Page 45 of Walk the Line

“The way you play on the ice. It’s like you’re in your own world and everyone else doesn’t exist.”

I consider the weight of revealing my feelings, before I retort with, “That’s exactly how I feel with everyone else.”

“You feel like we’re in our own world?”

“Like I don’t exist to you.”

She scrunches up her face and lets out a wry but telling laugh. “You literally came out of nowhere and got awarded with the role of Captain of this stupid new team, despite everyone else from both the Women’s and Men’s team having this past year to establish ourselves. Trust me, we know you exist.”

“I didn’t ask to become Captain.”

Yeah, I’m really not doing well with this whole conversation thing.

“You could have said no. It’s just kind of funny that Coach would choose the two most…self centred people to be co-captain of a team. Apparently that’s gonna get us some wins this year.”

I think I’ve reached the point where I can deduce that her tone matches her words perfectly well. I can tell that anything I say is going to receive a response along the lines of where this conversation has been going so far, and I’m already feeling so awkward I wish I could be anywhere but here.

With that in mind, I say, “This is your house so I should go.”

I didn’t expect her to have a response anyway, so I’m not surprised when there’s nothing but silence as I head to the door, my mind already swirling with all the different things I could have used as responses in that conversation. But I can’t just start it back up when I ended it, so I keep walking.

“See you at Practice,” is the last thing I hear before I open the door and quickly shut it behind me.

I decide to take the long way home to gather my thoughts together, and occasionally ruminate some more on how I could have handled that whole interaction differently.

I guess I should be used to this by now.

The same time I got diagnosed with depression, I got diagnosed with anxiety. I feel like I’m learning something new about it every day while simultaneously figuring out how to manage it in a way that works best for me.

So far I’ve been going into conversations where my natural approach is to overthink my every word before I let them out, then overthink that alongside with my conversation partner’s response.

That only seems to be doing more harm than good.

I just wish I knew how to talk to people.

I wasn’t too bad in school, but by the end of it, the whole of my friendship group knew that we were only tolerating each other out of proximity, and I’m sure each one of the four of us would have been more surprised if either of us took steps to stay in contact with each other.

I spend the rest of the night unable to stop myself from going through everything.

The incident at Yanton, the reception I’ve received at Wild, the Hockey season, my co-captain…

There are enough thoughts that I try to get a clearer head by going on a walk, one without any music.

After a while, I welcome my phone going off in my hand as a needed distraction to my thoughts.

Julius doesn’t play out of love, he plays out of guilt. I know how you can use that to get him off the team. He knows you’re his biggest threat and he’s planning on getting there first.

Nothing but confusion spreads through me as I reread the words on my screen over and over again more times that I can count. I’m at the point where I’m trying to dissect the linguistic meaning of each word and that’s the moment I walk straight into my front door.

I stayed sober last night, but the way I keep bumping into things today, I wish I had a hangover.

It just feels like a pointless exercise, otherwise.

My phone chimes again when I get inside, this time from a number that doesn’t just say “Unknown.”

Hey, I got your number from Tamarah. It’s Jalissa, apparently you walked me home last night? (I kind of remember). Anyway, I think I might have left my bag in your house. Is it okay if I come to get it?

I would have wondered how Tamarah could have possibly got my number, but I know it’s probably from the group chat Nathan started with everyone on the Hockey team.