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gardenias on the tile | will smith²

all will had ever known was you as his winger, his best friend, and then suddenly, you're none of those things. as you both navigate adolescence, coming together and breaking apart, does will finally come to understand that the burning desire in his heart can only be quelled by you

wc: 10.8k

tags! wsh x childhood friends to lovers!reader, ANGST, so much angst you might want to throw your phone away, hockey player!reader, miscommunication/no communication, will smith hockey the biggest loser of the century speedrun, you’re both childhood bruins fans, timeline: kids to high school to college, macklin mention, no use of y/n

warnings! descriptions of reader getting hit and bullied by other boys as a kid, mentions of blood, misogynistic language used, lots of curse words, alcohol consumption, BRIEF mention of masturbation (like genuinely just alluding to it it’s not descriptive)

a/n! i use so much repetition (sorry). this is LOOSELY based on like six lines from nettles. i didnt want it to be that gut-wrenching. please read my dumb fanfiction about will smith hockey and it also became feminist kinda. i did not play hockey growing up so im sorry if there are inaccuracies

p/s: I make up a random guys name for the plot. take the name and interpret it how you want to :) or not, you can hate me

The thing about Will Smith was that at one point, he wasn’t just the precious blue-eyed starboy of the NHL, touted as this mysterious young man with pearly white teeth and a real good knack for the game. He was groomed to look the perfect part of an all-american hockey player: flushed cheeks, blond hair, dirty mouth, and a borderline narcissism only found in the freedom land.

For a time, he wasn't all this. He used to be just yours.

Sprawled out on your front lawn, watching the fireworks on the fourth of july, there was a time you two had no worries in the world. He was your line partner. You both used to show up to practice at the same time, tying your skates shoulder to shoulder on the bench. He used to have dinners at your house more often than not. There was an extra chair on the dining table right next to yours.

You joined a U8 boys team when you were six. You were inexplicably good. The girls’ team closest to you barely had games scheduled. Lack of teams in the area. The boy’s team traveled, and they played in tournaments, and that excited you. Besides, on your first day of tryouts, you met Will. He was all wide-eyed when you first talked to him, like you were some four-leaf clover in a valley of threes.

Since then, you two couldn’t be separated. You loved most of all being able to nerd out about hockey with him. You’d go down to the sports store and buy packs of hockey cards to unbox as you ate frozen yogurt in the sweltering heat of summer. You had a built-in friend who happily obliged when you wanted to play street hockey in twenty-degree weather. You were both really bad at math and needed a tutor. He talked about the NHL with you as if it were possible you could be drafted.

He just thought the same way as you, which felt so achingly sweet and innocent. That was why it was so hard to let it all go.

The first time you were called a bitch on the ice, you were nine. The first jab of the knife to your stomach. It shocked you, and you came off that period in tears. The kid probably didn’t know what it meant, only that he knew it would hurt you, that he would feel for those few seconds on top of the world. You let it sting the rest of the day, then decided you wouldn’t let it upset you. You would be the bigger person.

That role was so hard. It all just got worse as the years went by. The knife twisted, got stuck deeper beneath your ribs. Different variations of the word bitch or whore would be muttered under feeble breaths. They were echoes of the words those boys would hear their fathers call other women. At some point, you became numb to it. You were faster than them — Will always reminded you of that — so you would simply score instead. It made you feel good. It helped even more when Will celebrated with you, pulling you in a sweaty hug, your helmets bashing, and you’d have to shove him away because he was too busy smiling that bunny-toothed smile at you to notice the other three players on the ice coming to share in the celebration.

You didn’t want your friendship to ever change. You wanted to go to the rink and push him around and score goals with him on your line. You wanted to eat sliced apples at intermission and whack him across the head with your stick when he said a bad word or kept his mouth open too long. You wanted him to still see you as a boy, as someone equal and no lesser than.

You’re forced to quit when another boy punches you clean across the nose after you score at the age of 12. You were skating towards the bench, taking your cage off prematurely, and then it happens. Blood immediately spurts down your face, forcing its metallic taste into your mouth.

Nothing monumental came out of it.

It needed to be kept quiet.

His parents were so apologetic. They cried to the league’s president that their little boy didn’t fully understand what he was doing. He was just emulating what he saw in the big leagues. You’re forced to sit across from him and his pig nose and dirty hair. His eyes never lifted from the floor as he apologized. One of the worst apologies you’ve ever heard. Just a sorry is all he can muster, and then everyone thinks it’s okay. So it’s okay. You won’t make a big deal out of it.

“I can hurt him for you,” Will says, with large eyes, so worried when he comes over to your house the next day. You’re lying down on the rug in the living room while both sets of parents whisper about grown-up stuff down the hallway.

“No!” You say, turning your body to his. Your voice is all stuffy because your nose is still blocked — it will be for a couple of weeks. You’re already starting to get that purple swelling on your under eye, and the redness on the bridge of your nose has not subsided yet. The only thing that’s gotten better since your trip to the ER is that you weren’t bleeding anymore. “That’s embarrassing. Please don’t.”

“The refs broke us up before I could do anything.” Will needs to get a haircut. His hair falls over his eyes.

You gawk at him, “What?”

“I tried to get him, you know, but I wasn’t fast enough.” Your vision went black so fast when it happened, you never got to see or hear the aftermath. You didn’t think about what happened then, in the background, but Will, with his long limbs and prepubescent voice, tried to start a fight with your perpetrator.

You lie flat down again, staring at the ceiling. He does the same as you both let the silence fill the room.

“But when we play them again, it’s over.” He says abruptly.

“I won’t be there. I’m not playing anymore.”

Will jumps up, “Are you joking?”

“That’s what they’re talking about,” you gesture over to the sounds of your parents talking to his. “I can’t anymore. You guys will be too strong for me soon. Better to leave now.”

“But you’re our best winger!” Will can’t believe it, like it never occurred to him that you’d have to quit. You knew all along, you had just wanted another year at least. You wanted to end it on your own terms, but alas, this was the way the tide turned. You just look at him because you don’t know what to say. He looks back. “I’ll kill him.”

“Stop!” You hit him in the arm.

