I find him on the floor.
I walk in after practice sweating straight through my shirt and thinking about the bio test I have tomorrow and whether Coach is going to kill me for missing morning skate to lift, and Viktor is sitting on the floor with his back against his bed and his whole life scattered around him like someone shook his bag out.
His clothes are everywhere and his skates are on their side and there are little white pills on the dark carpet, little circles, and he is holding a white bottle with a Russian label turned over and over in his hands, and his phone is face down and cracked next to his knee.
He looks up at me and his eyes are wrong, not focused, pupils blown wide, and his face is paper white, and his hands are shaking so bad the bottle rattles.
"Viktor?" I say, and my own bag hits the floor hard because my hands let go of it. "What did you take?"
He doesn't answer, he just stares at me like he doesn't know who I am or like I'm not really there, and I drop to my knees and I'm still in my skates with the guards on and they scrape loud against the floor and I don't care.
"Hey," I say, quieter, because loud feels dangerous, and I reach for his shoulder without thinking. "How many did you take?"
He flinches, not a lot, just enough that his shoulder jerks away from my hand, a reflex, and his jaw tightens.
"Don't," he says, and his voice is flat, no accent, no feeling, just empty. "Mind your business."
Mind your business. After three weeks of living in the same ten-by-twelve room. After watching him tape that busted ankle every morning at 5 a.m. like his life depends on it. After hearing him breathe in the dark every night when he thinks I'm asleep.
"It is my business," I say, and my voice comes out sharper than I mean it to because my heart is hammering against my ribs. "You're on my floor."
He doesn't answer, he just keeps turning that bottle over and over in his hands like if he touches it enough it will disappear, I see his phone on the floor with the screen still on, messages open, and I don't mean to read it, I do, because I'm scared and I need to know what happened.
Dima: *more than half. i'm sorry.*
Dima: *he told everyone you're a traitor.*
Kirill Antonov: *predatel.*
I don't know what that word means but I know what it sounds like, I know the way Viktor's whole body goes still when someone says something in Russian on the ice, I know the way he went quiet at lunch last week when Jamal asked him about home and he just stared at his tray.
I pick up the phone and he doesn't stop me, he just watches me with those unfocused eyes.
"Who's Kirill?" I ask.
He looks at me then, really looks. "Nobody."
"Bullshit," I say, and my hands are in fists on my knees. "Nobody doesn't make you take pills on my floor."
He tries to stand and his bad ankle, the one he wraps every morning, gives out instantly and buckles, and he grabs the bed frame to catch himself, and I grab his arm to steady him without thinking, and he yanks away hard, almost falling.
"I said mind your business," he says, louder this time, and his English breaks around the edges. "Leave me."
I'm not good at this. I'm good at hockey. I'm good at hitting people into boards so hard their teeth rattle. I'm good at scoring on a breakaway. I'm not good at talking someone off the floor when they look like they want to disappear.
My old teammate Marcus had panic attacks last year, bad ones, in the locker room before games, and Coach made us all do the training, and I remember the trainer saying don't leave them alone and don't let them take anything else and call for help, and I remember thinking I would never need it.
Viktor took something, I don't know what, I don't know how much, the bottle is in Russian and the pills are on the floor, three, four, five of them scattered white against the carpet.
"I'm not leaving you here," I say.
He laughs, one short sound with no humor in it at all. "You don't care. You don't even like me."
That hits me in the chest, hard, like someone checked me from behind, because I do like him, that's the whole problem, I've liked him since the first morning I watched him skate at 6 a.m. and he told me to get off his ice in that quiet voice that didn't shake, I've liked him since he started leaving the room every night so I could have a girl over even though it's his room too, I've liked him since he started saying goodnight back in the dark.
I don't know how to say that, so I say the wrong thing because I'm scared and I don't do scared well.
"You're right," I say, and my voice comes out angry to cover the shake in it. "I don't like watching you kill yourself in our room."
His face closes off instantly, like a door slamming shut, his jaw locking.
"Get out," he says.
"Viktor—"
"Get out!"
He's shaking now, full body, his hands, his shoulders, he's still holding that bottle so tight his knuckles are white, and I want to pick him up and carry him to the clinic and I want to shake him until he talks and I want to sit on the floor with him until he stops shaking, and he doesn't want any of that, he wants me gone.
"Fine," I say, and my voice is loud because I'm angry at him and I'm angry at myself and mostly I'm terrified. "Have it your way."
I grab my keys off the hook, my hands clumsy.
"I'm getting help," I say, pointing at him...
"I'm getting help," I say, pointing at him, "whether you like it or not. You can be pissed at me tomorrow."
He doesn't answer, he just sits there on the floor with his pills and his Russian messages and his taped ankle and his eyes that won't focus on me.
I walk out and I close the door behind me and I don't slam it even though I want to punch the wall, and in the hallway I lean against the cold cinderblock and my hands are shaking so bad I almost drop my keys twice before I get ahold of Maya.
She answers on the second ring, her voice bright. "Roman? Why are you reaching out?"
She picks up on the second ring, her voice bright. "Roman? Why are you calling me?"
"It's Viktor," I say, and my voice shakes and cracks. "He's in our room. He took something. Pills. I don't know what. He won't talk to me. He told me to get out."
She's quiet for one second, just breathing, then her voice goes sharp and clear. "I'm coming. Don't leave him alone. I'm calling Coach Dubois. She knows the campus nurse."
"I left," I say, and shame burns hot up my neck. "He told me to get out."
"Go back in, Roman," she says, no messing around. "Right now. Sit on the floor. Don't let him take anything else. Don't touch the pills. I'm two minutes away."
I hang up and I open the door and my heart is hammering so loud I can hear it in my ears.
He's in the same spot, head back against the bed, eyes closed, his chest rising and falling too fast.
I sit on the floor across from him, not touching, just there, my back against my own bed, my knees pulled up, and the space between us feels huge.
He opens his eyes and sees me. "I told you to leave."
"I don't listen well," I say, and I try for a joke but it falls flat.
He closes his eyes again and a tear slides down his cheek fast, and he wipes it away angry, with the back of his shaking hand, like he's mad at himself for it.
We sit in silence and I can hear the clock ticking and I can hear both of us breathing, his shallow and fast, mine too loud, and I count his breaths without meaning to until Maya bangs on the door hard enough to make both of us flinch.