Crack In The Ice - Chapter 37: Chapter 37

Though the door is open, I still knock.
"Come on in, Eli." Dr Wooding smiles up at me from the papers he was sorting on his desk.
"Hi," I say, closing the door behind me before taking a seat in front of him.
"Hi. How was your week?"
"Good."
"Anything happened that you wanted to talk about?"
I take a moment. "I have a friend who won an Olympic medal last weekend."
"That's impressive," Dr Wooding says. "Anything else?"
"Owen's started a new job."
Dr Wooding nods encouragingly.
"Dean and Nat seem to be getting closer too. Last night he showed me a funny TikTok she sent him, and he didn't get weird about it. I think he finally believes I'm fine with the two of them dating."
Dr Wooding smiles.
"My brother's going to propose to Scarlet this week too," I say.
Dr Wooding's eyebrows raise just slightly at that. "How are you feeling about that?"
"Good." I shrug. "I haven't really had a ton of time to get to know her. We just went out to eat after the All-Star game, but that was it. She seemed nice though. And he's happy with her."
Dr Wooding nods, taking notes. "Did anything else happen this week? Perhaps in your life? Something you might want to talk about?"
I'm silent at first. But that turns into a longer moment. Dr Wooding puts the pen down and leans back in his chair.
I swallow around a suddenly dry throat. "Do you, uh. Do you have to tell the team about what happens in these sessions? Like, give any sort of progress report?"
He frowns. "These sessions are protected under patient confidentiality. I mentioned when we first met that the only situations in which I am allowed and required to disclose something you say to me in this office is if you express an intention to hurt yourself or others. Have you had any of those thoughts lately?"
"No," I say almost too quickly.
"Okay," he says slowly. "Then I couldn't share what you tell me with anyone even if I wanted to."
"What if it's something I maybe should have disclosed to the team when they signed me?"
"I do not work for the Calgary Flames, Eli," he speaks evenly. "I take on a lot of people they send my way, but I am under no contractual obligation toward them. Even if I was, patient confidentiality still applies. Whatever you have to say, should you choose to share it with me, stays between us."
I purse my lips. "When Olie came to visit last year," I start.
He nods.
"After what you said about opening up to people when you want them to open up to you." I clear my throat. "I told her I'm gay."
"How did that conversation go?"
His unemotional reaction eases some of the tension I was unsuccessfully trying to make go away.
"It was fine," I say. "It's Olie, so it was barely an issue. Then around a month later I told Dean. And he gave me a hug."
Dr Wooding's lips do twitch at the corner at that.
"Then around Christmas I told Owen. But turns out he already knew," I continue. "And after the New Year I told my brother. That's when he told me he wanted to propose to Scarlet."
"Seems like you've made a great effort in these past few months to let your loved ones in."
I shrug.
"How do you feel about the results?" He asks.
"Good. I guess."
"Were you nervous about how they might react?"
"Yeah." I make an effort to think back on it. How I felt before. And after. "Maybe less and less the more people I told."
Dr Wooding nods, finally leaning forward to jot down some notes. "Were you nervous to share this with me?"
I open my mouth but the immediate response is stuck there. "I mean. Maybe." I shift in my seat. "You don't really react very strongly to most of the stuff I tell you."
Dr Wooding tilts his head, still holding onto his pen. "Does that bother you?"
"No. Actually. I think it makes it easier."
He nods, taking a quick note.
"I have gotten the impression over the years that you place a great deal of focus on people's reactions to your thoughts and feelings. And this is a source of anxiety for you. We talked about this before."
I nod, shifting again.
Dr Wooding sets the pen down again and leans back. "Is your sexuality the matter you feel you should have disclosed to the team when they signed you?"
I nod.
"Why do you feel this?"
"It's kind of a PR matter," I say. "Right?"
"Do you feel your sexuality is a matter of public relations?"
"Yeah. I mean. I'd like it not to be. But I think it would be made into one."
"By whom? The team? The fans?"
"Both?"
He nods pensively. I notice the glance he directs at his pen, but he doesn't move quite yet.
"May I ask how long this has been a source of concern?" He asks.
"You mean in the team specifically? Or are you asking me how long I've known I'm gay?"
Dr Wooding smiles. "I was deliberately refraining from phrasing it like that. But you can answer it in that sense if you'd like to."
"I never really had a 'oh, shit, I'm gay' moment." I shrug. "It was always kind of there."
He nods, but doesn't speak.
There's a single moment of silence.
"I never really had an identity crisis, or whatever. I think- I guess I felt I couldn't afford it."
"How come?"
I press my lips together, looking down at my lap. Dr Wooding doesn't press.
"The hockey thing was something I shared with my dad," I say. "He loved hockey. He said I had the talent he never did. So hockey was our thing. Sometimes he could get pushy about it. When I was younger. If he felt I was slacking off."