“I’m serious.” He puffs his chest out, hands on his hips. You laugh, getting up to hit him with a throw pillow from the couch. He lets you beat him up with that soft thing, he thinks, because he wants to feel the quiet punishment he deserved for not protecting you then. For it all spiraling out of control, while he stood there, dumbstruck, as you held your hand to your nose. Blood was dripping down your forearm in a small puddle by your feet, he remembers, tainting the ice forever with the last of your innocence.

—

When you’re thirteen, Will decides to stop making an effort to see you at lunch time or sit by you in class. You’re off the team, so you weren’t part of the immediate group he ‘needed’ to be around. Now that there are no afternoon hockey practices, there’s not much reason to talk about professional teams with him at school, either, especially when he was trying to fit in with the other guys.

You guess you didn’t help either. You busied yourself with girl friends, forcing yourself to pick up new hobbies, trying to be feminine. Maybe trying to be the person everyone wanted you to be. Besides, you didn’t want to get confused and start liking Will romantically in all the chaos that puberty rushed in, so spending as little time with him was good, you thought, in the long run. It felt like rebelling a bit when every girl in school was in love with him. That was all a facade, though, because at the end of the day, you’d write about him in your diary, locked with a key and hidden underneath those hockey card binders you left to dust.

Hockey became an afterthought. You tried out for a U16 team at the age of 14, when you stopped having flashbacks and nightmares of the fight. You cried on the way home because your limbs felt heavy and you declared you hated the sport. Not necessarily because you were playing with other girls now, but because it wasn’t fun. Every pass felt like a chore, every backcheck so mentally exhausting you wanted to break your stick in half and walk down that hallway. If you didn’t get any goals in a game, you curled up in your bed and didn’t talk to anyone the rest of the day.

Most girls in sports stop playing at that age. You knew that. You weren’t going to be the outlier as much as your younger self would have wanted you to be. There’s so little hope. Not much to dream about. Men get everything. They can dream of million-dollar salaries, of luxury sports cars, of pretty girlfriends, and it’s dangled so close to their heads they can reach out, grab it, and make it true.

You think it came into focus sitting on that hospital bed, napkins stuck in your nose, dried blood staining your neck, doctors touching and prodding at you as you try not to wince. As you try to be the big girl hockey taught you to be. Even though you were only twelve, you realized the world wasn’t made for you. So you gave up on that dream. When you think back on it now as an adult, you don’t blame yourself. You blame everyone else. You don’t blame Will, though. He tried to be there until he realized you gave up on your own, and then there was nothing else he could do.

—

He actually comes up to you one day in the first month of high school, voice still a bit shaky, tall but not as tall as you know he’ll be, and all tanned skin from the summer, asking if you were going to join the women’s team at the school. There had never been a women’s program until that year, and he thinks you’d be fucking great. Really. He goes out of his way because he wants you to keep playing. Because maybe, despite what you thought, he still cared.

It’s not like you aren’t friends. You still saw him at neighborhood barbecues, saw him playing street hockey as you walked your dog, maybe managed a couple of polite words to each other, but it was just different now. He was sort of a revered figure. Everyone knew he was going to leave eventually, go and join a development team. He was the talk of Boston suburbia.

“Eh, I don’t think so.” You say, cramming your huge history textbook into your locker. “It’s a big commitment.”

“I don’t understand. You loved hockey.”

“Key word: loved, Will.”

He purses his lips, reels back in whatever he was going to say.

“Just wanted to let you know is all.”

“I know, the coach already tried to recruit me.”

“Why aren’t you playing then?” He whines. His eyes are darting all over your face, scanning that default look of annoyance you used to have when he’d slide the puck between your legs or pull the one player you wanted in those card sets. “You’re so good.”

The compliment is not in the past tense. Your heart bloomed. Then you quickly shut it down. You force that lump in your throat to go away. “Not really.” Is all you say before you see your friend over his shoulder and you give him a hasty goodbye.

—

You only hear about Michigan and the NTDP through social media. There’s a goodbye party, but you don’t go. He’ll come back in the summer. It’s not like he’s dying or anything. You tell yourself this.

Until Sunday the following week, he’s at your door bright and early asking for you. You ask your mom if she’s being serious. You wade over to the front door, nerves prickling your cool skin.

“Hi.” You’re wearing a boston bruins t-shirt two sizes too large and long, formless gray sweats. His heart almost jumps out of his chest.

“Hey.” He says back, “Did you hear?” He must have been out for a run before the day got too hot. There are beads of sweat running down his neck. He’s wearing a gray sleeveless tank and white shorts, and the juts of muscle along his thighs make your mind go blank. He’s still partly gasping for air, pretty pink tongue running over his dry lips.

“Yeah,” you reply sheepishly, rubbing a hand over your cheek, trying to pretend like you don’t care about Will standing two feet away, acting like he has no idea what he looks like. He actually doesn’t, which makes you more annoyed. He was still as dumb as a rock when it came to things non hockey-related.

He stutters. You’re so pretty. You’ve grown into your face so well. You still have that dusting of color on your cheeks. It’s always there when he’s around.

“I’ll be back next summer.” He breaths out. It’s August now. He runs a hand through his damp hair.

“You’ll do really well, you know that, right?”

He blushes, though you can’t tell because he’s already red from the run. “Don’t say that.”

“You’re so humble that it’s really annoying, Will.”

“You are too. Humble, I mean.” He says without any second thought.

You tilt your head. “Really?”

“Yeah,” he looks at the ground, then back up at you, “Sometimes I wish you didn’t have to quit.”

You’re stunned by this statement. Ever since the moment you lay on your carpet years ago and Will complained about the boy who hurt you, you’ve spoken maybe 100 words to each other.

“I can’t— I can’t do anything about it now.”

“I know. I just wanted to tell you that.”

“I wish I were born a boy. Then I could take the hits.” You laugh, he doesn’t. You also think that if you were a boy, Will would never have disappeared. You try to believe that he did it unconsciously: the missed eye contact, the pretending he didn’t notice you when he was with his male friends. It makes your heart break thinking about your worth to him after quitting. You often thought bad things, like hypotheticals about being prettier, because you felt that if you somehow were, he’d have kept his eyes on you. If you weren’t helping him score goals, then what were you to him? Why the hell did he have to grow up and have long eyelashes and pale cheeks flecked with moles and that stupid, perfect nose? Why the hell did anything have to change?

