“Don’t hop!” Gwen admonished. “You might slip.”
Ennis rolled his eyes at her. “I’m fine. Hey, I got my custom brace.”
“That’s great! Do you still have to use your crutches?”
“A little,” he admitted. “What are you making? It smells great.”
“Meat loaf and mashed potatoes. And I’m about to put a peach crisp in the oven. You want to make the salad?”
Ennis agreed. She sat him at the table and got all the ingredients out of the refrigerator for him and he began tearing lettuce and slicing tomatoes, chopping radishes and slicing carrots.
“You got any bean sprouts or garlic?” he asked. “Or green onions?”
She turned and looked at him pointedly.
“What?” he asked, blinking back at her.
“This, from a boy I couldn’t get to eat plain string beans?”
Ennis blushed. “Uh…well, I told you my fr-my roommate Jack was a good cook…”
“Apparently, if he got you to eat those.” Gwen spooned the peach mixture into a small pan, sprinkled the crumb topping over it, and put it in the oven. “And no, we don’t have any bean sprouts. I’m not even sure I know what a bean sprout looks like.” She smiled at her son. “Sounds like Jack’s a good friend.”
Ennis bit his lip. “He was.”
“Was? What do you mean? Have you talked to him since you got home?”
Ennis shook his head, not wanting to talk about Jack to his mother. “Hey, can you finish this?” he asked, pointing at the salad. “I need to call the team and let them know how things are going.”
“Sure,” she agreed. “Why don’t you rest for a little while? I’ll call you when lunch is ready.”
Ennis nodded and grabbed his crutches and headed for his room. He got upstairs, shut the door quietly behind him, and sat down on his bed. He reached for the envelope on the nightstand; the envelope that held Jack’s final message to him, its edges frayed and tired, the paper dirtied by the many times Ennis had opened it, read it, and placed it carefully back inside.
The first few times he had read it he was confused. The thought had occurred to him that Jack had picked the poem to embarrass him; Jack was a smart guy and he was just a simple cowboy from the plains. But he tried; he read it over and over, moving his lips as he read it out loud, trying his best to understand it. It wasn’t until last night that it had hit him. He had been laying in bed, trying to sleep, the CPM machine moving his knee back and forth, when something began to bother him about the letter. Ennis rolled over and grabbed it, reading every word, and suddenly, it hit him clearly: Jack blamed him. Yeah, sure, the words said Jack was responsible too; how else to explain “I talk wildly, I have lost my wits, I and nobody else am the greatest traitor, I went myself first to the headland, my own hands carried me there”? But underneath it all, Ennis knew Jack blamed him, and he carried that guilt into his sleep that night.
And now here he sat, reading the letter once again. I wonder if he’ll ever talk to me again, thought Ennis as he fingered the edge of the paper, holding it to his nose to try and breathe in the missing scent of Jack Twist. I deserve everything I get, he resigned himself. I was such a dick to him, I don’t know how he could even write me the letter.
His eyes scanned the words. He concentrated, reading each word slowly and painfully.
Is this then a touch? quivering me to a new identity,
Flames and ether making a rush for my veins,
Treacherous tip of me reaching and crowding to help them,
My flesh and blood playing out lightning to strike what is hardly
different from myself
Was Walt Whitman gay? thought Ennis, confused. Even if he wasn’t, he sure seems to know how it feels. ‘A new identity’, ‘to strike what is hardly different from myself’-that what it feels like, to be with another man.
Behaving licentious toward me, taking no denial,
Depriving me of my best as for a purpose,
Unbuttoning my clothes, holding me by the bare waist,
Deluding my confusion with the calm of the sunlight and pasture-fields,
Ennis thought hard about that one. He tried to imagine it as a man describing a woman doing those things, and it just didn’t compute. It sounds like two men--like me and Jack, Ennis mused as he thought about Jack ‘depriving him of his best’, and that confused him. He knew Jack had never done anything but bring out his best, not deprive him of it. And as for ‘deluding his confusion’, Ennis knew without a doubt that that what Jack had always done: with his confident ways, Jack had always led him and calmed him, trying to show him that there was nothing wrong in what they were and what they did together. And for the first time, Ennis realized that the shame lay not with them, but with others, the others who had a problem with it. And what was the shame in that? That’s their problem, not ours, Ennis reasoned, and he felt a sense of calm wash over him. Jack was right. I shouldn’t let what other people might say or do bother me. It might never happen. And look at me…I’m a fucking mess without Jack. All I want…he paused his thoughts, looking up at the ceiling of his boyhood room. All I want is to be back with Jack. But I don’t know if that can happen; it’s up to him.
