My name is Boyd Devereaux. I play a game for a living, and I like to think I play it pretty well. I've already suffered two severe concussions in five years of professional hockey. This isn't a very good thing. Because of those concussions, I've been to a lot of doctors. Some of them told me my NHL days were over, others told me my career wasn't in danger and I was perfectly normal. They were all wrong.

No, my career isn’t over, but neither am I normal. I'm gay. This isn't really all that odd though, one in every ten and all that. It's not that unusual.

What is unusual, however, is doing something as incredibly stupid as what I've done.

I didn't mean to, really. I was just another kid watching hockey on TV when it started, even if as I got older, I was the only one of my friends who paid more attention to the players than to the hot chicks in the crowd. I still hadn’t figured it out. When I bought the poster for my wall, I was still telling myself I was just an everyday fan.

I think it started to dawn on me when I began talking to the poster. Not out loud of course, I shared a room with my brother and he woulda thought I was really nuts. No, I just talked to the poster mentally. I talked to it about school, about my friends, about my family, but I always avoided the topic that was starting to bring me the most distress. That is, until one night when I was 14 and I decided that I had to tell SOMEONE about what was going on. So, I buried my face in my pillow and told the poster that thought I might be gay. It took me a few minutes to work up the courage to look back up at my wall. As entirely ridiculous as it seems, I was sure that the poster had gone away out of disgust. I glanced at the wall. The poster was still there. I sighed and lay back down on the pillow. That night, I slept better than I had in months.

I would come out to the poster a year later, before I had the courage to tell anyone else. The rest of my family was gone for some school thing for my brother, and I stood in front of the poster and spoke the three words I had never dared to say out loud before. "I like guys." Nothing happened, there was no magical feeling of relief or shame, or anything like that. I tried again. "More than I like girls." Still nothing. I closed my eyes. What was I doing? I was talking to a poster. The poster couldn't hear me, couldn’t react. It was safe to say anything. "I like guys, but really, I like you. You’re such an amazing player, and you...I don't know what it is, but I look at you the way my friends look at the girls on Baywatch..." I heard the sound of my parents' car pulling up in the driveway and froze. "Thank you for listening, Stevie," I whispered as I ran off to make it look like I had been watching TV the whole time.

Fast forward seven years later. I was 22 years old and had just been informed that my career was through and Edmonton no longer wanted me. I felt useless and afraid. What was I going to do if I couldn’t play hockey? But then, all at once it seemed, things started going the other way. I got a second opinion and was cleared to go back to hockey. I signed a contract with the Detroit Red Wings, one of the best teams in the NHL, the team I grew up watching. Cause for celebration, right? Sure, if I wouldn't have been even more terrified.

My first day of Wings training camp, I skated onto the ice and saw that the captain was already there, shooting pucks on Chris Osgood. I watched him pull his stick back, and for a moment, he was in the exact pose that he had been in on my poster all those years ago. I had to grab the boards to keep from falling down. I've basically been stuck in that moment for the past year and a half, that horrified realization that I still had a crush on him, that I was infatuated with a man who was now my captain.

I told you I was stupid.

But I'm in so deep
You know I'm such a fool for you
You got me wrapped around your finger
Do you have to let it linger?
-The Cranberries, "Linger"

Fics | Part 2