Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
November
Ash
Practice starts in full swing after I help Eli move to Detroit. He’s secondary for a few of the pre-season games and ends up playing a whole game against Boston. I meet up with Robbie and Olivia at their house to watch it, but my excitement sours as soon as I see my father on the TV. Even when I cut out all contact with him and block his number, his disapproving face is still around to haunt me.
A few days later, I get called up to play a game, but Eli is not the secondary, so I don’t even get to see him. I’m sure he’s in the arena somewhere and I think that maybe I can take him out to dinner afterwards, but we have morning skate the day after and our bus to Grand Marquee leaves promptly after the game.
We get two months of this song and dance. Two months of missed texts, phone calls, and short video chats at the end of a long day are weighing hard on our relationship. I keep thinking that if I work harder and prove myself, then maybe, just maybe, I’ll get called up as well. Maybe one day, I’ll be good enough not just for the team, but for him as well. He doesn’t need me holding him back.
Selfishly, I am rooting for Nadison’s return to the NHL, since that means I get Eli back, but even thinking that makes my stomach turn. He deserves this chance and I would be a shit friend and an even shittier boyfriend if I didn’t put his happiness first.
My father’s voice comes back stronger than ever, telling me I’m worthless, that I won’t amount to anything. Not like Eli will.
I talk this through with my therapist and she tells me it’s normal to feel this doubt, especially with the season gearing up, but that I need to think about all the progress that I’ve made since this summer. It’s hard to do that when it feels like all my hard work is not even paying off.
Nadison comes back the day before Thanksgiving and plays a conditioning game at the AHL, but halfway through the third period, as one of the Finchton Foxes gets a breakaway, Nadison goes down at an awkward angle and hurts his groin all over again. He needs to be helped off the ice and I am fucking furious. At him, at myself, at the world.
Why is this my shit luck? I finally get Eli and we’re happy together, but the universe just wants to pull us apart. I’m at a point in my life where I genuinely feel good about myself—I go to therapy, I don’t drink anymore, I’m in love. So why is this happening?
My anger is not rational, it’s something that’s been brewing under the surface for a few months now, maybe years. Instead of suppressing it with drinking or hooking up, I let it out on the ice. I’ve been careful all season, avoiding the penalty box, being the poster child of our team. No one was more surprised than my teammates, and some of them even commented on how tame my game has been. I was just playing it safe, wanting to prove myself, but no one gives a shit anyway. So why hold back?
I play as aggressively as I can for the rest of the game and it pays off. One of the Foxes’ players trips me to retaliate for checking him into the boards and that gives us the exact advantage we need to take the lead. As soon as he comes out of the box, he heads straight for me, throwing down his gloves and ripping my helmet off. I should have seen it coming, but the first punch to my face takes me by surprise.
My gloves hit the ice as well and we brawl in the center face off while the crowd is cheering me on. I get a few punches in as well before taking him down on the ice. The linesmen are there to break us up and they have to pull me off of him and keep me away.
Olivia skates up to me, grabbing hold of my jersey and leading me to the tunnel. We’re both being thrown out of the game since there are only two minutes left on the clock.
At first, she doesn’t say anything, but I know I’m about to get a lecture, if not from her, from Robbie as soon as he finds out. There’s nothing worse than having both of them be disappointed in me.
“Ash, what the hell was that all about?”
“Don’t worry about it,” I say, spitting out blood on the ice and moving my jaw side to side. It fucking hurts and I’m sure I’ll have a black eye tomorrow.
“I do worry about it, what happened to staying out of trouble?” she whispers.
I know she’s trying to be my friend right now, but I’m too angry as I rip my arm out of her grip and roughly say, “Just drop it, okay? You know nothing about what I’m going through right now, so stop pretending like you give a shit.” I expect her to chew me out or tell me I’m being an idiot, but she doesn’t say anything.
When I look back at her, I don’t miss the hurt look on her face. I want to take it all back, to thank her for always being there for me, but this is not the time or the place. She straightens up and skates away from me without a second glance and I continue walking down the tunnel, feeling shittier than I had at the beginning of the game.
I don’t stay to have dinner with the team and instead head across the street to The Arcadian to get some takeout. I put in my order at the bar and take a seat, waiting. My phone buzzes for the third time since I got out of the locker room and I look down at it.
Eli’s face lights up my screen and I curl my fingers tighter around the phone. I miss him. But I’m in a self-destructive mood right now and the last thing I want is to say something stupid and push him away. So I let his calls go to voicemail instead.
The bartender comes up to me and gives me a wide smile. “Haven’t seen you around here in a hot minute. How have you been?”
I scour my brain for their name and land on Gen. I hooked up with them at some point last year after a particularly rough game. “Doing fantastic, Gen, how are you?” I ask, failing to mask my sour mood.
