These Gentle Wounds by Helene Dunbar

but he never did.
    I guess that’s where I got the crying thing from. I don’t cry anymore. Ever. Not even at the funeral, although I was sad, not pissed. Pissed came later and left a whole lot of nothing in its wake.
    Honestly, there are times I want to cry. Times, like now, when I think it would feel good to let everything seep out of me. But I can’t.
    I think maybe I’ve forgotten how.
    Or that all the water in the river washed my tears away.

Seven
    The trick to being a good goalie is to focus on the puck. I mean, what the hell else would you focus on when you’re in the crease and people are shooting six ounces of hard rubber at your face?
    But it’s amazing how many things there are in hockey to be distracted by. The other team. The fans. Your coaches. Dumbass defensemen baiting you for fun. The insipid music they play during stoppages. How hot it can get under the padding.
    I’m pretty good at ignoring it all. But during our pre-game, Walker flits around the crease like a mosquito, like there’s nothing else on the ice he needs to be doing.
    â€œYou’re gonna stick around today, right?” he asks as I brush the ice from his snowplow stop off my legs.
    â€œYeah,” I say. “I’m here.” I dive to my left and barely catch a shot I would have nailed if he’d been off practicing himself.
    A whistle blows as I pull myself up.
    â€œYou two want to stop coordinating your prom outfits and play some hockey?” Coach yells.
    I don’t answer him. I just get back into my crouch, ready to go.
    Walker does one more slow circle around the net. “Keep your head in the game, Gordie. We need the win tonight.”
    I sigh and avoid telling him that if he’d go away, my head would be plenty in the game. I know that with him, it’s nothing personal. He just cares about winning more than anything.
    He starts to skate off and I sense, more than see, something flying toward me from the right. I leap up and bat it away. Walker spins around with a goofy grin and gives me a nod like he’s just remembered I’m actually pretty good at this.
    I succeed at reminding him of that a few more times as we shut out one of our closest rivals, the Cougars. Then I stumble home to collapse.
    Aside from all of the other things I love about it, hockey is great because it makes me so tired I swear the memories can’t get in. And that’s always a good thing.
    But tonight something pulls me out of a deep sleep, and I don’t know what. I don’t think it’s anything inside me for once, but the room is somehow too quiet. I keep my eyes shut, hoping I’ll fall back asleep without starting to think too much, or spinning off somewhere. But the switch in my brain is clicked to “on” and there isn’t anything I can do about it.
    I open my eyes to see Kevin standing next to our bedroom window. He looks like he’s still asleep, but I’m the sleepwalker, not him.
    â€œYou’re awake,” I say, to test out my theory. I wrestle out of the cocoon of blankets I sleep under and sit up, rubbing my eyes.
    It takes him a minute, but then he sits down on the edge of my bed. “When did you get so observant?”
    I let his sarcasm float up into the air and out the window with the breeze. “What’s wrong?” I ask. “You look strange.”
    â€œMove over,” he says, pushing my legs away. I sit up and draw my legs up. Kevin scootches fully onto the bed, forming a right angle to me, and leans his back against the wall. His legs hang partially off the end.
    I wait for him to say something else, but he just sits there looking like he’s a million miles away. I wonder if that’s what I look like when I’m spacing out—like it’s only my body on this planet.
    It scares me. I nudge his leg, hoping it’ll bring him back to our room. My stomach is starting to feel tangled. I don’t think I can