He read on.
Unclench your floodgates, you are too much for me.
Blind loving wrestling touch, sheath'd hooded sharp-tooth'd touch!
Did it make you ache so, leaving me?
Wasn’t it Renee who said I was so tightly clenched that I’d crap a diamond? She was right…and if he had any idea how much it killed me to leave him, then he would have never chosen that poem. Jack, I ache every day and especially every night. Jack, I swear…
For the first time in the probably fifty times he’d read the poem, he read of love instead of just blame and guilt; he read love and pain and anger and desire. But he was certain that however much Jack may have loved him, Ennis had destroyed it, had beaten it to death with his own hockey stick out of stupidity, fear, misplaced homophobia and a big dash of self-hate. How can Jack ever love me? I can’t even love myself. I can’t blame him for hating me. He said he was done with me.
The remembrance of Jack’s biting words, I’m fucking done with you, pounded through Ennis’s head like a litany of everything gone wrong. I am fucking done, he said. He’s done with me and I can’t go back. I can’t. He hates me now, and even if I tried to apologize, he probably wouldn’t accept it. I fucked him over twice…twice I turned my back on him and pushed him away. And now he doesn’t want me back. There’s nothing I can do to make it right.
He got his phone off the dresser and pushed the buttons until he got to the photos he had saved. He pulled up the picture of Jack asleep, shirtless, book and iPod resting on his dark-haired chest, that he had taken months ago. An aching, solid and real as anything he had ever known, creeped into Ennis and stayed there, an unwelcome guest-but Ennis had no idea how to make it go away.
***
Two months later…
“You look like shit.”
Jack looked somberly at Catherine as he entered her apartment and handed her the homemade cinnamon rolls he had made. “Thanks, you too,” he said sarcastically as he shrugged out of his coat. Well, actually he had to admit it was Ennis’s coat he was wearing. He’d found it hanging on the hook by the back door the day after Ennis had gone home, wearing his team jacket. Jack had left the coat hanging there and would never admit to anyone in a million years that he often buried his face in it, inhaling the fast-fading scent of his former lover, wondering where everything had gone wrong between them.
“You know what I mean,” she said. “Are you eating okay? Your face looks thin.”
He had lost some weight, he knew that, but he didn’t think anyone else would notice.
“Of course,” he snapped, pointing at the cinnamon rolls. “I made those, didn’t I?”
Catherine stared at him. “Like I have to tell you that cooking and eating aren’t even the same thing,” she reminded him, handing him a glass of red wine.
“Where’s Kristina?” asked Jack as he took a gulp of wine, wanting to change the subject.
“She’s not coming,” answered Catherine. “Actually, I never invited her. I wanted it to be just you and me, and I figured if you knew that, you’d find some excuse to get out of it.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” he insisted feebly.
“You’re a liar.”
“Fine. You lie to me to get me here, but then I’m the liar?”
“Shut up and hand me the pepper.”
He handed her the silver pepper mill, and she liberally spread their steaks with the ground sprinkles and some kosher salt, finishing them off by stabbing the meat and inserting slivers of fresh garlic.
Jack watched her and then casually asked, “So, is this an intervention?”
She glanced at him sharply. “No. This is just a friend wanting to know how another friend is doing, that’s all.”
“So there won’t be any lectures about snapping out of it and not letting Ennis get to me?” asked Jack irritably. “Because if that’s what this is, thanks for dinner, but I have to go.”
Catherine sighed as she washed the garlic off her hands. “What do you want me to say, Jack?” she asked quietly. “I’m worried about you. Ever since you called me and told me that Ennis left you, you’ve been a different person. It’s not hard to see that you’re depressed and upset, and I just want to be a friend, that’s all.” She dried her hands and poured Jack more wine, and he was shocked to see he’d almost drained his glass.
Jack said nothing, just stared at the wine.
“You miss him, don’t you?” she said quietly.
He stared down at the glass, the wine suddenly looking thick like blood, and then everything started to swim as his eyes filled. “I do,” he replied in a whisper. “I miss him all the time. I can’t…it’s hard just getting through the days, sometimes. All his stuff is still at my house. I had to close the door to his room because I’d go in there…” Jack’s lip trembled. “I’d go in there and just sit, staring at his stuff…and I…I can’t believe he’s not coming back.”
“Who says he’s not coming back?” she said quietly as she led him out to the sofa and handed him a tissue. “His knee will be better by next season. Jack, tell me what happened. You need to talk this out. You need to get it out of your system.”
