I Was Teenage Hockey Message Board Jailbait

Have you ever been caught in a lie? Or caught stealing or speeding or cheating? Maybe you’ve known the impossible weight of the hand on your shoulder, the blinding twirl of the lights in your rearview mirror, the razor-sharp voice of your teacher or wife. Maybe you’ve felt yourself melting, cold water pooling deep down in your gut, the icy clench of humiliation and fear and regret: regret for what you did, sure, but more so regret that you were caught, that now everything’s changed. You wonder why didn’t you, couldn’t you, stop while ahead — or whether in fact you were always behind. It’s hard to keep track as all the blood throbs out of your brain and collects in your cheeks.

You finish stretching, and tighten your skates. You look up into the stands of your school ice hockey rink, the same way you do before all of your games. You look into the stands, find your mom and your dad, find the boys that you like and the girls that you hate, taking note of who’s there so that when your line rotates in you have someone to play for, someone to impress, someone to prove wrong.

Then it catches your eye — a black hat pulled down low on the head of a guy sitting offset from everyone else near the top of the stands. His posture is furtive, with none of the easy languor of the rest of the crowd. That, and the hat. A black Flyers hat. Him. Au Revoire. He is here, at your game, in the room, in the stands, in your life, in your real life, in the life that you haven’t made up.

By Katie Baker, Deadspin