I ate a snack from the fridge («Don't make any noise» my mother scolded me, waving her arms threateningly) and then headed to my room. Well, calling it "my room" was a bit of a stretch.

The rest of my family called it "my room," but it was actually a transitional space, one they passed through to get from one place to another. It was the hallway. A bend in the hallway, to be precise, with a bed and a nightstand.

My brothers shared a room, one with a door. I once complained about not having a door, too, and my mother, looking annoyed, said: «There it is, look at it, of course you have a door» and pointed to the door to my brothers' room.

When my brothers left their room, they were practically right next to my bed, and they had to do so if they wanted to go anywhere else in the house. I couldn't enter their space, but they did it all the time, purely by design. «What else are we going to do? Don't come in? If we have to go to the bathroom, we'll piss ourselves?» Bran laughed every time I told him not to come in without knocking. And then... come in... or go out, from their point of view.

Anyway, I could spend some time alone in "my room," when the boys were downstairs watching hockey. I had to study.

At my age, I should have lived on campus, had friends, studied for college. The third option was the only thing I did: I was enrolled in a fucking online university. There was a "virtual campus" in theory, but in practice it had nothing to do with socializing; it was all audiobooks, webinars, video lessons, and other such nonsense.

My parents didn't want to send me to college. They said it was expensive to have me live far away, that it was dangerous, that there were rapists, murderers, boys who deceive you and get you pregnant and then abandon you, lecherous professors, hurricanes (I'm not kidding, they told me there were hurricanes), and above all, that it was a waste of time.

«Honey, you're good at studying»  My mother had told me «It would be a shame if you stopped studying, eh? Right? But Jess has a friend who has a friend who works at a university, so you can go there by looking into the computer! Isn't it what you want?».

And so, I was stuck in that situation: I had to study, but without the perks of a real university, without the chance to attend a party, or make friends, or create connections that would help me in the world of work, or even just find love.

My mother was right about one thing: I was good at studying. And now that skill made a little sense, because if I wanted to get out of that madhouse and finally find my way, I had to graduate and find a great job.

I opened my laptop and placed it on my lap. The browser opened directly to the university's online learning portal. Before clicking, I moved to the address bar, where I typed in the address of my favorite search engine. I deserved a mini-break to satisfy my curiosity, right? So I looked it up: Shane O'Puck.

I discovered that his name wasn't really "O'Puck," but Shane Patrick O'Reilly. He was born on May 22, 2004, making him twenty-one. He was very young, I thought, and then added, "I'm very young too".

Regarding the name I'd known him by, Wikipedia said: "His nickname "Shane 'O Puck" came from his explosive playing style and the phonetic similarity to "show puck," coined by his teammates while in the WHL."

I had no idea what the WHL was, much less what the heck "show puck" even meant. The only Puck I knew was the leprechaun from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, who also appeared in the animated series Gargoyles, and for me, showing that Puck might have had some meaning, but for a player on the ice?

I learned that the puck was the black disc they threw with their sticks, but that didn't tell me what the hell that nickname actually meant. They called him Shane O'Puck, so, "show the puck"? It didn't make much sense, but maybe that's how kids who loved hockey had fun.

A few paragraphs immediately caught my attention:

"O'Reilly has gained national attention for his strong support of the LGBT+ movement, actively participating in inclusion initiatives in sports and frequently wearing pride patches and stickers during pre-game warmups.

LGBT+ Activism and Support

O'Reilly is an outspoken supporter of the LGBT+ movement and inclusivity in sports. He has participated in numerous Hockey Is For Everyone campaigns, regularly wearing rainbow jerseys and patches during warmups at Seattle Storm Pride Night games. His strong support convinced team management to allow him to change the team jersey, adding the colors of the progressive gay flag to the numbers on the sleeves.

The decision has been harshly criticized by some sports journalists, especially John Barberini, who published several vitriolic articles in the right-wing newspaper The True Sport.

O’Reilly stated in a television interview: “Hockey should be for everyone, period. If a boy or girl feels excluded for being themselves, then we’re doing something wrong.”

He has collaborated with organizations like You Can Play and The Trevor Project, appearing in promotional videos and panels on inclusion and mental health in sports. In 2025, he was included in the annual list of pro-LGBT+ allied athletes by several specialized publications.

He has never publicly discussed his sexual orientation, instead emphasizing his active support of the community."

“Please” I thought “Let him be straight. It would be extraordinary if there were a straight man like that. Let him not be doing this just for self-interest, let him be truly supportive, please, please. This is the man for me".

I was immediately ashamed, probably blushing, all alone in front of the laptop screen. What was I thinking? Why did I want this man I didn't know not to be gay? Deep down, I knew, so I admitted it to myself: because I wanted him to be mine.

Even though I had no chance of meeting him, not even one in the entire vast universe, let alone getting together with him. I shouldn't have cared what kind of people he might like, because I wasn't one of them anyway.

I felt a pain in my chest at that thought. Who was I? Just a poor idiot locked in my house, crushed and kicked by her family. He was out there, facing the world head-on, violently shouldering other men on a field and not caring about the criticism of journalists. He was a champion, I had failed before I even started.

I closed the Wikipedia page, with tears in my eyes, and started studying. What an idiot, I told myself, that I was stupid, and the tears mixed with the mathematical formulas, a soup of black rods floating on a salty sea, a veil that made the whole world gelatinous and rotten.

I got so tired that, after a couple of hours, I fell asleep.

I dreamed that Shane O'Puck was a teacher and that I had a test to take. My legs were shaking, my face was shaking, my heart was shaking.

«You haven't studied, miss» He told me, in a made-up voice (the real one, his, I had never heard before) that echoed off the walls of one of the classrooms at my old school «You've been thinking about boys, instead of studying»

«No, Your Excellency» I replied «No, that's not how it is, I studied!»

«Oh yeah? Then tell me about the Panorme Equation».

And I, who didn't know the Panorme Equation, had never heard of it, started crying.

I woke up because my mother pushed me.

«You were crying» She said «You're still wearing your glasses, you see, the salt will ruin them».

«Sorry» I muttered, as if I'd wronged her, and with swollen eyes, I sat up in bed, took off my glasses, and watched my mother's blurry figure walk away and enter the bathroom.

I went back to studying: I had to get out of that house, I had to do it quickly.