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17.
Jack doesn't party. He zones out.
“Zimmermann is zoning out, bro.”
Kent almost drops his beer when he sees them, his teammates buzzing around Jack like vultures.
“Yo, Parse, come get your man.” They say it like a joke and Kent smiles along, like he’s in on it.
“Aw, look at sleeping beauty!” some genius calls out, as Kent collects a near comatose Jack from the beanbag chair he had taken up residence in.
“C’mon, bud, let’s get you out of here.” Kent winks at his teammates, injecting a strategic amount of levity into his voice.
It’s always like this, the ha, ha, no homo. Zimms and Parse, what a bromance. And they have to keep it like that. It can’t bother him. Feed it. More shoulder punching, less sitting in each other’s laps.
It’s not just a secret; it’s completely impossible. Non-negotiable. Keeping the “bro” in bromance.
The truth is for Jack. For him and Jack. Romance. Love. All that stuff that Kent thought was only real in books, movies. Certainly not like people for him. Well, the reality of it is arguable. If you’re not inclined to call lip-biting, infuriatingly silent, locker room handjobs romantic.
(Kent is, because he’s seventeen and in love and secrets seem very “Romeo and Juliet”, which he had read back in freshman year for class, even though he told his friends he didn’t.)
It’s like this: Jack can't handle the world. He can't handle the media and their teammates and his father’s legacy. But he can with Kent. They’re handling it together. And they don’t need anyone else’s help. Nobody needs to know about that, either.
(Kent, booze, and benzos. They’re quite a team. That face, the one Jack makes when he’s fucked up on more pills than he’s supposed to take and vodka shots thrust into his hands by his teammates. Now, isn’t that the same expression he makes, blissed out, fucked out when he’s in Kent’s bed? But, no, it’s not anything to worry about. This must be what Jack looks like when he’s happy.)
23.
It’s been years. Six of them. Kent Parson is not still in love with Jack Zimmermann. But it’s not like he’s in love with anybody else. So when, in his dreams, he stumbles upon something approaching happiness, maybe the figure is vaguely Jack-shaped. Jack-adjacent. But that’s not the same thing as love.
It took a long time, but Kent thinks he's got it figured out. At seventeen, Kent was still soft, still clay. Jack left a dent in the shape of his hand before fucking off forever. Then, too fast, the world threw him to the fire and turned it all permanent, hard.
To forget him, Kent would need to fill the Jack-shape. Or he could just shatter. But, no still, that change would only be physical. Kent needs chemical. To forget, Kent would need to become a being Jack Zimmermann has never touched.
17.
Another weekend, another party. Kent used to look forward to them; it’s easy to get time alone when there’s so many people, as backwards as it seems. But you get lost in the crowd. It’s easy. It used to be like this: slipping away into a bathroom, up on the second floor. Jack throws him up on the counter, has to be convinced not to leave marks on Kent’s neck. Kent falls into the sink, laughing, Jack’s head in his lap, both laughing, Jack’s hand covering his mouth, Jack’s fingers in his mouth…
They don’t really do that anymore.
Now it’s Jack drinking until he almost passes out, but not quite. It’s Kent taking him to his billet family’s house, where he has the whole basement to himself and no one bothers them. When they wake up together, it’s easy to brush off the bad stuff.
But Jack isn’t even waiting for the parties anymore. It’s a Tuesday, and Kent hears the pill bottle rattling around in Jack’s bag. Before practice, not after.
And it's not like he's turning a blind eye to the drinking, the pill popping. Not exactly. But what can he do, if Jack doesn’t want to talk about it? If he doesn’t really want to either?
Kent does try, once or twice.
“You good, Zimms?” Kent smiles, touches Jack’s arm the quiet way he does when other people are in the room. Jack dry swallow pills— one, two, three.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, Kenny.” Jack pulls away from his touch.
And that’s enough, Kent backs off. Jack needs him. He can’t push too hard, or Jack will shut him out too. Then they’ll both be alone.
18.
Kent is alone in Las Vegas. No Jack, no parents, no nothing that isn't hockey. But he does have hockey, and hockey loves Kent Parson. He’s gotten everything he ever wanted. When Kent comes back to his apartment after a night at the club with his teammates, after a big fucking win that was all fucking him, Kent says it, out loud to his mirror like he’s crazy or something:
“This is what happy looks like.”
He’s almost got himself convinced.
“Number one, huh?” There is the rare hockey fan in Vegas. They love to come up to him, act like they’re friends. Get his autograph, tell people they met Kent Parson way back when. It’s fine. It’s part of the deal. “You did great tonight. Should thank Zimmermann, having that little breakdown when he did.”
The guy, who has white, square teeth like Chiclets and greasy hair, looks endlessly pleased with himself.
Smiling is also part of the deal.
“Who says I wouldn’t have been number one anyway?” This is allowed. Hockey players can be cocky. They can’t be vulnerable, but with a smile, no one knows the difference.
Square teeth guy laughs. “Yeah, but you never have to find out.”
Kent wants to punch those fucking teeth. He laughs. “Guess not!”
This is what happy looks like.
17.
This is just what teenagers do.
It only seems extreme because the last time Kent was normal, he was fifteen and a virgin who’d never been to a party.
And, okay, there is something wrong with Jack, but it’s, like, the kind a doctor knows about. He’s supposed to have those meds. Even if he takes too many. Maybe he needs to up his dose, or whatever.
As dumb as it sounds, Jack is his captain. Kent trusts him. Even if the other stuff had never happened, he would have. Jack is smart, smarter than most of these guys. He likes nerd shit, war documentaries and nonfiction books with boring titles.