“Oh you know, a little bit of everything. Do you want a drink? I can make you your favorite cocktail if you want,” they say, trailing off and looking behind me.
“No, I don’t drink anymore,” I say quickly, not allowing myself to think about how good a drink would be right about now.
“Robbie, can I get you anything?” Gen asks, still looking behind me. I groan and drop my forehead on the bar. The last thing I want is a lecture from grandpa.
“Two waters, please,” he says and takes up the seat next to me.
I don’t say anything and neither does he. After Gen drops the waters off, I finally pick my head up and look at him. He’s not facing me, but his jaw is tight and he looks me up and down from the corner of his eye. He’s disappointed in me. The realization brings a tightness in my chest. Of course he is, I played like shit and was an asshole to his girlfriend.
I don’t expect the question he asks me though and I startle. “Why are you avoiding Eli?”
“What? How do you know I’m avoiding him?”
“Because he called me and said you’ve been avoiding him today.”
I grit my teeth and say, “So what, you’re here to check up on me? Make sure I don’t go on a bender and cheat on him? Fuck you, Robbie.” I stand up and consider leaving without my food, anything to get away from this conversation.
Robbie stands too and his arms stop me. I expect him to grab me, shove me, hit me. Something, anything, but instead, he hugs me. Hard.
“I’m not here to babysit you, Ash. You are allowed to make your own choices, even if they’re ones I don’t agree with. I don’t know what happened today, and I don’t know why you’re so angry at everyone, but I just wanted to tell you that I am here for you. Whether you like it or not.” He squeezes me and my arms come up and hug him back. “Your friends are not abandoning you.”
“I don’t deserve you. Any of you,” I say quietly and Robbie pulls back to look at me. He’s scowling. It’s a ridiculous look on him since he’s usually all sunshine and happiness, and I laugh at him.
“Whether you deserve us or not is irrelevant. We’re family, and family sticks together, no matter what.”
I nod and swallow the lump in my throat. He’s right, of course, and I want to tell him everything that’s on my mind, but I don’t. Not yet. I need to figure out how I’m feeling about it all first. Especially how I feel about Eli not coming back now that Nadison is hurt again.
“Can you at least call your boyfriend? I don’t want to be in the middle of everyone’s squabbles.”
“Yeah, I can do that,” I say, laughing. “What about Olivia?”
Robbie’s eyebrows go up. “What about her?”
“You’re not gonna yell at me for being rude to her?”
He takes a deep breath but says, “I’m trying not to intervene. You’ll apologize when you’re ready.”
I nod. “Of course I will.” I just expected him to be more mad at me.
My food comes and I say goodbye to Robbie, walking the five minutes to my apartment building. I watch some comedy special while I eat and before I can pass out for the night, I send Eli a text.
I’m sorry I’ve been off the last few days, I just have a lot on my mind. I promise I’m not avoiding you. I miss you.
Eli
Our team lost 5-3 tonight and I can’t help but feel responsible for those last two goals. I should have seen them coming, but I didn’t. I was being screened too hard for the first one, and the second came out of nowhere on the face-off. It was so quick, I barely had a chance to react.
After the game ended, we got the news that Nadison got injured in his first game back and I was told not to pack up my apartment, since I won’t be going back to the AHL for another two months at least. My first reaction was to be excited since I’ve loved playing in the NHL. I learn every day from both Juuse and the goalie coach and I’ve improved my game a lot in just a short amount of time. In the last couple of weeks, the starting position between myself and Juuse has been half and half, rather than him starting most of the games like it was intended.
My excitement turned into disappointment pretty quickly as I realized that being in the NHL longer just keeps me further away from Ash.
It feels like he’s been avoiding me recently and we haven’t had a proper conversation in a while. It’s all short texts and rushed phone calls as we move through our hectic days. I miss being in the same room together, I miss holding him, I miss his sense of humor, and his body, and his lips on mine.
Robbie told me about Ash’s fight tonight and I tried getting a hold of him, but I know what he’s like. Right now, he’s probably feeling like the whole world is on his shoulders and he’s miserable about Nadison, and he’s doing what he does best: pushing me and everyone else away.
If he’d answered any of my calls and texts this week, he would know I’m renting a car and driving down to Grand Marquee in the morning to spend Thanksgiving with him and the Elliots, like we do every year.
I miss Ash more than I imagined I would. It’s like there’s this hole in my life the exact shape and size of him and I can’t fill it no matter what I do. No one compares to him.
His text comes through right as I’m about to go to bed, but I decide not to answer. My backpack is light as I’m only bringing a couple changes of clothes to spend Thursday and Friday night with Ash and drive back Saturday early to make it back for morning skate. I set it by the door and fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.