Chapter 15
fifteen
DAVIS
I watch Sasha, sound asleep in my bed next to me, wrapped up in my blankets, wearing my t-shirt.
The girl was built to be noticed. Everything about her screams attention, her tattoos, her light grey eyes, her bone structure…she was made to be admired and yet the world somehow forgot to make everyone else notice.
Not only is she the most gorgeous girl to walk this earth, but she’s also kind, and soft, and has the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever met.
There are walls around this girl, built high from years of being forced into the shadows, but I’m determined to knock them down.
There’s an invisible string tying us together.
I can feel it every time my heart beats.
“You’re staring at me again,” she mumbles sleepily.
“Yeah, well, I can’t sleep,” I tell her.
She blinks her eyes open, “something on your mind?”
Yeah, a lot.
I want to know all the things she hasn’t told me yet. I want to know what runs through her mind when she can’t sleep at night. I want to know if her palms sweat when I’m near, like mine do, or if her heart beats so loudly when she hears my voice that she can barely think.
I want to know if she thinks about the future.
Our future.
“You,” I say before I have the chance to stop myself.
Sasha laughs softly, “what about me, Mr. Hockey man?”
“What are you willing to tell me?”
“I’m angry. Angry that I’ve lost so much, angry that the world decided they got to tell the story of my brother before I had the chance to, angry that it took me so long to realize all the beautiful things I’ve been missing out on.
” She takes a deep breath, “I missed out on years of friends and parties and memories just because I was too scared to go out on my own. I followed J and-“
She stops herself, refusing to speak about someone from her life that I didn’t even know existed. She’s only ever talked about her brother, she said she was alone —didn’t have friends— but she was going to say someone else’s name.
There was someone else.
Shaking off whatever just ran through her head, she wraps her arms around herself, “I didn’t do what I wanted because I was scared of losing the people in my life. I thought my worth was tied to theirs, and that without them… I’d fade away.”
“Pixie,” I whisper, “you could never fade away.”
She shrugs, “you don’t know that for sure.”
God, what did these people do to her?
They convinced this amazing girl that she wasn’t enough on her own. People beat down on her until she couldn’t tell what was up or down anymore, they tore away her self-confidence until it was nothing, until she actually believed that she was nothing without them.
“I miss him, Johnny. I miss him so much it hurts.”
“I know, but it’s going to be okay.”
You have me.
“My birthday is next week,” she admits, “it’ll be the first one I celebrate without him, and I don’t know if I can do it.”
It’ll be her twenty-second year on this earth, but the first of forever that she spends without her other half. The first time she blows out her candles, and he’s not there to do it with her.
This year will be a year of heartbreaking firsts for her, a year she’ll never forget for as long as she lives. It’ll be the hardest year of her life, but if she can just hold on long enough, the pain will start to fade.
Or maybe it won’t.
I don’t know.
I’ll never be able to know for sure if the pain will ever fully go away. I don’t know the type of pain she’s experiencing, and I never will.
She’s fighting this fight alone, even if she had everyone in the world to fight by her side… she’ll still be alone.
But despite that, despite the hole that will live in her heart, I hope that the love I give her will be enough to surround that hole and make it a little less painful.
“I’m right here,” I say, wanting to reach out and touch her, but holding myself back. “I told you, I’m not going anywhere, and I mean it.”
Her smile causes a swell of emotion to climb up my throat. So perfectly broken and strong all at the same time, that’s the only thing I can think of in this moment.
Sasha Price is a star in a sea of black, endless space.
Even when her heart is broken, she fits the pieces together long enough to paste a smile on her face and be brave when she shouldn’t have to be. She’s allowed to be afraid, to let people see the vulnerability I know is creeping under the surface.
Her and Claire are scarily alike. They both have these things that have happened to them that could and should have made them jaded, horrible people… but they didn’t. They didn’t let it change them in the worst ways.
The two of them have fought to keep the parts of them that make them beautiful to me.
