Chapter 92
grand gestures
Cal
My first guitar class back since the injury has left me with mixed feelings.
The kids are awesome, as always. They surprised me with cupcakes and gave me a bunch of get-well cards and letters they made for me when I was laid up.
They told me how much they missed coming to my class.
They also told me what a douchebag Barrymore was for injuring my eye.
That part felt great (the thing about Barrymore made me laugh) but it’s very different now… coming here.
Without Billie.
There’s a new person doing her job now. A guy named Marc. He’s okay, but he’s not her, so not too impressed. He also has a cringy neon-green dye job and it’s not a good look. Disturbing actually. I think he scares some of the younger kids a little bit.
After my last guitarist (Keegan) does the obligatory fist bump and heads out the door, an email notification buzzes my phone.
From Children’s Services Las Vegas.
It’s Billie’s email account.
As if she knew my schedule. Knew I’d be here today for my class. And also knew the kids had just left a few minutes ago…
I’ve been sitting in the same position for fourteen minutes reading her email.
Over and over and over because I can’t look away from the words.
As soon as I finish reading to the end, I start over at the beginning and read it again.
To: Calum Lefleur
From: Billie Hirsch
Subject: Something you need to hear
Calum,
I know you’re upset. Change sucks and it’s hard.
For all of us. I raged against it for so long.
I had my little job and my little music thing, and everything was fine because I didn’t have to face my baggage if I just kept going the same way.
And you were the same, right? You could play in Montreal and be a superstar goalkeeper and not have to face the fact that your relationship was stale, and your feelings were only lukewarm.
And then we found each other. And I couldn’t stand you at first. I thought you were cocky and strange and a real pain in my ass.
But then I saw you with those kids. And I saw the way we matched up, the things we had in common.
And I felt the way we fit together. It was electric between us from the start, but then I came to care about you. Eventually, to fall in love with you.
Things will always change. Slightly or a lot, but they will.
Change can provide a chance to grow, to make things better, so it’s not always a negative thing.
And I am willing to weather those changes with you because I want you in my life.
But I can’t do it if you’re always going to shut down on me, to push me away.
I wrote this song for you. Yes, I can sing, too. That’s me singing. Listen to it because it conveys all these feelings in a way I probably couldn’t in person.
Things are going well here. I hope I’ll see you soon.
I love you.
Billie
At minute fifteen, I open the attached file and listen to her song.
To her amazing voice. To the steady drumbeat.
To the lyrics Billie wrote about us.
Reading them over many times, until I’ve memorized every word and every note of the melody, and it’s cemented in my brain going nowhere.
When I head to practice later, it’s with her song on repeat in my head.
I do my drills and go to the training room for a workout, the whole time imagining I’m playing the notes of her song on my guitar.
I learn every chord and every word of the lyrics silently in my head, going over it again and again and again.
…But then I saw
Something inside you
Something inside your beating heart
Something for keeping close…
Darin, my goalie coach, stops by to let me know I’ve been cleared for team training and should be able to hit the ice right after the holiday break.
He also lets me know a decision’s been handed down regarding Bryce Barrymore, who’ll most definitely not be hitting any ice after the holiday break.
Not NHL ice for sure. Being hockey royalty doesn’t change the fact that nobody can trust him now.
Not willing to risk another incident, New York released him from his contract before the NHL Player Safety review was even complete.
Given the maximum fines for “intent to injure” and “illegal check to the head” among his many sins, they dumped him down to WHL junior hockey, skipping over the AHL minors altogether.
On the record? It’s for the purpose of “further growth and development.” Pretty sure they mean emotional growth and the development of some anger-management skills.
Barrymore won’t be back to the NHL for a long time, if ever.
Coach said there’s a rumor he’s leaving North America to play somewhere in the KHL.
The Russian league has a long history of welcoming players like Barrymore, who’ve had their asses canceled by the NHL.
Hopefully, he gets some help with his problems, but he probably won’t.
I guess he could write a book: How I Blew-Up My NHL Career in One Dirty Game, by Bryce Barrymore.
I wouldn’t read it though. He’s dead to me and, I won’t waste any more thoughts on him or time dwelling on what’s over and done with.
I’m just grateful the fucker didn’t end my NHL career along with his. My eye has healed perfectly. Thank God.
What has amazed me though? The extraordinary and unmitigated support from the team, Max Terry included.
I didn’t exactly impress him with my loyalty on our first meet, but he surprised me with his visits and messages of support when I was in hospital and then during rehab.
Impressive. I felt a part of the Crush family, something unexpected and welcome.
In the locker room, I shower and dress quickly, eager to get home to my guitar so I can start learning Billie’s song for real, not just in my head—
Evan catches me before I can get out the door.
“Hey, Cal, you doing okay lately? You don’t seem like yourself.”
“Sorry, man.” I lean against the wall of lockers with a sigh. “I’ll be fine when I get back on the ice. Coach just talked to me. Said I’ve been cleared for right after the break.”
“Not talking about your injury, my guy. You’re just a little out of it.”
Chewing on my bottom lip, Billie’s face comes to mind. I’m not into spilling my feelings, especially not to my captain, but I’ve heard from Dale during one of his gossip-slash-therapy sessions how Evan and his wife, Holly, had a pretty bumpy road to what seems like a happy relationship now.
“I—I made a mistake…with someone I love.” Once I start, the words do come. Evan has always been easy to talk to. “It’s been hard to concentrate.”
“Your girlfriend?”
“Billie, yeah. The woman I met doing that PR thing at the Crush Foundation Music Workshop. We’ve been…
well, things were good. But she’s in a band and so crazy talented.