“I wish they respected you, though. They could have at least done that.”

You roll your eyes. “Not how the world works, bud.”

He drags his hand across his face and groans. “I know, I know.” He repeats. “Doesn’t make it right.”

“Can we… be friends?” You ask now, all timid. You roll on your toes, all shifty and nervous.

“What do you mean? Aren’t we friends?”

“Well…yeah,” not really, you internalize, “but when you leave too. Like texting and stuff. I want to know about your team and everything.”

“Oh, of course.” He beams, “I’ll do that, yeah.”

“Cool.” And now there’s an awkward pause. You’re both sixteen, an overflowing bottle of hormones and shame and he’s dripping sweat. You put your hand on the doorknob.

“Okay, I’ll go back now. I’m already late for church.”

You grin. You felt like you’ve fixed something.

—

Will has been in love with you since the moment he heard your voice behind that helmet. He wasn’t paying attention at first, thought you were just a boy because your hair was tied back. You were quiet. At the end of practice, when you took your helmet off, everything fell apart for him.

He latched onto you very quickly. He figured out you were really fun to play with. Maybe the other boys poked fun at him, but it didn’t matter. You loved assisting him, and he loved scoring.

That day, when he saw your body fall back, red everywhere, his world stopped.

He managed to shove the boy down, and before he could do anything else, he was pulled back by a referee. Usually when scrums happen, the auditorium is loud, full of parents arguing and the other teammates ragging the two on. That day, it was dead silent. All he could hear was the sound of skates on ice. The sound of his coach running towards you. He tried to see what you looked like, but there were about five adults crowded over you, blocking his view. He was so worried. He’d never felt that way before.

Then you quit, and he relinquished his tight hold on you. The others were right. He was like a little love-sick puppy waiting for your attention. When you went off and spent time with girls your age, the excuse he had to spend time with you at the rink was gone, and he begrudgingly forced himself not to think about you. He spent the hours he used to be sitting in your living room on the weekends watching the Bruins, at practice, alone. Hitting the same pucks over and over from different angles.

He wasn’t supposed to keep falling for you. When you weren’t looking, he watched you push the loose strands of your hair behind your ear from across the classroom. He envied the people who were making you laugh. His temples felt like they were going to burst when he saw another boy talking to you.

When he lies in his new stiff bed in Plymouth, there’s nothing else he can think of. In his mind, he sees you in jean shorts and a tank top, ice cream cone dripping down your fingers, looking at everyone but him. He imagines you lying on a chair, sweat and chlorine water from the neighborhood pool sticking to your forehead as you click your tongue and ignore him. He feels like a loser.

He sends you some pictures of the rink his mom took because she was so excited. A couple of photos with his new teammates.

Fuck that’s so cool

I know right, he responds. He’s biting his fingernail, phone all pushed up to his face.

im going to a boston game this weekend

lucky :(

hopefully there’s a goalie fight

if that happens when im not there im going to murder you

oooo im so scared

And it goes back and forth like this for the year. Sometimes he gathered enough strength to call you after a game and tell you how it went. You always told him about how impatient you were waiting for those stats websites to update his point record. Who was he to deny you of anything you asked?

—

He comes back, so much taller, his voice deeper, exuding the confidence of a man.

Of course, it’s all awkward. Sandwiched between your families, not sure how to greet one another again. You’d been texting like you were best friends for the last eight months. Later that night, he asks you to come to a house party by the lake that one of his friends was having that weekend. You enthusiastically agree. It was the summer before your senior year, and Will was going to go back to Plymouth anyway. You wanted to force as much time out of him before he got drafted. He always shook his head and denied it whenever you joked about the draft, about being drafted to the Canadiens. He wouldn’t even entertain the jokes anymore because it was all so serious now. He was worried sick about the future. He’d say he needed to perform well during the season again because nothing was guaranteed, like he wasn’t always the top goal scorer of any team he was on.

He comes to pick you up then, feet scuffing up your doormat in anxiety. He’s wearing a stupid polo shirt his mom got him and black shorts, a backwards baseball hat to tame the hair that the humidity made so frizzy. You’re yelling out over your shoulder to your mom a series of yes’s before you shut the front door behind you, leaning back and sighing so loud that Will laughs.

“Giving you a hard time?”

“You don’t even want to know.”

You straightened your hair. It accentuates the bare skin on your shoulders, your pretty collarbones. You’re the definition of sun-kissed. He can’t help but find your socks and beat-up sneakers endearing too. He thought about kissing you the whole day. He thinks that this might be the night he can summon the bravery to do it.

At the party, you decide to drift off from Will. You didn’t want to seem too attached. Besides, your friends were already getting on your ass about him. You didn’t want one of them to say something stupid to his face and ruin your teenage life.

He’s holding a beer bottle, in the middle of a conversation, when his eyes scan the room. He’s had his eye on you the whole time, just in glances that made sure you hadn’t left the vicinity, but he got distracted by something for a couple of minutes, so he’s trying to find you again. He does a double-take when he sees you leaning against the wall on the far corner of the room, only a couple of inches separating you from a man who’s leaning forward, trapping you there. He squints, tries to focus on the side profile, on the hair he can hazily remember, and then it clicks.

You’re talking to one of the idiots from your hockey team all those years ago. One Will visibly remembers was a shithead to you. Jack.

And then he notices Jack’s eyes falling down to your lips as you talk. He’s not listening to a word you’re saying. It makes him sick because you look so bubbly, so keen about your topic of choice as the alcohol courses through you. Will has no idea what his friends are talking about at this point.

Jack asks for permission before he dives in, which you found out of character, but you don’t think about it much. You let him close the distance. He pulls your hips flush to his, and you let out a surprised noise before he kisses you. It was nice, actually. Nothing electrifying, but something close to what your friends described the experience to be. You kiss back.

“The fuck are you doing?” You don’t ever hear Will’s raised voice. The only reason you recognize it now is that you saw a blurry video of a scrum he got himself into a few months back, posted online. He said some things you never thought he would then, but you guess you didn’t really know him anymore.

