#windshieldgate

[orangepeelknives]

good morning willmack nation we are gathered here today to talk about: the windshield. a deeply important cultural artifact. a touchstone. a symbol. a moment in history. i am actually never moving on from the windshield.

so here’s the thing about mack: this is a kid who grew up thinking love was something you earn. not something you’re given. not something soft. not something warm. no, in the celebrini household love is a performance. it’s discipline. it’s run hills until your knees go soft and your head swims, and if you say “thank you” at the end of it all maybe you’ll get a nod from your father. maybe. love, to mack, has always meant proving yourself. 

so of course his emotions have nowhere to go but outward. because when you grow up walking on eggshells around a man who blows up without warning, you start to think that’s just what emotion is. big. loud. destructive. so mack doesn’t sit with his feelings. he throws them. yells them. smashes them through a windshield. and then immediately feels guilty and sheepish and stupid about it, bc he doesn’t even have the language to unpack what he’s actually feeling. all he knows is that it hurts. and he has no tools for dealing with that except impact.

and then you’ve got will. lovely soft steady will. who feels so much and just… holds it. he carries his emotions like they’re delicate. private. he doesn’t lash out, he absorbs. he loses the biggest game of his career so far and pulls his friend off the ice with a hand on the back of the neck and zero fanfare. he’s hurting, but he’s not making it anyone else’s problem. will doesn’t think you should have to bleed for someone to prove you care. he doesn’t think pain should be currency. he's all ""we're just kids"" ""hope youre having fun"" like im sick over it!

and mack, who has spent his entire life punching walls and throwing gloves and yelling at people he loves and being yelled at back, sees that and goes a little bit crazy inside. bc it’s so foreign to him. it’s not just that will doesn’t react the way mack does, it’s that will doesn’t need to. and that shakes something in mack’s bones. bc will’s way of loving doesn’t look like punishment. it looks like patience.

so now you’ve got this beautiful, messed-up contrast. mack’s on the bench during a game, chest heaving, full of heat and panic and please tell me i’m okay, and who does he look for? will. who is calm and grounded and always knows what to do. will is the safe place. will is the opposite of rick. will is who mack turns to even if he can’t say why.

and then he punches a windshield. because someone was twenty minutes late and his plans got ruined and all of a sudden his emotions are too big for his body again and boom. and then he’s awkward and embarrassed and brushing it off and offering to pay for it but not really apologizing bc he doesn’t even know how to begin to unpack why it happened in the first place. bc he’s never been taught how to repair. only how to endure.

the windshield is the physical manifestation of all of it. the love that’s loud, the regret that’s quiet, the boy who wants to be good but doesn’t know how yet. and will, watching the whole thing unfold, doesn’t yell. doesn’t punish. just… waits. bc he knows mack is still learning. he knows love doesn’t have to hurt.

anyway. will is the safe harbor. mack is the storm. and the windshield never stood a chance. i digress