Dirty Play (Empire State Hockey Series)

26. Cade

Gwen and I have been sitting out on the front porch, the walk we took earlier having worn us both out, especially after our late night last night. It feels good to get some fresh air and tell her stories about growing up in this town.

I know I need to bring up Veronica. It’s time to tell Gwen everything. I’m over keeping these secrets from her, even if the thought of reliving everything is almost enough to scare me away… almost. Gwen is worth facing my past.

Right as I’m about to start the conversation, Vince and Kylie come walking out the front door, their usual perky demeanors nowhere to be found. They both seem uncomfortably serious.

“Cade, can we talk to you?” Kylie asks awkwardly, as her gaze keeps flicking back and forth between Gwen and me.

“About what?” I ask, my guard immediately going up. Before anyone can answer, Gwen stands up.

“I’m going to call the hospital and make sure that everything with Kennedy is going well,” she says with a smile, but I know she can sense the tension.

Before she can leave, I stop her, not ready for her to walk away. I’m not prepared to face my family without her. She”s the only reason I’ve been strong enough to be here, let alone talk about anything to do with the past. So not knowing what they are going to say, or even what they want to talk to me about, is scary as hell, and I know I want her to stay.

“Are you sure?” Kylie asks nervously.

“Yes, I want her to stay,” I answer.

“Okay… then I guess… will you both come inside?”

Standing up, we follow them inside, where we find my parents sitting at the dining room table. They look solemn, like something bad has happened. But we’re all accounted for, so I’m confused.

“What’s going on?” I ask nervously as we sit down. Thankfully, Gwen takes the spot right next to me. Her hand immediately grips my leg and squeezes once, a silent show of support that means more than she knows.

Intertwining our fingers, I hold her hand in mine, needing to know she’s still here. Needing to feel that she’s not going to leave.

“Son, we’ve thought about how to have this conversation constantly over the years. We’ve thought about how we could bring it up—how to present it to you in a way that wouldn’t have you running for the hills. We never figured out how to do that, and instead, anytime we’ve tried, we’d lose you for months, if not years. But now, things are different, and we think it’s time.”

“What are we even talking about?” I say, my stomach twisting and turning into knots as I wait.

My dad and mom get lost in a silent conversation until my mom nods.

“It’s time for you to let it go, son. All of it. We’ve sat back while you’ve pushed everyone away for years, never let anyone get close enough you were scared. It’s time for you to move on, live your life, and stop pushing everyone away. It’s been over ten years since we lost your sister, and this entire time, you’ve blamed yourself. We could never have predicted everything that happened—with you or your sister,” he says, and I feel Gwen’s hand tense on my own. This is her freaking out. This is her sign that she wants to run. If this conversation continues down this path, she’ll soon be pulling her hand away from mine completely.

But at this point, I’m so tired. I’m tired of running from the people who claim to love me. I’m tired of running from my past, constantly putting distance between myself and anyone who might care about me. I don’t want to do it anymore, especially now that I have Gwen. Even though she doesn’t know my whole story… doesn’t quite understand why I am the way I am. I feel like I still have one foot out of this whole thing, just in case she leaves me. But right now, she’s still here, and that makes me feel stronger—strong enough to handle this conversation.

Besides, if she’s going to run, at least she’ll do it before I’ve fallen in love with her.

My whole body freezes and I feel like I can’t catch my breath. It hits me like a freight train—the recognition that these feelings might be stronger than I realized.

Am I in love with Gwen?

“Are you even listening to us?” Vince interrupts my thoughts, annoyed by my lack of talking.

Sorry, I can’t handle two existential crises at once and realizing I’m in love with one of my best friends definitely qualifies.

Being in love with her is different than enjoying each other”s company or giving an orgasm or two while enjoying each other”s company.

No, love is more. It’s thinking about the future, last names, and where you want to plant your roots. Things I’ve never considered in my life, but I’m starting to think about now.

Fuck, I’m really not paying attention.

“Yes, I’m listening,” I growl, annoyed that I’m not allowed time to process their ambush.

“Look, Cade, sweetie, we don’t mean to come at you or seem like we’re attacking you. We just want to talk to you. To figure out everything we need to be a real family again,” my mom says, her eyes welling up.

I feel her emotion like a punch to the gut. I know I put those tears in her eyes. My choices put that sadness in her heart.

“I don’t know how. I wouldn’t even know where to start,” I tell them honestly. “I’ve spent years trying to protect you, trying to make sure you could all be hap?—”

“Protect us? What kind of crap is that? I’m used to your martyr bullshit, but this is a stretch, even for you,” Vince scoffs, and I can tell I’ve pissed him off. He’s always headstrong but he doesn’t usually come at me like this.

“Yes, protect you. From me.”

“Why would we need protection from you?” my mom asks, looking confused.

“I’m the reason Veronica died—we all know that. I’m the reason we lost her, all because I was fucking selfish!” I shout. All the emotions I’ve pushed down these last ten years bubble to the surface and I feel like I’m going to explode if I keep them in any longer. “She would still be here today if I hadn’t gone on that trip. If I hadn’t gone snowboarding all to impress a girl, she would still be here. I knew the risk. I knew there was a chance I could get hurt. I was just too cocky to think it could happen to me. A broken arm that required surgery ended up proving me wrong. A perfect fucking kidney sitting inside me and I still couldn’t save my fucking sister. I was a perfect match, and I couldn’t do it.”

