24. Griffin
Amonth after the breakup
I should be happy that I’m not the NHL’s public enemy number one, but I’m still hurting. I miss Lydia. While my therapist, Cindy, has told me I have made great strides in our sessions the past few weeks, I feel an emptiness in my body that can only be filled by the presence of Lydia. The touch of Lydia. The love from Lydia.
“Why did you decide to break up with Lydia?” Cindy asks me after a few sessions. I finally opened up about a lot of buried feelings about my career. I know a big part of why I decided to go to therapy was to talk to someone about what’s been bottled up inside me for my entire professional career, but the vulnerability is something that I could never have prepared myself for.
I slump in the loveseat and tilt my neck up to the tiled ceiling. Cindy keeps her office very welcoming. She has some weird obsession with ficuses, and I have to try to swerve my head around the leaves so I don’t knock into them with the force of my body, and they bend or break.
“I needed to work on myself before I could be a good boyfriend. When the incident happened, it pulled me down to a new low I didn’t think existed. I hated myself. I...I wanted to hurt myself over how I reacted. I might be a hockey player, but that fight was an unacceptable reaction. It was embarrassing, it was harmful, it was...it wasn’t what I wanted to be. I mean, it’s great now that people have seemed to forgive me. They praise me for doing something about it. But I still don’t feel like I’m what that Lydia deserves.”
“And what does she deserve?”
I don’t know why the question stumps me, makes me think a little more. Shouldn’t I know all that Lydia deserves because it’s everything I’m not? That’s what I told her when I decided we should break up. “Um...well. Someone who doesn’t have a lot of baggage. And before you ask to elaborate, I’ll explain what I mean by baggage. I’m famous, she’s...less famous. People breathe down my neck and watch my every move. People aren’t stalking Lydia’s every move. And she should be with someone who doesn’t get her critique for...what? Existing? What if we’re photographed, and people make comments about how she’s dressed? I can’t put her in a position where she’ll be judged for her every move.”
“Did you decide that?” Cindy asks. “Or did you let her decide?”
“I decided that,” I say. Is that the wrong answer? “I just knew that it was better for everyone, even if it meant we had to break up.”
“Let me ask you something, Griffin,” she says, leaning a bit closer to me now. I stiffen my back as her eyes pierce into my very cloudy soul.
“When you and Lydia first started dating, do you think she was aware she was going to be thrust into the spotlight because of your fame? That she was willing to risk public scrutiny because she wanted to be with you?”
“I...” She was. In fact, our first time “getting together” wasn’t even for love. It was for her to gain respect from her peers. And because she thought she could teach me a lesson since I didn’t want to start dating for the very reason I broke up with her. Man, how wild it is that things come full circle like this? And how, after everything, I still don’t think that us dating is a good idea. If I did, then maybe I would have tried harder to hold onto her.
“Not a lot of people know this,” I begin, rubbing my sweaty palms against my pants, “But when Lydia and I first started publicly dating, it was fake. We did it as a publicity stunt because we met online while playing video games. She told me she was struggling with gaining respect from her colleagues and thought dating me could help with that. Turns out, it did.
Obviously, we didn’t want it to be fake for much longer after that, and I told her I was falling in love with her. She felt the same way, but I was still scared of what was going to happen. I didn’t fully get over my fear of being in the spotlight, and...when I took a risk, it backfired. I guess that’s how we got to where we are now. I know she is open to having her life be under the public eye, but...” I sigh. The feelings buried deep inside me culminate, and I do something I hadn’t done in years. I didn’t even do it when I broke up with Lydia. I cry.
“I’m sorry,” I tell Cindy through my ugly sobs and the snot oozing from my nose. She rushes to hand me the tissue box that I didn’t even realize was right in front of me.
“You don’t need to feel sorry,” she gently informs me. “It is difficult to release these feelings that you’ve suppressed throughout your entire professional career, really. You decided to play professional hockey because you love the sport, not to gain attention from the public.”
“Exactly.” I blink over and over when I realize that the reason I feel this way is really that simple. There are plenty of people in the hockey world who embrace fame. They put on a show so everyone can talk about them. But me? I keep my mouth closed and my personal life behind closed doors. People hope that one day I will change because I need to “come to terms” with the fact that I’m famous and that somehow gives people the right to expect something from me. But after this? I’m learning control. And I’m not going to be sorry for how much or how little I’ll share.