“He won’t come back to me, I mean,” Jack sniffed. “I told him I was done with him being a closet case, that I couldn’t do it anymore. He never said a word. He was going to leave without even telling me, and I called him a pussy for it. And he stood there like a rock and never spoke. Like he was right and I was wrong in asking for some decency and respect. And to top it all off, something happened, Cath-something happened right before he got hurt.”
“What do you mean, ‘something happened’?” she asked warily.
“I dunno,” Jack said. “But one night I dropped him at the arena and went to get gas, and when I came back, Ennis was a completely different person.”
She urged him to continue, and he told her his side of what had happened that night. “And I don’t know what it was. He never told me. Then he said he had to think about things between us, and I told him I couldn’t help him. He got hurt, and no matter what I did, it was the wrong thing. He just shut down and locked me out. When he decided to leave without telling me, that was the last straw. I lost it…called him all kinds of terrible names…and left. I never…I never saw him after that. I left the house and when I came back, he was showering. I left again before Porter picked him up to go to the airport. And now I feel…I feel like that was the last time I’ll ever see him.”
“Jack,” Catherine said, putting a light hand on his arm, “why don’t you call him? Just tell him the truth, that you’re sorry about the things you said, and you just want to say hi and see how he’s doing.”
“No. I can’t.”
“He might be missing you even more than you’re missing him,” she opined. “And you wouldn’t even know it unless you talked to him.”
“And what if I call and he doesn’t answer-or doesn’t call me back?” Jack snapped. “He’s chosen to do this-he calls the team to let them know how everything’s going with the surgery and his rehab. Mike updates us all as a group. Ennis and I used to text each other, for God’s sake. It’s not like he doesn’t know my number.”
Catherine sighed. “You said it yourself-Ennis is like a rock. This is just my opinion, but I think if you want this to work, you’re going to have to make the first move. Call him. Text him, even. Just let him know you’re thinking about him. That’s all you have to do…just let him know. That way, if he truly misses you, he’ll know it’s okay, that he can come back and you two can get your act together.”
Jack slumped his shoulders. “And what if he doesn’t?”
“It has to be a risk you’re willing to take. And you have to be able to handle the consequences, whether they’re good or bad.”
Jack looked at her then, and she’d never seen him look so devastated.
“That’s the part I can’t get past,” he said grimly. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle it if he rejects me one more time.”
She sighed. “I know. I can’t imagine how…” she let her voice trail off, because she knew that she shouldn’t voice her thoughts to Jack. “Let’s go get more wine.”
He declined as his glass was still full, but he followed her into the kitchen and they continued talking as she flipped the steaks under the broiler. Soon dinner was ready and they sat at her small table and talked throughout the meal and well into the night. Jack had forgotten how nice it was to have someone to talk to. Catherine wasn’t Ennis, but she was a good friend, and when he left that night, he thanked her for it.
***
Jack left Catherine’s tired and a little bit drunk, and he had trouble finding his keys in Ennis’s coat pockets. The coat was too big for him, seeing as how Ennis outweighed him by a good twenty pounds, but it was warm and roomy and smelled like Ennis and that had been enough for Jack when he’d put it on hours earlier. He reached into his left pocket, where he always stashed his keys, but they weren’t there. He frowned and reached into the right pocket, and his hand touched metal and paper. He pulled the keys out and with them came a newspaper clipping, which fluttered to the ground. Jack tipsily bent over to pick it up and started to put it back in the pocket, but a flash of red on the paper caught his eye. He unlocked the truck and got inside, starting it and letting it warm up. He flicked on the overhead light and opened the clipping.
What he saw made his stomach lurch. It was the picture of Ennis and himself from the paper, with an ugly homophobic slur written across their faces. Oh Jesus, thought Jack, confused and scared. Someone gave this to Ennis, and he never told me? Maybe this is what fucked with his head that night! Why didn’t he tell me? Why couldn’t he say anything to me?
Jack sat there breathing hard and collecting his thoughts. This is why Ennis left. This is why he was rethinking everything between us. Some fuckhead thought this would be funny, or they really do hate us. So this is why Ennis got scared and left me, because of this shit. God, in his mind, he probably thought he was doing me a favor by breaking up with me…
Jack laid his head on his crossed arms, supported by the steering wheel. Now I’ll never get him to come back. I’ll never be able to convince him that this is all okay, that we can still do this despite what assholes like this think.
Oh, fuck.
Tbc…