My heart is racing, and I feel my body shaking. I’m drowning in emotions, just waiting to be pulled out or swallowed whole. The one thing that’s grounding me is that she’s still here. Throughout this entire conversation, Gwen hasn’t moved her hand from mine, hasn’t even flinched or tried to pull away. She’s stuck through this with me.

When I look around, I see my sister and mom with tears streaming down their cheeks, they aren’t used to me like this. They aren’t used to me yelling at them. Hell, they aren’t even used to me being around at all, and this just proves why it’s better that way. When my gaze finds my dad’s, I expect to see anger, maybe the same pain my mother had, but that’s not what I see. He looks almost… broken.

“I’m so sorry that you’ve spent all this time feeling that way,” my dad says, leaning forward, looking me square in the eye. “If I had known that’s what has kept you from us, why you’ve refused to come back to us, I’d have kicked your ass ten years ago.”

I’m startled by his declaration. My kind, loving father has never laid a finger on any of us, and now he’s threatening to kick my ass? Am I in the twilight zone?

“Cade, look at me… and I need you to really listen to me this time. This conversation is long overdue, and while I wish I could be a little more tactful in delivery, you get what you get. Your sister was dying, yes. We knew she had kidney failure, but that’s no one’s fault. And yes, you were a perfect match, and we were one week away from surgery when you had your accident, but you did nothing wrong by going on that trip. We encouraged you to go, we knew you needed to take your mind off everything. You had an accident, and that wasn’t your fault,” my dad finishes, looking worn out, his shoulders slumped, eyes sad. I can see how much all of this has been affecting him.

“If I hadn’t gone… I would’ve been able to save her. How can that not be my fault?”

“Because she didn’t die from kidney failure, Cade,” my mom interjects. “We didn’t find out for a while, the damn autopsy took forever, an unfortunate part of small-town life. Your sister… she had a stroke. There was nothing any of us could’ve done for her, even if she had received your kidney.”

My sister didn’t die because she didn’t get my kidney.

My sister had a stroke.

“Why am I just now hearing about this? Why have I spent years thinking she died from kidney failure?”

“How were we supposed to tell you, Cade?” Vince asks, standing up from the table, his chair sliding back and falling to the ground while everyone around us holds their breath. “Were we supposed to tell you when we came to your games, and you wouldn’t show up to visit with us after? Were we supposed to tell you when you declined all of our phone calls, sending everything to a voicemail that you’d never return? Were we supposed to force you to sit down and talk with us? That’s not something you just send in a text message and hope for the best. You made this choice. You left us. We tried hard for years, but there’s only so much you can do when someone clearly doesn’t want you in their life… and chasing them down to tell them about an autopsy report isn’t high on my list.”

Vince is shaking, his fists clenched as he unleashes his words on me, letting me know how absent I’ve been. How impossible I’ve been since our sister died. How I let my two younger siblings down by running, leaving them to pick up the pieces and hold our parents together afer losing two of their kids. Each word thrown at me feels like a thousand tiny knives stabbing my heart.

How could I have done this to them? How could I have let Vince, Kylie, and my parents handle all of this on their own? Was all of this for nothing? I thought I was protecting them, but was I really just hurting them?

“I—I don’t know what to say,” I say, gazing downward. Gwen is still holding my hand, her thumb rubbing small circles, a silent sign that she’s still here. She’s heard all of this and she… she hasn’t left.

“I needed you, Cade,” Vince says, and I feel like I’ve been blindsided. A hit that came from out of nowhere with no time to protect myself. My walls crumble, they shatter around me and I’m left feeling like a helpless seventeen-year-old boy who just wants to make it all okay. “I needed my brother, my best friend, and you left me. You left us to deal with everything by ourselves. So fuck you, Cade.”

With that, Vince turns and leaves out the back, slamming the door on his way out. None of us say anything as his truck heads down the driveway.

“Fuck!” I shout, slamming my hand into the table. I try to stand up, try to pull my hand from Gwen’s, but she doesn’t let me. She doesn’t let go.

“No. Sit down,” she says, her voice is calm yet stern. “No more running, Cade. From any of us. It’s time to let it all go and start living your life.”

I look down at her. It’s hard for my brain to reconcile everything that’s happening. Between my family throwing an intervention, my brother screaming at me, finding out it really wasn’t my fault that Veronica died… I can’t comprehend it all.

It all happened with her sitting right next to me, her hand in mine. Her face is soft like she knows what I’m going through, and she wants to remind me that she’s not going anywhere.

I didn’t want to believe it before. I didn’t want to let my brain figure it out.

But even when we drag our feet, kicking and screaming the entire way, somehow it comes to light.

I’m in love with Gwen Murphy.

I know I need to tell her. The words vibrate through my body, tingling, just waiting to be released. But first, I need to talk to my family and find my brother. Then, I can tell my girl how I feel.

Because all I can think about is how much I love Gwen Murphy. And how I can’t wait to love Gwen Williams.