“I think that helps a lot. Realizing that I don’t owe people my life. And maybe try to talk through solutions instead of forcing the ones I love to do something I think will help them when they should be making those decisions. I didn’t believe in Lydia enough to handle things on her own and selfishly thought this was the best solution.”
I don’t know how or what I need to do to start the process of winning Lydia’s love and trust back, but right now, there’s nothing else I want to do except figure out a way to win back the girl of my dreams.
And hope that she’ll want to take me back, the still broken, still learning, imperfect person I am.
It’s only been fifteen minutes, and there have been at least ten people who have come up to me, asking for an autograph or a picture. And you know what? I wasn’t mad about it.
Operation Get Lydia Back takes me to Guildhouse, the esports bar conglomerate where Lydia and I met and made the fake dating pact. Where we played mindless games of Mario Kart, and it was the most fun I’ve had playing a video game. Being back here reminds me of how Lydia had the power to make it feel like we were the only two people in the room. How she caught my eye and later my heart.
But today, I’m not meeting Lydia.
Landon Goh steps into the bar, and I can’t tell if he wants to see me or he’s ready to beat me up. There’s nothing bright about his furrowed brow and downturned frown when he catches my gaze. He storms over and sits across from me, slamming his phone and wallet on the table when he takes them out of his pockets.
“Thank you for meeting me here,” I start.
He scoffs. “Whatever. You better not be full of bullshit by trying to win my sister back. Don’t think I’ve fully forgiven you yet for rejecting her after you two somehow met online playing Hero Seek.”
“Yeah, well, I thought you’d be a little more understanding when you learned I rejected her because I’m kind of a famous hockey player...”
He rolls his eyes. I knew that in my conquest to win Lydia back, I had to win over the most important person in her life. Well, the one I’d already met. I’ve never met her parents. I hope I’ll get to meet them someday. Landon, on the other hand, said to my face that he looked up to me but after I broke his sister’s heart the first time, I’d lost a fan. That hurt me more than I thought it would, coming from someone I didn’t know.
“It doesn’t hurt to ask how she felt,” Landon explains. “You need to stop thinking that you know what’s best for Lydia.”
“I know. That’s what got us into this mess in the first place.” I make a flamboyant gesture with my arms. I feel like I’ve been needing to shake it off, like those inflatable flailing arm men that tell you to buy a car. “I’m trying to make things right. To at least have a chance.”
Landon stares down at the cocktail I ordered for him and sighs. It baffles me that he’s still a college student. He’s graduating in a few months, but he’s much more mature than some of the players on the team. I’m glad that he obviously loves Lydia and that he’ll do anything for her, including potentially attempting to murder professional hockey players who have ruined her life.
“Look, Griffin. I get that you’re probably going through a lot. I’m not famous, and I don’t think I ever want to be for this very reason. All the scrutiny and everyone breathing down your neck and shit. And a part of me doesn’t want that for my sister either. But if you really love her, then I will give you my blessing or whatever to win her back.”
I slurp up the remnants of my drink. I honestly did not think that Landon was going to cave this easily. I was about to do something similar to jousting to our deaths if it meant I got his blessing to ask Lydia to take me back.
“Really? I thought you’d make me work for it more, to be honest.”
He shrugs. “At the end of the day, it’s up to Lydia. All I want is for her to be happy. And right now, she’s not.”
My heart sinks when I imagine Lydia unhappy. It already breaks my heart, thinking back to seeing her sob on the floor, grasping onto me, hoping I wouldn’t let go. I don’t know if she’ll take me back if I’m honest. She might have found some nice professor who visits her office and they stay late playing Hero Seek together.
My head is turned down, fixating on my drink as I dream up awful scenarios. He shocks me when he reaches over and puts a hand over my wrist.
“If there’s anyone that can cure her from her unhappiness right now, it’s you. As much as it pains me to say this, she still loves you.”
I smile. “I still love her too. Now, I just have to prove it. Again.” And hope what Lydia’s brother says is true. If anyone can cure her from this hurt that she’s feeling, it’s me. The one who started it but is ready to fix it.