Chapter 42
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
JESSIE
Jensen
You home?
Me
Yeah. Why?
Because I’ve been standing outside your door for the past five minutes. I know it’s not for another six months, but I’m buying you a smart doorbell for your birthday.
Dropping my rope over the weight bench, I grab my shirt, throw it on, and make my way to the front door.
When I pull it open, Jensen wastes no time stepping inside and taking a look around before his eyes land on me. “You can tell a girl lives here now.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Why?”
Striding over to the kitchen in his post-practice gear, he pulls open the fridge and fetches out a Gatorade. Twisting the cap, he takes a mouthful and holds the bottle in one hand. “Because it’s tidy.”
I take a seat on a stool at the island, lifting up the bottom of my shirt and wiping the sweat from my forehead. “Did you need me for something?”
He stands opposite me, bracing his hands on the counter. “We don’t want to crowd you, man, so I said I’d come alone. It’s been a few days since … everything happened, and I wanted to check in. Mia said you’ve been hiding in the gym for most of it.”
I sit back in my seat, and my arms instinctively fold across my chest again. My mind casts back to this morning, in bed with Mia, knowing I need to be strong for her and for us. I can’t keep hiding in my apartment, where the darker thoughts get louder in the silence.
“I’m coming back to the ice tomorrow.”
“Are you okay to do that? I mean, with everything that happened.”
The agitation that’s been simmering inside me since my dad got released on bail, pending an investigation, builds. I know my friends are only trying to look out for me, but honestly, they know nothing about what I’ve been through. What they see is a guy who lost his addict mom in a tragic accident on the stairs and a dad who’s being questioned about his assault on Mia, along with his story of why it took so long to call nine-one-one. He said he was out at the time and came home to find her in that state.
Fucking liar.
My heart pounds wildly into my throat as I draw in a deep breath and hold it for four.
Jensen doesn’t say a word, but stays in exactly the same place, waiting for me to speak.
I drop my head and squeeze my eyes shut, knowing I’m anything but okay. I’m powerless to hold in my emotions, and they spill over. “I’m a piece of shit who should’ve tried harder to save her.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Jessie,” he replies. “None of it was.”
“Then why does it feel like, other than one part of my life, everything else is fucked?”
“Mia?”
“Yeah. Why is she still here? With me? With the guy who couldn’t protect his own mom? What does that say about me as a person? I chose to fuck off to Seattle and run away from my problems. I chose the easy route while she rotted away. She had so much alcohol in her system when she died that the medics aren’t even sure she was fully conscious before she fell. What sort of person lets their own fucking mother get in that state? Huh?!” My hand flies to my chest as I beat against my sternum. “I’ll tell you who, Jensen. An oxygen thief. Just like he said I was. Just like I’ve always been.”
“Jessie, I—” He rounds the island and throws an arm over my shoulder.
“All I’m good for is being on the ice. But you know what?” I unhook his arm and stand up, walking over to my balcony, my arm outstretched as I point to the outside world. The word vomit spills out of me, and my secrets unravel under the weight of my knowing I’m on the verge of losing it all, maybe even my mind. “I’m sick of this shit. Sick of pretending to be some great guy who doesn’t want to drink himself into the fucking oblivion every second of every goddamn day. Because I do. All I want is to pick up a bottle and drink until it doesn’t matter anymore. Until my face feels so numb that it’s impossible for my brain to process anything. That’s the relief I need.”
He takes a couple of cautious steps toward me. “Jessie?—”
I cut him off. “No one really knows what happened. You know why? Because I can’t remember. My brain can’t remember! Moments, memories, beatings from my dad—they’re in there somewhere.” I bang my inner wrist hard against my temple. “All that goes on in here is sadness, overwhelming fucking pain. I’ve told Mia all I can remember, but the rest … the rest died with my mom. My brother had died because I was stronger than him, and my mom died because I was too selfish to put her over my shoulder and march her out of that godforsaken house.”
I crouch down onto the balls of my feet, the self-hatred spiraling to uncontrollable levels. The red mist descending.
“If it wasn’t for your wife, I wouldn’t have saved my girl. I wouldn’t have even known she was with him. I was too busy in my own head, dealing with my bullshit excuse for a life, while another part had my heart pinned against a wall.”
Jensen walks over to my couch and takes a seat, resting his elbows on his knees as he looks at me. “How long have you been having these thoughts, buddy?”
I tip my head up to the ceiling and smile. “It’s probably easier to ask me when I haven’t.”
He scrubs a hand over his jaw, his eyebrows raised in shock at the realization of the depth of my struggles. Maybe surprised at the effective way I’ve hidden everything from him and the rest of the boys for all these years.
“All right. When is it not so bad? The drinking, the thoughts?”
I look over into the kitchen, Mia’s coffee cup rinsed and overturned on the drainer. The last time I saw her was when she left for college before I got up. “When she’s near me. When I’m anywhere in her proximity, but mostly when she looks at me. I’ve never had anyone look at me like that before.”
“Like what?”