You break apart from Jack. His hand is still at your waist, and you slap it away. All six feet of the blond is suddenly in front of both of you. It feels like you’re about to get reprimanded by a coach. Your heart drops in your stomach, pivoted to the hardwood floor.

“Hey, what’s wrong with you, man?” Jack asks, turning fully toward him now. You’re helpless, watching the way Will’s eyes narrow as he looks between both of you. You feel the press of the other man’s lips still there, and it fills you with a guilt so sharp you feel your stomach turn.

“Fuck’s wrong with you?” He counters, taking a step closer. The other man laughs in his face, takes a glancing look at you, then at Will, knowingly.

“Sorry. Forgot you two still got a thing going on.” Your brows furrow. You don’t understand the harsh tone of his voice, the smirk that plays on his lips in the dimly lit room.

“What are you talking ab—“ You’re cut off with Will’s own string of expletives.

“Don’t act stupid. You’re an asshole.” He spits out. Jack doesn’t deserve to touch you. The scene he just saw made his vision all blurry. Feels like the world was spinning twice as fast. The taller man turns to you, “We’re leaving. It’s late, and your dad’s gonna kill me.”

You try to protest, but Will, despite his attitude, grabs hold of your wrist gently to guide you through the packed room. You hadn’t processed what happened enough to be angry yet. You let him take you. You like the feel of his large palm wrapped around your wrist. Although this only lasts for a minute before you’re hit with the sudden chill of the late evening. You can hear the crunch of both your feet from the scattered leaves and branches allowed to fester on the driveway. You wriggle out of his touch, hand dropping at your side, stopping completely. When Will realizes this, he sighs and turns one hundred and eighty degrees as if it were an obligation to hear you out.

“Why did you do that, Will?”

“Are you serious? Is this what you do now?” He huffs out.

“What are you insinuating?” Your voice gets weaker. He notices and sees the wobble of your lower lip in the vanishing light reflecting off the lake.

“No, it’s just…” He grabs his keys out of his pocket, moving over to his side and unlocking the car. He didn’t want to have this conversation in the middle of a quiet street. You follow, only because you want to get home as fast as possible.

“What is it then?” You ask as he starts the ignition. He pulls off the curb, waiting a few long beats until he’s at the stop sign at the farther end of the cul-de-sac to reply.

“It’s the same Jack that pulled your hair and never passed when you were open.” He says this like you’d had amnesia. He also says this like youre still a child, incapable of your own decisions. It infuriates you.

“We became friends this year,” you confess, lying lightly. You had one class with him and he was only nice to you so you would finish his part of the group project. You didn’t really ever like him. But in the moment, you wanted someone to find you pretty and kiss you. God knows Will never did. It was dumb, but you weren’t going to let Will, someone who once saw you as an equal, a teammate, make you feel bad for kissing someone. For putting your lips on someone else’s. A mortal sin, apparently. You were sure he was getting up to much worse things in Michigan.

“But…he was so mean to you then.” His voice falters; he doesn’t understand. His grip on the steering wheel tightens. How could you ever look twice at the boys who used to make jokes behind your back, who made you out to be some sort of witch when they’d get pissy you had a better backhand? How could you when he was right there the whole time? When he’d shut the conversation down in the locker room, even when you weren’t there to hear the gross remarks. When he’d have to take the heat of the other boys saying he was in love, that he was a little suck-up to the one girl who would pay attention to him.

Granted, you never saw those things happening. He did it without you knowing. But he wants you to know now, in a stupid childish way, he wants you to know that you were the only person that mattered to him on that team. Everyone else had three measly leaves, and you were his four-leaf clover.

But now he’s left thinking he didn’t do enough.

“So? It was like seven years ago. He seems fine now.”

“But he’s not!”

“How do you fucking know? You keep saying that. You weren’t here this year!”

The muscle in his jaw ticks as he grinds his teeth.

“I know enough to know they’re assholes, and you shouldn’t be around any of them, especially Jack.” He never looks at you, keeping his eyes on the beam-lit road that seems to never end.

“Jesus, William. I’m not 10 anymore. You don’t have to save me. I know full well what it feels like to get hit. I’ll call you if it happens again. Maybe then you’ll feel good that you were right about something. And I was wrong, because I’m always wrong.”

“I never fucking said that.” His voice cracks the tiniest bit at the curse word. He’s taken aback when you say his full name. He takes offense to the notion that he would ever bask in your hurting. He would be the last person in the world to do that. He steals a quick glance at you, your head is turned down, the oversized sleeves of someone else’s jacket covering the hands that you use to furiously wipe at your eyes.

“Well— that’s what it sounds like.” He can hear the tears coming through your voice now. The sniffles and the quivering and the hurt all wrapped into one.

You shut your eyes and try to forget this all happened. That you never went to this party and that Will was still in Michigan. How it was supposed to be.

When he pulls up to your house, he tries so hard, but his mouth opens and closes like a fish because he doesn’t know how to console a girl who’s inconsolably crying in his passenger seat because of him. There’s a soft swoosh of the car doors unlocking.

“For your information, that was my first kiss. I don’t ‘do’ that now, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m not a whore.” You turn to him fully, using quotation marks around the do, trying to emulate the way it came out of his mouth ten minutes ago. Tears won’t stop falling down on your lap. He can’t look at you like that. He looks out his driver’s side window instead, watches the way your neighbor’s trees sway lightly in the summer breeze.

He says a quiet, “alright,” jaw tight, still refusing to make eye contact, and waits for you to open the car door. He taps the steering wheel in anticipation.

You mutter an angry bye before you slam the door and walk down the front yard and up to your porch, keys in jittery hands. He waits, of course, till you’re inside, and even still until he sees the light from your bathroom turn on. You’re probably washing your flushed face, rubbing your face raw of the damage he inflicted. He hits his forehead on the top of the wheel, then drives a street over back to his house.

A week later, you wake up to a message from him: im sorry. i didn’t mean any of what i said. i just worry about you. i hope you’ll forgive me.

You don’t respond.

—

It’s a year later.

