Bang!

The door fumbles through my trembling fingers, slamming shut. Eyes closed, heart racing, I keep my back to the room’s interior, waiting for the silence to sink back into place, afraid to look behind me.

It’s just a locker room, I tell myself. Nothing to be scared of.
I know that at some point I have to turn around and confront reality. But it’s nice pretending that everything’s okay. That when I finally do face the room, everyone will be there to greet me. That there’ll be shouts of joy, instead of quiet. That the schedule hanging on the wall won’t have an “L” in the final column.

After minutes, or maybe hours, I can no longer remain in denial. Sucking in my breath, and clenching my fists, I wheel around, bracing myself to cry or puke or pass out from the emptiness.
But the room isn’t empty. All 19 of my teammates surround me, suiting up for a game. There’s Jimmy, the first one ready as usual, leaning on the door frame and tapping his stick impatiently. There’s Justin, sitting in the corner, eyes closed, muttering a string of prayers and curse words. There’s Shane, half-dressed, snapping pictures of himself with his phone and dancing around wildly. For a moment, I can actually see everyone before me and I rush forward to join the throng.
But then I blink. And they’re all gone. And I remember that this is the end – we’ll never play another game together.

That’s almost too much to handle. Our voices, singing loudly and out-of-tune, still echo off the walls. The whiteboard hasn’t been erased and all of Coach’s strategies and motivational quotes pop out at me, red scribbles that serve as a cruel reminder of what could have been. The carpet sparkles with the tears it preserved from last night, when it all ended, when we lost. Looking around and remembering all the emotion suffocates me – this is more than a locker room. It doesn’t deserve to be empty.

“Max?”

I turn towards the sound of Jimmy’s voice, trying to hide the devastation on my face and the wetness in my eyes. “Hey buddy,” I whisper.

He approaches me, not fooled by my fake smile, and puts his hand on my shoulder. “Tough day, huh?”

I nod, unable to respond.

“I just – I mean, we’re seniors, I guess we knew all season that the end was coming, one way or another. But I just really thought that this was our year. That everything would be okay. That we’d finally get the state title we worked so hard for. And it’s just – I mean it’s over,” he finishes, choking back a sob.

I wish I could say something to make it all better. But there are no words of comfort. There is no medicine, no cure for this kind of pain. It is a heartbreak that even time cannot heal. It is a heartbreak that knocks the wind out of you, suffocating you, sinking your heart into your stomach. It is a heartbreak that strangled our boyhood dreams and corrupted our undying hope. High school hockey is over.

I follow Jimmy’s gaze around the room, watching his expression change as he too remembers each glorious moment the team shared in this hallowed place. We’d come so far from our 0-3 start, building confidence each game, becoming closer than brothers. We’d spent hours in this room, dreaming aloud about the championship, squirting each other with Gatorade. We’d punched each other’s fists, shouted down each other’s doubts, pulled each other forward week by week. But it doesn’t matter now. We lost and it’s time to leave.

“It’s never gonna be the same,” I say, my voice breaking. “Nothing’s ever gonna mean so much to us, is it?”

Jimmy looks me straight in the eyes and I can tell he’s wondering the same thing. Walking towards his locker, he slides his fingernail under the tape with his name on it, peeling it off with a pained expression. Absentmindedly, he wraps it around his finger with one hand, while the other rubs the sticky residue the nametag left on the wood. At first, I think he’s forgotten my question, but after a moment, he looks up at me again.

“No,” he sighs. “It’s not.”

We stare at each other. A single tear breaks loose from the corner of his eye, rolling down his cheek before he can catch it.
I turn hastily towards my locker, before I’m overcome with the urge to break down bawling. Seeing its contents does not help. The “C” patch on each jersey glares down at me, mocking my pain. Empty granola bar wrappers litter the bottom corners, all the same flavor – chocolate chip. The one time I’d eaten anything else, we’d lost and I’d broken my thumb. In the end though, neither my leadership nor my superstition saved me. It didn’t matter that I was the only captain in the league without any penalty minutes for fighting and it didn’t matter what was good or bad luck. We lost. Plain and simple.
Jimmy’s badly concealed sniffles cause me to look up. He’s holding something in his right hand—a photograph? Yes, it must be…but I can’t make it out from across the room.

“Jimmy?” I’d ask him if everything was okay, but we both know that it’s not.

He moves towards me, arm extended. Squinting, I can just make out the faces of two preschoolers, beaming behind their hockey helmets. Us. 15 years ago.

My breathing quickens, my eyes prickle. I punch Jimmy gently on the shoulder, trying to squash down the endless flow of memories. We’ve played together since we were three. But we never will again.

The sound of footsteps interrupts our reflections and I clear my throat, blinking rapidly to dry my eyes. The doorknob turns and for a moment I can’t stop myself from hoping it’s the boys, coming to tell us that our season is not in fact over, that we didn’t really lose last night. That no matter what happens we’ll always be a team and even though we’re all about to go our separate ways, we’ll always have each other.
But it’s not. It’s Coach.

Shock registers upon his face at the sight of us. There are purple shadows under his eyes, stains on his shirt, and his hair stands on end. “I, uh—I didn’t—I didn’t think anyone would be in here,” he splutters.

“Coach,” says Jimmy, “You look awful.”

“Yeah, well, just didn’t sleep well,” he says, not meeting our eyes.

We don’t reply. This could be Coach’s last time here too. His first season here was our freshman year—we came in second at state. Which is really just the sugar-coated way of saying we got killed in the championship. Since then, we’ve failed to get past districts, even with impressive season records. Last night did not change this trend. Athletic directors don’t have much patience—they want results immediately, and Coach’s job is on the line.

The three of us stand shoulder to shoulder, taking in the smelly, sweaty locker room. Taking in the fact that things are about to change. It’s safe here, it’s familiar. But we can’t spend forever hiding from the real world.

“I hate this,” Jimmy says, sighing.
“It sucks,” Coach agrees.

“Yup,” I say.

In unison, we turn our backs on the twenty lockers, the twenty names. The game schedule, the strategy boards, the shelves with the sticks on them. The door snaps shut behind us, and we walk out of the arena into the sunlight, branching off in three different directions towards our cars.