This work contains explicit depictions of calorie counting, weight, and orthorexia.

“You’d be faster if you leaned up a little,” the doctor says, idly. “Better watch it in the offseason. Less candy, eh?”

The doctor had been joking, mostly. He’d been older. Insensitive. Shane had been twelve, hungry all the time, growing up and filling out. That wasn’t when it started, exactly, but if pressed, that’s as good a time to point to as any.

The next day, Shane stares down at the snack spread after morning skate. Looks at the cinnamon roll, his usual, and moves down the line. Protein bar and a banana. They taste fine. Shane thinks about the cinnamon roll the rest of the day, but not because he regrets leaving it.

#

It only affects his game once. He’s sixteen, skating harder than he’s ever skated in his life at the World Juniors, and his vision goes black. He hits the boards hard. He has to be grateful for it, too, because he would have fallen otherwise. After that, he keeps his body fat above seven percent.

#

Shane’s mom takes two plates. Everyone is standing on the ice, celebrating the end of another season. Parents, coaches, grandparents, brothers and sisters. Some of his teammates chat and shove at each other. Shane’s dad is off to the left, talking to a trainer. Shane stands at his mother’s elbow and takes the cake when she hands it to him. “No, no,” she’s saying to another mom. Mrs. Lavoie, Shane is pretty sure. Laughing, smiling, easy. “This is why I go to pilates. Where did you say you got this from? The frosting is gorgeous.”

Shane uses his fork to cut the piece in half, then in quarters. There’s a thin layer of cream and fruit in the middle of the cake. He dips the fork into the filling and brings it to his mouth to taste. The tart blackberries cut the sweetness to a tolerable level. One full bite, the frosting clinging to his molars.

He excuses himself to the bathroom and drops the cake into a trash can on the way.

#

They don’t play until Friday. Shane hits the gym, full body day, drop sets until he can’t move. Rows, deadlifts, Bulgarian split squats. He puts one leg back on the bench and shimmies forward, little jumps, until he can keep his front knee above his toes and send the back knee straight down. His hip flexors scream, sweat dripping in his eyes and arms prickling in the cold air. The guys trickle in, tank tops and Under Armour and bare chests. Groans of exertion, slaps on the ass. Shane laughs it off. Time for him to go.

There are twenty-eight grams of protein in an eighty-five-gram chicken breast. Three hundred and seventy kilocalories in a tuna melt. Thirty-two grams of sugar in a three hundred and fifty-five milliliter can of Canada Dry. When Shane is one hundred and ninety pounds, he can run a mile in five minutes and thirty-five seconds. If he gains ten pounds, that jumps to five fifty.

#

The morning after Rozanov fucks him up the ass and leaves, Shane goes to the private gym for a HIIT session. Sitting on the stationary bike makes the soreness impossible to ignore. Jumping rope is marginally more tolerable.

He puts the blender jar on the food scale, zeros it, and adds the blueberries. Greek yogurt, milk, almond butter, spinach, whey powder. The jar clicks into place on the base. He hits blend, sinks to the kitchen floor, and cries.

#

Hayden talks about food all the time. They all do, kind of. On game days, they each eat upwards of four thousand kilocalories just to keep moving. Most of the guys stick with their nutrition plans until they get off the ice. Then it’s chicken wings, barbecue, burgers, malt shakes, candy, cookies. They eat like children. “Oh my god, I’m fucking starving,” Hayden says, shoving fries into his mouth. There’s a smear of gravy on his chin.

“Same,” Shane says, and unpacks his grilled chicken and rice. It’s true: Shane is starving. Shane is freshly showered, muscles burning, still flush with endorphins. He uses his body hard. Shane eats throughout the day, optimized around his workouts. He grabs a lemon wedge and squeezes.

#

The Metros chirp him for his diet, just like everyone else he’s ever been on a team with. Bird food, rabbit food, you eat like a girl. Let loose a little. If Shane weren’t who he is, captain, the maybe-best player in the league, he wouldn’t get away with it. But then, if he weren’t who he is, he wouldn’t do it in the first place.

He looks it up one time, carefully, on the hotel guest internet: Eating disorders. Skimming the Wikipedia entry is a weight off his shoulders. His diet doesn’t adversely affect his health; he’s not underweight, he doesn’t puke. Over-training is awful for his performance, so he doesn’t do that either. It’s a relief that this is one thing he doesn’t have to worry about.

#

“The playoffs are over, yes? You can be bad.”

Shane doesn’t flinch. He turns down the donut Ilya brought all the way from the Tim Hortons in town and makes an omelet instead: eggs, turkey sausage, spinach. Fifty grams of protein. He’ll have a shake in an hour for fifty more.

Shane is nothing if not good.

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