All you could manage was congrats, with a red heart emoji, the night Will signs his NHL contract with the Sharks. If you stared at your phone too long, you would have kept typing and rambling about all the big things that have happened in your life that he wasn’t there to see. Maybe you would have berated him, asked him why he ever had the nerve to imply the thing he did that night. Or you would have just deleted the message and never sent anything in the first place. The congratulations text looked stupid underneath his apology from eleven months ago that you never bothered to acknowledge.

You felt so much guilt following that night. You know he just wanted to make sure you were okay. He was the first witness to that hit on the ice. It probably hurt him to see you get constantly beaten down by your own teammates and opponents. It hurt him to see you kiss someone who used to chirp about how weak you were at practice. It didn’t matter if it was all ten-year-old boys being stupid. They knew what they were doing.

The guilt didn’t help you respond; in fact, it made it all worse. You couldn’t gather the courage to text him. You wouldn’t even know where to start.

Hey sorry I got so mad at you that night where I was trying to rebel and make you look my way because I was a bit tipsy and desperate and I hadn’t seen you in eight months so I wasted my first kiss on someone I actually hated. I wanted to pretend like I changed over the year and that maybe I was mature but obviously I’m not and blah blah blah. You were right Will.

This was not anything you were willing to type out and send. The congrats was as close as he was going to get.

Will has hundreds of messages that night — all blurs of long sappy text that he’s surely grateful for, but he’s not in the headspace to care now. He scrolls all the way down his contacts, scared to type your name and it coming back with nothing, coming back with his half-assed apology that made him burn so hot whenever he thought back on it his mom had asked him once if he was running a fever. It worsened when he was reminded he was planning on kissing you that night, too. So he buys time by reading each celebratory text with glazed-over eyes and a leg that won’t stop bouncing. When he sees your name (just your first, because your full name in his phone felt too impersonal) and next to it that blue dot that tells him you’ve texted, he shuts his eyes. He selfishly wanted his draft to be an excuse to talk to you again. If only about hockey, if only about his stats, and maybe just to argue about the bruins again. He didn’t need anything else unless you’d give it to him.

His heart melts at your text. Relief floods him. He doesn’t know what he expected; maybe this was the greatest outcome. You were watching, and you cared enough to reach out. He can’t help himself. All you did when he won gold in Sweden was like his post.

He’s overthinking this. People he’d known for two months back in middle school had texted him. It’s not that big of a deal. He groans, flopping back on the bed, keeping his phone close to his face, reading the single word over and over again. It’s almost more heartfelt than those long essays he’s received. All that history left unsaid. So simple it makes him believe that you always knew this was his path, that he was always good enough, so why make it a big deal?

He doesn’t know how to keep the conversation going. You left it so open. He should just thank you and leave it at that. He should.

thank you

you’re going to bc right?

Of course, he already knew. Your mom told everyone, and the information eventually snaked its way back to him in passing. He had to pretend he vaguely remembered you. He repeated your name in questioning, then acted like the image of you just dawned on him, when it was always in the back of his mind.

It’s the worst five minutes of his life turning his phone off and back again, throwing it on the opposite side of the bed, then grabbing it back.

yes

no one will believe I’m friends with the big hot-shot on campus

He sends a flurry of crying emojis and with it, don’t call me that

too late

your new title is mr. hot-shot nhl player

don’t get ahead of yourself, he typed out. It still wasn’t a given. He often thought about the worst things, like getting injured before he’s able to play professionally, or flaming out and being stuck as the wonder-boy that never was. It’s what keeps him up at night. That and the distressing thought of losing you forever.

oh shut up

everyone knows it

He doesn’t know what to say. Friends. His mind blanks. He hopes there will be another excuse to talk to you again.

—

The issue is there isn’t. The summer before the first semester, you’re rarely home. You’re hanging out with people he’s never seen before in his life. Then freshman year starts, and he never stumbles upon you on campus organically. He swears he’ll see the friends you post on instagram walking to class, in the dining hall, but he never sees you. It feels like some sort of divine punishment. It gets so bad he has to force himself to look forward, to not hope that after every turn of the corner, he’ll see you all bright and smiling and doing so well without him. He thinks bitterly on that term friends, and how it didn’t mean anything. But how could he blame you? He was the one who let you drift away from hockey. He was the one who left for Michigan. He was the one who blew up at you last summer because of his insecurities. The word friends was actually a nice thing for you to say, all things considered.

You don’t go to games, is what he assumes, because you don’t post about it like the other hundreds of women that follow him do. You don’t go to the hockey house’s parties on the weekends, though he secretly wishes you’d show and take him from the pounding music, sweaty bodies, and disgusting alcohol. Because you’re a good girl — focusing on your studies and being a part of clubs and organizations, and not stuck up on things that happened a decade ago.

Because you don’t care about hockey anymore, and that’s what he believes is the only thing he can offer you. You’re so three-dimensional. You have passions and interests he’ll never understand, and you’re involved with a different crowd. He wonders if you still had your binders full of cards stacked by your desk, or if it was packed away in the attic now, completely forgotten.

He doesn’t understand why he can’t move on. A thousand other people were waiting to sink their teeth into him if he let them. Is it nostalgia for a time before everything was so serious? The knowing that he can’t get the one thing he wants? Or is it real, deep yearning love that bubbles up and can't be traced? He figures, the covers all twisted around his limbs one late morning, it was a mix of all of it, and unless he shut his brain completely off, he was never going to stop thinking about you when he tuned his coach’s speeches out at intermissions, when he drove by your house in the summers, when he saw women with your features at the bar. If love could be explained, then he’d be able to leave you as a memory. A biological instinct that could be replicated over and over again with other women, but, obviously, that wasn’t true. It left him sick sometimes, that thought.

—

Then he’s hit in the gut by your presence.

He can’t mistake your hair, your dusty bookbag, and the swing of your hips as you walk down the hallway, away from him. You’re in the NCAA training facility, someplace, technically, you’re not allowed to be. Then he thinks about how you really should be there — you should be on the women’s team. You were supposed to do it with him. He shakes his head, trying to physically rid himself of the thoughts of this alternate reality he may or may not have created when he was bored on an away game road trip.