They’ve been in LA doing music for a movie and now an album and I’m just not comfortable with change.
So, I got scared and pushed her away. Told her if she left, we were done. But I think—”
“It was a bonehead thing to do?”
“Yeah.” I know it was.
“Yeah,” he agrees. “It probably was.”
“She sent me a long email and a song she wrote, and it’s amazing. And I can’t get her out of my head.”
“That’s how you know it’s right, mate,” he says, clapping me on the shoulder and giving it a squeeze with his big mitt. “Believe me. I have been there.”
“I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do next. I need to tell her how I feel, but I am not good at sharing feelings. Not at all, yeah?”
“Yeeeaaah.” Evan lets out a chuckle and then a slow shake of his head.
“Well, here’s the thing, a lot of the guys—and that’s most of them in this locker room—who have any kind of relationship worth something has had his head up his arse at one point or another.
And to add to that, there’s a fun tradition around here of making sloppy, grand gestures once we get our heads right.
Maybe you can think of something that would tell her, with no hesitation, that she is the one for you. ”
I thank him and head out, walking home with Billie’s song still on constant repeat in my head.
And wracking my brain for what “grand gesture” I could possibly come up with that would be something worthy enough for the woman I love.
Studying the words in Billie’s song more intensely, I realize these lyrics are all about me. I did get that vibe the very first time I heard the song, but I just thought the lyrics more applied to me, not that the song was written specifically about me.
She nailed it. Nailed everything. Even the title of the song.
Even the title of the fucking song.
It’s all about not liking me at first. About seeing into my heart and changing her mind about me.
About falling in love and making love and wanting to be with me so much, her heart might burst. It’s also about being disappointed.
And being terribly hurt and then having her heart broken…
but still wanting nothing more than to have my eyes on her and to keep me. Her “keeper.”
Wow.
The Keeper
Music and Lyrics by Billie Hirsch
You were always beautiful to me
Even when I didn’t want you
Even when you made no sense to me
Even when you were wrong for me
A beautiful keeper…to me
To me…but so, so, so, so wrong
But then I saw
Something inside you
Something inside your beating heart
Something for keeping close
Your heart was beautiful, too
Beautiful, too…as beautiful as you
I want to live in your eyes
I want them on me…in me
I want them where you can see me
Keep you inside me
Keep your heart loving me
Loving me…until my heart breaks through
I’m watching you love me
I’m watching me hate you
I’m watching us battle for something
I should’ve told you you’re worth keeping
We’re something worth keeping
A love so worth keeping
You’re the keeper I wanna keep
A keeper worth loving
A keeper always beautiful to me
I should’ve told you we’re worth keeping
We’re something worth keeping
Love so worth keeping
Wish you would keep me…
If I could give you anything
I’d want to live in your eyes
I want them on me…in me
I want them where you can see me
I should’ve told you you’re the one
Because my body remembers yours
Even with my heart a hurting
I still wanna keep you
Because my body remembers yours
I still want you to be waiting for me
I should’ve told you you’re the one
I should’ve told you you’re my keeper…
I should’ve told you you’re my keeper…
I should’ve told you you’re my…
Keep-er
Five hours later.
“You were a natural at hockey from day one, Calum. But you didn’t start out a superstar goalie.
That took years of hard work, of finding your weaknesses and working hard to overcome them.
If you can do that, there is absolutely no reason why you can’t apply the same logic, the same perseverance to your emotional intelligence as well.
And Billie sounds like just the person who will love you as you try.
As you practice. As you learn to offer her your heart as well.
” My mom’s soothing words settle over me as I mull them over.
“Thanks Mom, for the wise words. Appreciate you talking to me.”
“I know you do, son. I love you.”
“Love you too.”
I hang up and flop back onto my bed, mentally exhausted but with my mind still stirring.
After spending hours going over the song and far too keyed up for sleep, I’d called my mom just to hear her steadying voice of reason.
She did not disappoint.
Her take on the situation, the lyrics to Billie’s song, and remembering what Evan said to me earlier, all help to rattle things around inside my head enough to finally see clearly when I’m hit with an epiphany.
I always think I’m not good at sharing my feelings and emotions.
That I suck at relating on an emotional level.
I know I’ve told Billie several times, and while it’s not untrue, it’s also something where I’ve bought into the narrative over the course of my whole life.
An excuse for something that’s always been very challenging for me.
But still, just another lame excuse for being unwilling to try.
Because sharing my feelings makes me uncomfortable.
Boo. Fuckin’. Hoo.
Just because something isn’t easy, or causes discomfort, doesn’t mean I can’t ever be good at it. I’ll have to practice, learn to share my feelings more, and I’ll improve. You only get better at something if you practice doing it.
Pretty damn simple when taken down to the very basics. Pretty much like hockey.
I might’ve always thought I couldn’t handle change, but nevertheless, change will come into your life. Maybe a lot or maybe a little, but change is coming…like Billie wrote in her email.
Instead of resisting change, I need to be the change.
I can learn to share my feelings.
I can learn to embrace the changes in my life.
I can learn to grow emotionally.
Learn, I must. To use phrasing of a certain Jedi Master.
I don’t think for a minute it’ll be easy, either. It’s gonna be brutally, fuckin’, difficult, I’m sure.
But for Billie, I can do it.
For Billie, I will.
I will do this. Watch me.
My hands are shaking a little, but at least I know what I need to do.
I reach for my phone again and pull up my contacts, finding what I need after a minute of searching.
I type out a text to a certain Hollywood celebrity I hope and pray gets back to me just as soon as his superstar ass wakes up in the morning.