Dr Wooding's expression remains neutral.
For some reason, though, I still feel the need to add, "But I never felt he was using me to live out his dream or something. It wasn't like that. I really did love hockey. I loved having something to focus on. Something I could be the best at. Something to get me out of Brunson, where everyone is born where they are and they stay there until they die."
Dr Wooding nods slowly.
"I learned very quickly that gay men aren't welcome in sports, though. I didn't know a single one growing up. Not the really good ones. If they existed they quit before making it, or waited until retirement to come out." I speak down to a spot on the floor in front of my feet so I can't see Dr Wooding's face.
"I learned gay was a bad thing. It was an insult people used for boys who are weak, or overly emotional, or bad at sports. Like, feminine, or less than. Boys who are not welcome in the locker room where everyone changes. I learned who I was wasn't welcome on the rink. Which meant being gay and playing hockey wasn't compatible."
I look up at him now. Aside from a barely-there frown, his expression is just as collected as ever.
"So. I knew I couldn't really afford to deny who I knew I was to myself," I say. "I had to accept it so I could figure out how to, like, hide it."
There's a moment of silence in which he is either waiting to see if there's anything else I need to say, or preparing a response.
"First," he eventually says. "This is a lot you've been carrying. Especially to be carrying it on your own and for so many years."
I shrug. Which is inadequate as a response to what he just said, but it's all I can come up with.
Dr Wooding smiles faintly. "I imagine all these thoughts would have created a significant load of anxiety," he says. "Maybe sadness, frustration, fear, insecurity. Anger? Perhaps a sense of isolation and loneliness from feeling like you couldn't share this with anyone?"
I feel the now-familiar sensation of something swelling up in my throat. This something that years ago I'd let burst out of me as irritation. Something I have been slowly working to learn how to properly digest.
"Do you think any of those feelings might have been something you had to deal with?" Dr Wooding asks.
I swallow around the lump in my throat, which doesn't go anywhere. "Yeah. I think so."
Dr Wooding nods.
At this point, I know what he expects from me.
"Fear maybe the most," I say. "And isolation too."
He nods. "Do you feel maybe sharing this with your friends and your brother alleviated some of that sense of isolation?"
"I guess. Knowing they know and don't care feels like..." It takes me a moment to find the words. "... a safety net?"
"You mentioned a lot of- shall we call them, misconceptions- about gay men in sports? Misconception you sort of took in, when you were younger," he says. "Do you believe them? Still to this day or even in the beginning? About how gay men aren't good at sports, for example?"
"No."
Dr Wooding tilts his head.
"I know I'm good at hockey," I state. "Really good. And I'm gay. So it's not true."
Dr Wooding gives me a smile, which may even be of unconcealed approval, and takes notes.
"But you still think your place on the team would be challenged if you came out? Publicly, so to say," he asks.
"Yes."
"Why?"
I let out an involuntary huff. "Why wouldn't I? Everyone always expects me to explain why I'm scared. Why doesn't anyone give me the evidence of why I shouldn't be?"
"Fair enough," Dr Wooding says.
"Also."
"Yes?"
I shift in my seat, pulling my back straighter. "It's more than people doubting my skills or my place on the team. It feels... private? Like it's no one's business."
I take a moment and Dr Wooding doesn't cut in, leaving the silence free for me to fill whenever I'm ready.
"So far," I say, "people talk about me when I'm on the ice. What I do, how well I do it, where I could improve, where I'm doing just fine. Nobody cares about my life outside the rink. But if it got out that I'm gay. Then I'd be that gay hockey player. It stops being just about what I do on the rink. People will start talking about what I do outside of it. And who I do it with."
"That bothers you?"
"Yeah. I signed up to play hockey. Not to be a symbol, or a statement."
"Why not?"
"It's just not the kind of attention I want," I say.
"And you feel living your life openly would draw that sort of unwanted attention?"
"Yes."
Dr Wooding takes a moment to take some notes and I use it to rearrange my position in my chair once again.
When he looks back up at me, his expression is still that carefully schooled neutral front. "May I ask what was your plan on how to deal with this when you joined the team?"
"I didn't plan on telling anyone until my career was over."
"I assume that approach has changed over this year," he says. "Seen as you did tell a few people."
I nod.
"Why the change of heart?"
Well. Shit. That's just the way to phrase it.
"I met someone," I say. "Back home. The year before I moved."
"Can I ask you to tell me his name?"
"Liam."
Fuck. My stomach feels funny just saying it.
"He's the friend I mentioned. Who won the medal."
Dr Wooding writes a quick note on his papers. Probably Liam's name.
"Are you still in touch with Liam?" He asks.
"Yes."
"Do you two have a romantic relationship?"
"It's complicated."
Dr Wooding smiles. "Complicated relationships are my bread and butter, Eli. And you do pay me for the full fifty minutes."
