Page 52 of Breakaway
The beach is empty. We walk near the waterline where the tide has left the sand hard and dark. He is a step ahead of me. I slow down. He adjusts without commenting.
"I forgot what this sounds like," he says.
"What?"
"The water. At home I don't hear water. Just the highway if the window's open."
"You can hear the highway from your apartment?"
"It's not close. Just constant. This hum that's always there."
"Do you like it there?"
He picks up a shell, turns it in his fingers. "I like the team. I like Marchetti."
"That's not what I asked."
"I know it's not what you asked."
"What do you do after practice?"
"I go home."
"And then what."
"I eat. I watch film. I go to bed."
"That's it?"
"What else would I do?"
"You used to have a list. You used to text me nine places you wanted to try before the end of the week."
"That was Miami."
"That was you."
"That was me in Miami. Me in Atlanta goes home and watches film."
"What about the guys? You don't go out?"
"Sometimes. Marchetti drags me to things. Team dinners. I go."
"Do you want to go?"
"It doesn't matter if I want to go. I go because that's what teammates do."
"Luca, that's not the same thing."
"It's fine. I'm fine. The routine works." He throws the shell. It does not skip. "You're looking at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like where you watch everything and say nothing and I can feel you filing it all away."
"I'm not building a file."
"You're always building a file. It's what makes you good at hockey and impossible to argue with."
