Page 68 of Playing it Safe

What strength I have is mine own. Not my family's. Not my team's. Not the version of me that Lisa rejected or the one my mother expects. Whatever's left after I strip all that away — that's what I have. And right now, alone in a car in an empty garage, it doesn't feel like much.

My phone rings. Ma.

I check the time: 1:14 AM. I realize I never texted her to say I made it back to Briar’s safe, and I’m sure she’s having a stroke. If I don't answer, she'll wake Pop, who'll call Patrick, who'll call David, and by 2 AM the entire Miller family will be organizing a search party from South Boston.

I pick up. "Hey."

"Cameron Donovan Miller, I have been sitting here for hours." Her voice is tight. Not angry. Worried, which is worse because I can manage anger. "Your father went to bed, and I am still sitting here. You could have been dead in a ditch.”

"I forgot to check in. I'm sorry."

"Are you all right? Are you hurt? Is Briar⁠—”

"I'm fine, Ma." I close my eyes. The garage is dark and silent around me. Through the phone, I hear the faint hum of her refrigerator and the clock on the wall. The sounds of home. Her home. "I just forgot."

She pauses. My mother is not a woman who pauses. She fills silences with urgency and an excess of material, like Christmas stockings. But tonight she holds the space open, and I hear her breathing. I realize she knows something is wrong and that she is, for once, waiting.

"I love you," I say. "I'll call you tomorrow."

"Cameron…”

"Goodnight, Ma."

I hang up before she can turn the call into a task, before she can mention Pop's hip, Patrick's latest, or what she needs from the hardware store. I hang up because if I stay on the line, I'll end up managing something for someone, and I can't do that tonight.

I make sure the seat is as far back as it goes. My feet don't fit. My knees press against the steering column. I pull my jacket over my chest, fold my arms beneath it, stare at the ceiling, and try to remember the last time I was truly untethered. Actually alone, with no one who knows where I am and no one expecting me to show up anywhere.

I can't remember. There has always been someone who needed something. My brothers, my parents, my teammates, my coach, my cat. Even Briar — I made myself useful to her within hours of meeting her. Changed her smoke detector batteries. Stocked her fridge. Established myself as the guy who handles things before she even asked me to.

Odin's question rises in the dark like something surfacing from the deep. Is there a difference between being needed and being wanted?

I turn onto my side, which makes it worse. My shoulder presses into the leather. The garage smells of concrete and motor oil, and I hate it.

Chapter 28

Briar

Puck starts tapping my face before dawn, like he’s checking if I’m dead. Or maybe he’s trying to get me to apologize to his person.

I open my eyes. Puck stares, orange and unblinking. He must know Cameron is not downstairs making coffee or filling the food bowl. “Guess I need to take care of that,” I tell him. He swishes his tail at me.

I’m sure Cameron will come back for his cat once he figures out where he’ll stay now that he and I have both acknowledged our relationship is doomed. Is relationship even the right word for a brief lapse in my good sense?

I feed Puck and stand at the counter in my sweats and unwashed hair, feeling pathetic. I have a nice life. I’m working my absolute dream career. My sister is well taken care of. I have friends. I wish I’d set out from the beginning to just … have mutually unemotional sex with Cameron while we were using each other to avoid complicated conversations with our friends.

I look at the cat, who is clearly judging me. “I don’t know what I was thinking,” I tell him. He crunches kibble at me as I cram a banana into my face.

The scrimmage is bad. I’m half a beat late on nearly every play. I grind through coach’s instructions mechanically. I can’t bring myself to smile, even when I set Tate up for a pretty sweet goal.

Ducky notices. Of course she does. "BB, you okay?"

"Fine."

Tate skates up beside me. "You seem off."

"Tate, I swear to god —"

I snap at her, and the sound of my own voice echoes off the boards. I want to skate into the glass. I don't apologize. I finish the drill, go to the bench, drink water, and stare at the ice until coach sends us to the showers.