I let out a breathy laugh. "Uhm. We were... uh, intimate. But there was never... a commitment. Or, well. That's not really true. Shit, I don't know how to explain this." I rub a hand down my face.
"By 'intimate' do you mean this is a sexual relationship?"
"Yes." I open my mouth to say something else, but it dies in my throat.
Dr Wooding doesn't address it. "Do you have any romantic feelings for Liam?"
"Yes."
"Does he know this?"
"I don't know," I say. "I think he might. But I sometimes think he can't read me as well as I'm usually afraid he can."
Dr Wooding raises his eyebrows at that. "Does Liam return your feelings?"
"Yes."
"Why haven't you pursued a romantic relationship then?"
I don't answer it right away. "Well. It should be obvious, right? After everything we talked about?"
Dr Wooding's expression softens with the threat of a smile. "Are you afraid a romantic relationship with Liam would be publicly scrutinized?"
"Yes."
"Why does that bother you?"
I shift in place. "Like I said. I don't want that kind of attention. I never wanted anyone to talk about anything except what I do on the ice."
"Is it correct to say that there has already been some mediatic attention on you personal life already?"
In my head, I see the image of an online magazine headline, announcing that Dean and I left a party with two social media models, around this time last year. Below that headline, a photo showed the two girls walking out of a teammate's house with us.
"Yeah. But that's different." I notice my leg starting to shake, but do nothing about it.
"Why?"
"Because it's not real. I didn't actually have a relationship with her. It wasn't my actual life they were talking about. It was all fiction."
Dr Wooding scribbles something down. "I see. And a relationship with Liam would be real."
I nod.
"You think think that would make scrutiny feel more invasive?"
"Yes."
"Once again, correct me if I'm wrong, but the team has encouraged some public speculation about yours and Dean's love life," Dr Wooding says. "I seem to recall that being the topic of a couple of our sessions. Your discomfort to play a role as an approachable bachelor in press conferences and social media."
I move in my seat again and immediately resume the leg shaking. "Yes."
"Does that also feel different?" He asks, not unkindly.
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"Because it's, like, a contractual thing," I say. "We have to engage at least a bit with the media. That was kind of the narrative they saw growing on social media when they signed us, so they wanted to go with it. But we have meetings to agree on that. Like, he number of posts and stories per month. How much I talk during press conferences and stuff. It's all stipulated. I get to draw boundaries."
"But this means there is a regulation of your public appearances. By both the team's employees and your agent. Correct?"
"Yes."
"And you do get a say in these meetings. To draw boundaries."
It's not a question, but I still answer, "Yes."
"Do you think," Dr Wooding says, "if you came out, you would be able to negotiate the terms with your team as well? Draw boundaries on what you are or not willing to share?"
"Yes, but." I don't know what I planned to follow that up with, but nothing comes out.
"Do you think the team and your agency have resources to provide you some protection? The privacy you feel you need?"
"Maybe. They can't control what everyone says or does, though."
Dr Wooding smiles. "No. No one can," he says. "Which is why we must focus on all your worries in stages. So. What are your worries? Whose words and actions do you fear?"
"I don't know." I shrug. My leg is still shaking. "The fans at the rink. People on the street. My teammates. Other players on the other teams."
"Do you ever get shouted at by the fans during games?"
"It's hockey," I say.
Dr Wooding accepts that as an answer. "Does this impact your ability to play?"
"Not really."
"Do you think it would be different if they were shouting about your sexuality?"
"I don't know."
"Do you ever get assaulted by your teammates or other players?"
I huff. "Look. I know what you're doing. Owen said that too. And I've thought about it before. But you seriously think nothing would change?"
"No. Naturally not." Dr Wooding does not look offended by my outburst. "And I understand that as an openly gay hockey player you would be under a different kind of scrutiny, Eli. And I understand how it could make you uncomfortable. I also understand how it could place you in a more vulnerable place. I don't mean to overlook this, or dismiss any of your concerns.
"But I believe- and don't hesitate to correct me if I understood this incorrectly- that you wouldn't have brought Liam up if you did not want to act on your feelings."
I bite my lip.
"You're afraid," Dr Wooding says, leaving a moment for those words to hang in the air between us. "That is perfectly understandable, Eli."
I look down at my shaking leg, watching it jump up and down.
"However," Dr Wooding says. "Judging by what you told me today you have lived your whole life with this fear on your shoulders, limiting every decision you make. And you know exactly what your life looks like if you continue as you have. I think you have now maybe been considering how it could be if you let go of this fear a little."
I look up at him.
"It is not my place to tell you whether you should or should not make your sexuality public knowledge. Nobody can make that decision for you. It is yours and yours alone. But," he looks at his wrist watch, "if you'll allow me one last remark before we have to say goodbye for today..."
He smiles at me. "Fear is an important emotion. It used to keep us alive. Still does. But it can keep us from living too, if we let it take hold."