I stare at him. “Like I might actually count for something. Like if I break, then they’ll break too. She practically told me this morning that she’s in it with me, no matter what, that we’re unconditional. And you know why it’ll be my fault when I inevitably drag her underneath with me?”
“You won’t, buddy.”
“Because I can’t keep away from her. I couldn’t help myself when I went to her in the college library, hoping to catch a glimpse of the girl who was so far out of my goddamn league that I wasn’t even playing in the same universe! I couldn’t even keep my hands off her in bed this morning.”
Silence.
“Graham was right the first time.” I shake my head. “I just couldn’t leave well enough alone—because I am my dad. He steals oxygen with his fists.” My hands come to the top of my head. “I just suck the life right out of people.”
“Mia is happy with you.”
“Is she?” I look up at him, dropping my hands from my head. “Because she still had the red marks around her throat when she left this morning. She thought I didn’t notice when she stood in front of the mirror and covered them with concealer. How much more is she hiding, Jensen? What bruises is she keeping from me because she doesn’t want me to see? How many times does she cry in silence? I’m the one who’s supposed to protect her!”
“Mia’s okay, Jessie. She told Kate she’s doing okay. She’s spoken to a therapist; she’s working through it all. You both protect and support each other.” He points to a picture of us taken in Riley’s Bar. Tara snuck the photo of us kissing and gave it to Mia, who framed it and put it on a bookcase.
I stare at the photo—my hand’s wrapped around the nape of her neck, pulling her into me.
“Every time I touch her, I feel like I have no right. Every time I wrap my body around hers, it feels like she’ll evaporate right there in front of me. Because she can’t be real.”
“You deserve her, buddy,” Jensen argues.
“And do you know what makes all of this especially fucked up?”
He stays quiet, letting me get everything out.
“Now, she’s gone—my mom. I’m free. Free to cut ties with every part of my past, apart from my brother and the couple of memories I have of her when she was sober. When I walked into that hospital, they told me she’d already passed. I felt relief. For me.” My nose and eyes sting with emotion. “What kind of person does that make me, Jensen?”
My emotion reflects back in his eyes as he looks over at me and smiles. “It makes you human, Jessie. I told Kate once that nothing her parents had done to her had any bearing on who she was as a person. That they were the fucked-up ones, not her.”
“But I am fucked up. I’m broken.”
“So, that’s it, is it? You’re going to push Mia away for a second time because you’re worried that you’re going the way your mom did? Is that what this is about? Because that sounds every bit like your dad winning.”
I nod, knowing he’s right. “Last year, the team psych, Ashley, diagnosed me with complex PTSD. She wanted me to start a course of treatment that would help me process what had happened to me. The memories I can’t remember. Only once the gaps have been filled can my mind file them away.”
“Did you take it?”
I scratch at my chin. “Not really. One or two sessions maybe, and then I backed out. It just made me feel worse. Then, around the time Mia moved to Seattle, I agreed with Coach to go back into therapy. But then my game started improving, I got my drinking under control, and I figured I didn’t need it anymore. Maybe Coach did too.”
Jensen takes a second to work through everything I told him before he speaks. “I think maybe you do. I’m not an expert, but I think you need to make peace with not just your past, but yourself. I don’t need to know the details of what happened to you, Jessie. I’ve read between the lines of the small snippets you’ve offered me over the years to know you deserve every good person in your life. I’d also hazard a guess that your mom would think that too.”
“I don’t know if I have it in me. To walk through the memories. I’m scared, Jensen.”
Rising from the couch, he disappears down my hallway, reappearing with something black in his hand.
When he hands me the puck from the great game I played against Colorado earlier this season, I take it from him and turn it around in my hands. He knows I keep game memorabilia on a shelf in my gym.
Crouching beside me, he reaches across and taps his finger over my heart. He’s seen my tattoos before, but never once asked me about them, instinctively knowing they were likely to do with my past and respecting the privacy I obviously needed at the time.
“I don’t think I’ve ever met another person like you, Jessie, and I don’t think I ever will. On or off the ice. You’re a warrior, and I’m honored to walk alongside you. To call you my friend. I’m even more honored that you shared everything you just did with me—I know how much courage that took. But know that this day, right now, marks the start of your healing.”
He bites on his bottom lip and exhales slowly. “At twenty-six, you’ve lived a life where most people would have faltered. How many times have you gotten back up, man? Off the floor, off the ice. How many times have you shared your problems with the bottom of a bottle, but still, you got back up? I wanted to know more about your battles but respected the fact that you weren’t ready to tell me. But now, you have. You’ve shared the strain, so let me take some of that weight, brother.”
He stands and wraps his hand around my forearm, pulling me to my feet with him. “You want to take to the ice with us tomorrow? Then, this time, you do it, knowing we have your back. Your girl has your back and your whole fucking heart too. You aren’t going anywhere, and you know it. You aren’t going to let her or yourself down either. You’re way too gone for her. You’ve come too far together. So, this time, when you rise up, you won’t fall back down. Because this time, you have us.”