There’s a beat where he thinks he should stay quiet, then he gathers all the stupid courage he has left and says your name from across the hallway like he was 13 again. He was just exiting the trainer’s office, a large pack of ice wrapped around his thigh from a nasty purple and yellow bruise he got the other night.

You turn and see Will, his hair freshly washed, a tight BC shirt on, and his shorts hiked up to accommodate the tape job. He’s gained a couple of inches and filled out, and he runs his hair through that thick blond hair like he always did. You’re wearing a winter coat. It’s December. You smile, say hi, and manage a wave as you lean on the door. You’re stuck between awkwardly staring at him and leaving to go to class.

“What are you doing in here?”

“Oh!” You say, suddenly the ground looks really inviting. “I was just…walking my friend over here. We had class, and I was already heading this way for my next one. It’s also warmer in here.” You nod at your own explanation. He’s puzzled, but can’t manage another question that doesn’t sound invasive. Does this friend happen to be on the baseball team that has weight training after us? Have you seen those stupid banners on all the campus lamp posts with my face on them? Do you hate me?

He mutters an ah instead. There’s a good ten feet between the two of you.

“Well, it’s nice to see you.” That’s safe, he thinks. Maybe it kills the conversation, but he doesn’t just want to say bye. How does he even start to reconfigure a friendship in the middle of a ridicuously hot, carpeted hallway, where anyone else could come through?

“Yeah, you too.” You lean on the door, slowly turning away from him before he sees you halt. Your hand comes up to your forehead as if you’d had an epiphany.

“You played really well last night. I don’t have time to go to the games, but I still watch them sometimes.”

“Thank you,” he breathes out a bit too quickly, “You should try to come to one. I can get you tickets for Friday night, if you want.”

“I don’t know. I think I have plans.” As soon as he’s built up some foolish belief, it’s all shattered.

“That’s okay.” He musters, cheeks violently flushing. You mistake it for the heat pumping through the hall.

“Sorry, I have to go. I’m going to be late,” and you’re gone into the hazy morning, wind whipping your hair before the door shuts and he’s left staring at nothing. He’s spent a good part of the latter half of a decade watching you disappear behind closed doors.

There is a lingering hope now, as he quickly turns, snow flying up on the boards, slotting the puck in the upper left corner on Friday night, that he didn’t have to rely on the fluttering fantasy of you in the stands anymore. He hopes you’re watching, even if you’re at those “plans” you made, smiling at your phone when he scores the game winner.

—

Involuntarily, he thinks about you when he has his palm around himself. As he’s trying to imagine something else, someone not you, you’re there, underneath a man with no face. Maybe you like girls too. He wouldn’t know. He doesn’t know much about you these days. And then he’s getting angry all over again about how he fucked everything up. So much so that he can’t release and just groans and tries to sleep with a red-hot ache deep in his stomach that won’t go away.

He doesn’t let himself look through your Instagram following because then that would be crossing the line — as if everything he’s been doing hasn’t already crossed this imaginary barrier. He only lets himself watch your stories. Sometimes, he clicks on them too fast when he reloads the app, and then he’s sat staring at a picture of you and your friends, you out on a hike, your notebooks and energy drinks as you study late on a Saturday night in the library. 2 minutes ago. 53 seconds ago. 25 seconds ago. That one was a new record. He was sitting on the couch in the middle of a frat party. It was utterly ridiculous.

He can’t hide behind an ambiguous history like he can when he screws up with the other women he tries to pursue. You can’t look the other way at his shortcomings because he knows his hockey boy novelty doesn’t exist for you as it does for other people. Because you know he’s not just this shallow athlete he tries to portray himself as for protection. He can’t just text you, ask you if you’ll go out with him, and pretend like your rejection wouldn’t alter everything. The truth is that he’s always been that scared boy, watching you leave. Never closing the distance and sealing his lips to yours.

—

The year Will leaves college to join the Sharks, your sophomore year, you try your hardest to forget him. He spent his summer getting ready for the season in San Jose. You had to trust that time would mend whatever he unknowingly broke in your heart.

Now that he’s not there on campus, you feel less suffocated. His presence isn’t there as a reminder of how badly you messed up your friendship. You feel like maybe you can branch out and date people so you can finally get over this hump.

Your friend picks out some guy she thinks you’ll be compatible with, and forces you to go out on a Thursday night.

Unfortunately, the date was at a nice little bar downtown, and Will decided to be on the fucking television. Not just on one TV, but practically all of them. Must have been a dull night in sports. He’s suffocating you via broadcasting networks now.

You shifted the whole time nervously, eyes somehow knowing to snap up at the screen when they’d do a close-angle shot of him. He was annoying: biting his useless mouthguard, spitting on the floor, and saying quiet vulgarities under his breath.

The man across from you had brown eyes. He didn’t smack on a large piece of gum just to irritate you like a certain someone used to. How boring. There wasn’t a second date. If you could place blame on anyone, it would be on #2.

You decided not to tell people about Will when you got to college. You couldn’t really explain your history with him in a way that made sense to other people. It was cliché, but you had something other people didn’t. Maybe for good reason. Most people didn’t want to have a horrible unrequited crush on a boy; their feelings all jumbled between the confusions of womanhood, and their self-worth being tied to a sport that wouldn’t love them back. It was kind of a nightmare. Besides, it was hard enough having your friends tell you in vivid detail how hot they thought he was.

“Why didn’t you want to come with us last year?” One of your friends asked. You shrug. You’re three rows up at a boston college hockey game. They’re winning quite comfortably that day, even without Will.

“It’s obviously because she was scared to see Will Smith. You’re so stupid. If I were you, I would have drafted our marriage contract and sent it to his DMs.”

One night, they all ganged up on you, trying to figure out why you were such a stickler when it came to guys. You always brushed them off or said they weren’t your type. They were scrolling through your following as you jumped on them, trying to steal their phones.

“Why do you follow Will Smith?” One of them squeals as you lunged at her. Your face turned into a tomato.

“More importantly, why does he follow you back?” Another one of your friends gasps. All their jaws dropped.

“He follows everyone.” You tried to deflect, “I think we went to the same high school for a year or two. I don’t know. It was a big school, and I never talked to him.” You rambled on.

“He does not follow everyone.”

