#marnthews

One of Mitch’s earliest memories of the whole sub thing is driving back from a game with his dad, sometime in elementary school. His dad seems mad, which probably means Mitch did something wrong on the ice he doesn’t know about. Mitch stays quiet; it’s always better to let his dad talk first at times like this.

It takes his dad a while to come out with it, and when he does, it’s not anything like Mitch expected. “That Schuyler kid,” his dad says. “Watch out for him. Don’t let him make you sit like that again.”

“Like what?” Mitch asks. He doesn’t remember sitting anywhere weird. He was just, you know, on the bench like always when he wasn’t playing. Sometimes his dad is mad when he’s not on the ice enough—but he played a lot today. His dad can’t be mad about that.

“You know,” his dad says, and makes a couple of incomprehensible gestures. “With your head on his shoulder,” he spits out finally.

Oh. Mitch did sit like that. “Evan didn’t make me,” he says. Mitch was just being friendly. He likes Evan.

“That’s even worse,” his dad says. “You have to promise me you won’t do that with anyone else from now on. Especially no one on your hockey teams.”

“Okay,” Mitch says, though he doesn’t get what the big deal is. His dad is always on him about correct posture at home—but he never gets mad at him for getting cuddly with Chris, or with their mom. He didn’t know this was one of the rules, but he guesses he can follow it, now that he knows.

“Good.” His dad looks over at him for a moment, at a red light, and then shakes his head. “God, it’s going to be so difficult to get you into the NHL if you turn out to be a sub.”

Mitch bites his lip. He doesn’t know what that even means, really, except that it’s what his mom is and his dad isn’t. But he wants to get to the NHL more than anything, so he’ll do whatever he needs to to make that happen. Changing the way he sits with his friends isn’t such a big deal, compared to that.

***

They do the assessment in sixth grade. Mitch’s dad starts practicing with him a whole month ahead of time. “You can’t just say whatever you think,” he says to Mitch, over and over. “It’s important to give the right answers, just like with science or math.”

“I know,” Mitch says, every time. He’s heard his dad say enough times why this test matters. The thing is, he doesn’t get why his dad is so worried. The answers just don’t seem that hard. Like, obviously Mitch likes it better when he gets to choose where he goes and what he does instead of having someone else tell him. He doesn’t get to do that very often, because he’s a kid, but it’s obviously the better option. And praise, okay, he likes it when people say nice things about him, who doesn’t, but he doesn’t do things for that. He tries hard at stuff because he wants to be awesome at it—or because he doesn’t really have a choice, but again, the first thing is better. It just doesn’t seem like something he should need to be taught.

The thing about fighting, though. He and his dad spend a long time on that one. “But I don’t like fighting people,” Mitch says.

“It doesn’t matter,” his dad says. “You need to say that you do.”

“That’s stupid,” Mitch says. There’s nothing fun about fighting. Even when the other guy is being annoying; like, what’s the point?

His dad sighs. “How about this,” he says when they’ve been going around on it for a while. “You like pushing back against people when they do things you don’t like. Pushing back. Can you say that?”

“Okay, fine,” Mitch says. He doesn’t mind saying stuff that’s true. He just didn’t like the answer about fighting, that’s all.

The assessment is a double-sided piece of paper with lots of room for answers. Mitch starts by writing down what his dad taught him, kind of bored after all the times his dad made him practice, but by halfway down the page he’s starting to feel gross about it. He knows it doesn’t really matter what he puts down on this piece of paper, as long as he gets classified as a dom. But still. These aren’t his words. It’s just annoying, writing this stuff and knowing he's doing it because his dad told him to.

He ends up mixing it up a little near the end. One of the last questions asks whether he ever feels like it would be nice to fall to his knees sometimes. Nah I’d probably hurt my knees, he says, which isn’t what his dad told him to say. His dad had a whole answer about not liking being powerless, wanting to stay in a position where he can move freely—and that answer was fine, whatever, but Mitch likes his better. It’s funnier.

He’s a little on-edge about it after, but evidently it must not mess anything up that badly, because his results come back as a dom. “Good job,” his dad says, looking at the envelope Mitch brought home from school. And then, “Hang on, what’s this last answer? That’s not what we talked about.”

Shit. Mitch didn’t know they were going to give his dad the actual assessment. “What does it matter? I’m still a dom.”