It’s just going to be on the weekends.
It’s just going to be when he’s stressed out.
He’ll stop when the season’s over.
He’ll stop after the draft.
12.
No one wants to play street hockey with Kent anymore, because he always wins. So they compromise. The neighborhood kids, Kent, and his brother, all go over to 4th Street, where there’s that abandoned house. Abandoned house means empty pool. It’s perfect for skating; there’s no rink in town, ice or otherwise. Mom has to drive him a whole county over for practice, but the other kids only have the abandoned house, the empty pool.
Kent won’t remember who suggested it, later. They dare Kent to skate off the decrepit diving board. If any of them can do it, he can. Just in case, they duct tape pillows to him, front and back. It’s more to embarrass Kent than to keep him safe, for everyone but his brother. He’s the youngest and the smallest, but he’s the best, so naturally they hate him.
Kent doesn’t care about any of that, because he knows he can do it. And he does.
But he breaks his wrist, bad. Bone poking through his skin, bad.
“Huh,” Kent says, because he’s never seen a human bone before. You know, outside of a body.
His brother cries, but he doesn’t.
Mom doesn’t cry either, when they run home, Kent bleeding and his brother screaming. Not because she’s afraid to cry in front of other people, like Kent is. She’s so upset she’s transcended crying altogether. It scares him more than the jump.
“What,” she demands, lips pursed, eyes crazed, “the hell were you thinking?”
“Well, we put pillows on him,” his brother mumbles, sniffling, “you know, like padding?”
“And look how well that turned out,” Mom snaps. She doesn’t anything else, the whole car ride to the hospital.
17.
Kent takes all his pillows, barricades Jack so he won't choke on his vomit in his sleep. Usually Jack perks up after a while. Jesus. Jesus fucking Christ. This is not good. What’s he gonna tell people, if something bad happens? What would Kent do with himself, if Jack got really hurt? When’s it going to stop? What’s it going to t—
“Love you, Kenny.”
Jack had already woke up, while Kent was busy freaking out. Eyelids fluttering open, smile clicking into place. And now Jack’s hand is on Kent’s cheek and Kent wonders if hearts can actually skip a beat because he’s pretty sure his just did and that for a second, he was dead. Maybe Jack’s bad for his health.
19.
Maybe he was bad for Jack’s health.
Kent knew this guy, one of his brother’s friends, who was a volunteer EMT up at some college upstate. Kent couldn’t give less of a shit about this guy, who liked football more than hockey and spoke at a constant shout. This fucking guy, always talking about various puking co-eds he’d encountered— Kent imagines this is most of his job. But once, at about 2am, that quiet time at a party, when it’s just the dregs swirling around the drain, he had confessed that there was this one incident he could never really shake. It was a car crash, and there were kids, something like that. One of them dead. A bad scene, all around. A week later, the guy was doing laundry, saw the clothes he wore that night. Started crying on the spot. He put them away, later, forgot about them for a few weeks. But when he saw them again? Same thing. Hands started shaking, couldn’t breathe. Ended up having to throw them out. Couldn’t bear to be reminded.
Maybe that’s why Jack stopped talking to Kent.
17.
Jack doesn't party. He sits in beanbag chairs at parties and zones out, coming back to his house all smiles, having spent the night with that nice Kent Parson boy. There are no warning signs. No teammates confide in the coach, no therapists or parents are spoken to.
No one expects it, when Jack’s found passed out in his own vomit.
Kent wasn’t even there when it happened, but he’s the one who found him. It was Friday, they were going to go out. Jesus Christ, was he pregaming?
Or was he nervous about going out, only doing it because Kent asked, because Kent wanted all the locked-door makeouts he could fit in before the draft?
Kent calls 911. When the EMT comes, he wonders if the guy will tell this story later, at parties.
Jack’s heart stops, for a second. Then he’s back, but he’s still not okay. He might never be okay again.
“How could this happen, how could this happen,” Mrs. Zimmermann repeats tonelessly, like some twisted mantra, pacing around the waiting room.
Kent doesn't say, I thought I loved him so much I could kiss him back to life.
23.
Kent is twenty-three, and if he had a love life, he'd rather it not resemble a tragedy. That's the trouble with life. It's not like the stories. Loose ends are not guaranteed to get tied up. Love will not conquer all. All you can do is wait for the scabs to scar over. But Kent could never stop himself from picking scabs.
How is it that he still can’t drop it? It's just— God, like, even when stories end sadly, they make sense. That’s all Kent wants. For his life to make sense. The lovers live, it’s a fairy tale. They die, it’s a tragedy.
But what if you both stay alive, and you just stop loving each other?
Romeo killed himself when he saw Juliet lying dead to the world. But if he hadn’t, when Juliet woke up, would she have hated him? For still wanting to live in a world without her in it?
17.
The season will be over soon, and they won’t have to get up at the ass crack of dawn for practice. But Kent doesn’t really mind waking up when the sun does. His room bathed in gold light, and Jack Zimmermann draped all over him.
It was bad last night, but Kent doesn’t have a hangover, miraculously. Jack’s hand is on his stomach. He doesn’t know who’s legs belong to who. Jack’s eyelids flutter open, he smiles, he teases Kent for staring at him while he was asleep. This is what happy looks like.
23.
Kent busted his lip in practice last week. It keeps reopening. He can’t help himself from running his teeth over the wound, tasting the copper. He doesn’t know how to heal.
17.
“Love you, Kenny.”
23.
This is the handprint, these are the roots he can never pull up, this is why Jack always grows back.
Kent’s not still in love. He's just bleeding.