“God, I wish he followed me.”

“This conversation is over!”

—

Even Macklin figured out who you were before he met you.

Originally, Will was going through his camera roll out of boredom, trying to delete the things he didn’t need, but Macklin was nosy and bored, too. They were both lounging on the couch, scrolling absentmindedly. The older boy was stuck flipping through ten pictures, all from similar years. As he glances over his shoulder, Mack recognizes Will’s younger self, but in the pictures, there’s always the same person next to him. There’s one of him with you, maybe at age nine, all dressed up in your too-big hockey gear and holding a small trophy. Another one at a Bruins game. The next one is you making a terrible attempt at an American flag with face paint on Will’s chubby cheek at some sort of backyard summer party. The way the sun emits a hazy light through the dark exposure and pixelated image makes Will’s body tense up. To him, those days didn’t seem that long ago.

“Who’s that?”

Out of instinct, Will covers his phone like he’s just been caught watching porn. And Macklin has caught him doing that once, so he recognizes it.

“No one.”

“Uhhh, I don’t think so.” Macklin would have shrugged it off, but his best friend is flushing violently, and you can’t exactly just forget about a reaction that strong. “Who is it?” He tries again.

“Literally no one. I don’t know what you’re talking about. They’re just childhood pictures.

“That’s not your sister though.”

Will grunts, looks away like he’s contemplating punching Mack in the face.

“I didn’t know you had girls on your minor team as a kid,” Macklin adds.

“Just one.”

“Does she still play?”

“No— no, I fucked that up.” Then Will has his hand over his eyes.

“Holy shit, man. Is this the love of your life or something?” And at first, Mack says it as a joke, trying to tease him, but then he quickly realizes it’s not one at all. He hit the dart dead center. Will stares at his stunned face, frowning, and it’s an answer.

“Have you ever even told her that?” Will shakes his head.

“Isn’t that a good place to start, buddy?”

“Fuck you.”

—

You’d only be envious of Will if you also weren’t so goddamn enamoured by him. He had such a great rookie season. You should be mad that he gets to live this life and you don’t, but you don’t have the energy to think like that anymore. He’s just really good, and it’s not his fault.

One of your friends from high school is getting married in July. Then someone mentions that Will was invited at a dinner and your heart drops. You didn’t know what you were thinking. You thought you wouldn’t have to see him again for some reason, even though the Boston suburbs was such a clique and you knew better. Maybe you thought you would have had a boyfriend by now, and Will would be left in your most formative years, trapped in the distorted memories of fleeting touches and half-crooked smiles you convinced yourself might have meant something at one point.

He notices you first. You’re a little bit late to the pre-ceremony gathering, placing your carefully wrapped gift on the overflowing table, looking around for people you know. You’re wearing this pretty lilac sun dress because that’s all the heat afforded you.

It’s in the groom’s parents’ backyard. One of these huge ones with perfectly mowed grass that can fit two hundred people somehow. It’s still the early afternoon, the sun hasn’t started slipping, so your face is illuminated in bright light, like the sun’s rays are favoring you. He ached in every bone in his body. He’s standing by the open bar talking to some people he barely remembers, nursing a beer to be polite, and when he even remotely sees your face turn in his direction, he’s looking away. He grimaces at this childish behavior you always elicit in him. He swears he can feel your eyes land on him.

Everyone is taking their seats now before the ceremony. Will finds his.

He feels a small finger poke him on his shoulder from behind. “Hey, Will, you’re blocking the view.”

He turns his head and sees you smiling at him like a dream.

“Oh, I can switch with you?” He questions, body unintentionally sliding down a bit in his seat.

“No, I’m just joking. I can see. You’re bigger, though, than when I last saw you.”

“Had to. Was getting my ass handed to me in the big leagues.”

You suppress a laugh, not well, because when he smiles at your expression, you end up giggling.

“You look pretty.” It just slips from his mouth. He didn’t mean to say it.

“Thank you,” you stutter out, smoothing your dress with your palms, unable to look at the way his eyes scan over you. Big blue eyes that seem to swallow you whole.

Then he notices people around you stifling their conversation, and maybe it’s a cue for him to turn around. “Anytime,” says it loud enough for you to hear, then turns his attention over to the altar, where apparently some people were getting married today.

When the ceremony ends, the dinners all served, some lackluster speeches made, the night stretches into clusters of people and terrible dancing on a woefully made platform. Again, he’s reminded he’s good at multitasking. You’re flowing between groups and couples, a glass of champagne, then a glass of wine. The backyard is lit by string lights. Your hair gets more unkempt as the night drags on.

Then, in a lull of conversation he’s having, he’s able to spot you sitting alone at a circular table, on your phone. He makes a lame excuse, adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows thickly, walking in your direction before he can convince himself not to. He sits down next to you. You hum, telling him you know he’s there.

You both say nothing until Will breaks the silence first.

“What do you think about it, the happy couple?” He asks, honestly. The noise from the dance floor dulls as you give him your full attention. You can hear the sound of the late summer crickets.

“They’re way too young.” He forgot how brash you were. It’s what he liked when you’d argue who should be on the World Juniors American team at eight years old. You’d mix your hockey cards with his on the floor of his room, and try to make up your own lines as if you were the head development coach — the one who’d make the call to tell them their dreams were going to come true. “You know how it goes…21 and married? Never works out.”

“You don’t know that. Maybe they’re different.” He jokes, letting the way his voice lightens tell you that he agrees. He smiles, focusing on the way your face shifts to the couple in question, your expression all tight-lipped cause you’ve already made up your mind.

You rolled your eyes. “I bet you he doesn’t even know what her favorite color is. And she doesn’t know he’s got a secret bank account and they’ll divorce over it.”

Will remembers your favorite color instantly. He refrains from saying it out loud because it would sound like a love confession… or something.

“You’re making things up now.”

You look at him, eyes glimmering, then your eyes wander to something else in the distance. You hesitate, mouth open, then you just say it.

“I’m sorry for not being a good friend. For never responding to you after the whole…car thing. I felt so bad after that. I was immature.”

Will takes a second to respond. He didn’t think this would ever be brought up again, but he’s glad it is.

“I, uhm, I was the one who hurt you though,” long pause, “I was so jealous that night.” He scoffs at his own actions while they flicker through his mind.

You tilt your head at him, hair falling so perfectly around your face.

“Like, I couldn’t bear the thought of another man kissing you.” He thinks now, head already hot with embarrassment, to just finish what he started. “It still irks me, to be honest.”

“You…what?” You whisper, as if there weren’t twenty feet of distance between you and another group of people all drunk out of their minds.

“Yeah. I mean, it made it worse because it was him, but I would’ve had the same reaction to anyone else kissing you,” he laughs. If anything, he’s fueled by the thought that he can say this and maybe he’ll never have to see you again. That he can finally get it off his chest. He thought about it a lot these past few months after Macklin figured you out. His career was taking off, and you were about to start your own work career. It would be the best time to close this chapter of his life. To finally be man enough to take the risk. Maybe it’d eventually help him be a better hockey player. He didn’t know. He just needed to get rid of the twinges of regret he’d feel at random parts of the day.

“Are you joking?” You breathe out.

“No,” Will says, “Definitely not.”

“You’re just saying that,” tearing your eyes away from him and his intense stare, “because im like a sister to you or something.”

“You think I want to kiss my sister?”

“Ew, gross, Will!” You say, before what he said is repeated in your head, and you understand what he’s implying. Your hands that we’re fidgeting in your lap come up quickly to find your wine glass, but you’re kind of erratic, and the glass falls over. Falls over onto his white dress shirt.

“Oh shit!” You jump out of your chair. He’s in a daze. Watches you grab the empty glass from his lap and assesses the damage. It’s drenched the bottom half of his button-up deep red. He watches your concerned face as your hands feel the fabric, your feathery touch just a layer away from his abdomen.

“I’m so sorry,” you plead at him, face so close he just wants to kiss you and get it over with now. You turn your head to look at the party. No one’s even noticed what you’re so worked up about. “Maybe we can clean it up inside.”

He nods, stuck on the way your small hand grabs his forearm to lead him towards the wooden deck and through the sliding glass door. He lets you pull him around a corner, flicking on a light from an open bathroom door.

You rummaged through their towels, finding the one in the darkest shade of gray. “Uh, hopefully they don’t get too mad about this.”

“They’re having a wedding at their house. It’s fine.” Will argues. You flounder a bit before stepping closer to him, lightly dabbing the towel over the dampest parts, trying not to spread it any further. He starts undoing the buttons, slowly revealing the expanse of his chest. You want to tell him that he doesn’t have to do that.

“I really like you too, I mean, obviously. It was very obvious this whole time, Will. I don’t know how you didn’t know.”

He stops his movements. The towel in your hand is still pressed to his body. You said this while staring directly at his bare sternum. “And please don’t ever mention sisters or kissing a sister ever again, please.”

“It was not obvious.” His voice is soft. He’s staring at the top of your scalp. You pull back to look at him now. His lips part.

“Yeah, you’re stupid. I had to spell it out for you.”

“Hey!” He’s smiling again, and it feels like the air gets thinner in this cramped bathroom. “Mine was also very obvious too.”

“Don’t call me stupid. You’re pushing your luck right now.”

“When did you know?” The towel falls between both your feet.

“I’m not sure. Maybe thirteen or fourteen?” You flush because it’s so embarrassing to admit you’ve been pining after him for that long. You were sure his answer would be tamer.

“Oh, jeez.” His hand covers his face.

“What? I know it’s really young—“

“No! Oh, God.” He says again.

“What?” You say impatiently. If he was going to make fun of you, he might as well say it.

“I liked you since we were six.”

“Why are you lying to me? Are you trying to fuck with me?” You push his chest half-heartedly. He stumbles back, grinning from ear to ear.

“I’m not! I swear!”, he stops laughing, “seriously.”

You look at him warily. He responds, “We’ve been lying to each other too long to start now.”

“When did you get so poetic?”

“Communications major, remember?”

You groan. “Shut up. Can’t you just kiss me? All you do is talk and talk—“ and then he does.

He tests you first, plush lips softly angling into yours. When you withdraw, foreheads touching, there aren’t any more reasons to wait. He’s on you again with a quiet hunger. The smacking sound of your lips fills the room, and it all becomes a tangle of your hands in his hair, one of his hands cupping your cheek, and the other firm on your side, afraid to let you go. You don’t know how long you stand there, finally half of him.

You would be wasting so much time worrying about all the little events that should have made you two realize it sooner. You were both scared kids, afraid to hurt the other. It didn’t matter now. You had him breathless against your body, and that sight alone made it all worth it.

You’re the one to pull away. You need oxygen, and he’s been depriving you of it your whole life. He stares at you, love-struck.

“Can you cover up now? You’re indecent.” You pat his chest.

“I’m so decent and you know it.” His hands fumble around the small buttons. You pick up the towel, folding it nicely on the counter.

“They should make a button that immediately turns you off when you’ve reached maximum stupid word limit.” You glare at him like he didn’t make your cheeks turn the color they are now.

“You would get so bored you’d have to turn me back on.” He wiggles his eyebrows at his poorly structured double entendre.

“I’m done with you. Goodbye.” You try to get past him, to evade his broad shoulders, but you can’t. All he needs is one hand on your shoulder to make you stop.

“Okay, sorry, but I can’t really go back out there.” He gestures to his shirt.

“Did you congratulate the bride and groom?” You ask.

“Yeah, like two hours ago.”

“So we can leave.”

“Like…together?”

“Are you twelve?”

“Why are you asking me when you know the answer is yes?”

You sigh. You finally brush past him, and he’s all eager, his hands on your shoulders, practically jumping up and down behind you.

As you walk down the paved concrete, he's holding your hand, and not because he was trying to drag you through a packed td garden, down the stairs to watch the bruins warm up before a game, but because he’s able to hold you like he always wanted to.

“It was all for you,” he says. You stop, and he turns to look at you in the darkness. It feels like a recreation of that night, without the tension and anger and stupid decisions. “College, the NHL. Wanted to make you proud somehow. Wanted to do it because you couldn’t.”

“That’s dumb.” Your eyes water, and he knows you mean the opposite of what you say.

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