Both are soft and kind and warm, they put everyone else first, and while I can see Claire starting to take care of herself in a way I’m sure she never has before, she still tries to make sure that everyone is seen.
They see things other people don’t.
And somehow one of those things is me.
They both see me.
And I think that’s why they’re both my favourite people on this earth, the only two I can really be myself around.
Except I haven’t really been myself around Sasha, I mean, at least not in the way I’ve been myself around Claire. They both have different versions of the real me.
Claire has the depressed, broken parts of me.
Sasha has the soft, would do anything for you, me.
“Do you ever wonder what life would have been like if things were different? If you were noticed, or if he hadn’t died?” I find myself asking.
She sighs, “I used to.”
“Meaning?”
“I will always want my brother back, always wish he didn’t die when he did, but I’m happier now than I have been in a really long time.
” Her hand reaches up to grab mine, intertwining our fingers and squeezing tight before taking a deep breath and continuing, “without all that bad stuff, I would have never found my way to you, or my new friends.”
There are so many different responses on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t stop focusing on the feeling of her hands in mine long enough to get them out. It feels so right, like they were always meant to go together.
Everything about Sasha feels right. Her in my bed, opening up to her, having her in my life.
“Do the others know?” She asks when I don’t respond.
“No,” I say, knowing she’s talking about my own demons. “Claire’s the only one.”
Her face drops for half a second before that soft smile she has returns, but I don’t know how to take that. Is she upset that no one else knows? Or does it have to do with Claire?
“Are you ever going to tell them?”
I shrug, “maybe. It’s hard to find the words.
I’ve known these guys for years, and the only side of me that they’ve ever really seen is the funny, sarcastic side.
” I could never imagine what would happen if they found out.
It’s hard to know how some people will react.
“My dad left when I was young, not long after I was diagnosed, and I guess I’m just afraid of the people I love doing the same. ”
The thought of the guys abandoning me when I tell them has me in this paralyzed state. I can’t seem to get the fucking words out when I finally muster up any amount of courage to tell them, I just freeze, and end up pivoting to a completely different topic.
My dad really did a number on me, and having him text me a couple of months ago really didn’t help to ease any of my worries.
The only redeeming factor was finally being able to open up to someone. Having Claire fight for me, find me in the rain that night, helped me see that some people will stick around.
But that stupid, devilish part of my brain that whispers in my ear keeps telling me it’s only because she has such a big heart.
“You can’t control how other people react, or whether or not they want to stay,” she whispers, detangling one of her hands and resting it on my cheek, “the only thing you can do is open up and hope like hell that the people worth telling are going to prove that they’re worth it.”
Like you?
“And I have a sneaking suspicion that these people are so worth it.”
Without thinking —which seems to be happening a lot around this girl— I take her hand off my cheek and kiss the palm of her hand. Her eyes widen for a moment before accepting that this is just how it’s going to be from now on.
“You’re right, they are worth it.”
“Come on boys, push it the last couple laps!” Claire yells from the front of the pack, skating backwards, might I add. The girl is kicking our asses, and she hasn’t even broken a sweat.
Meanwhile, I’m drowning in my gear right now.
The others don’t look like they’re doing so hot either.
August has tripped over his own feet multiple times (I laughed at him and then caught a couple elbows to the ribs), Blair gave up four laps ago and is currently laying in centre ice panting like a dying animal, Miller keeps taking breaks to puke in the trashcans next to Blair, and Lucas keeps muttering curses under his breath saying he’s never going to speak to Claire again.
I don’t really know what we’ve done to deserve this, but apparently we’ve pissed someone off cause this is fucking brutal.
Tony let Claire lead practice tonight, which is only ever a bad thing cause she likes to push us miles past our limits, while Coach will only make us sweat a little.
“How. Much. Longer?” I force out through laboured breaths, fighting to catch up to Claire so she can hear me.
“You’re all big babies,” she rolls her eyes. “Go get some water and then hit the showers.”
Thank fucking god. I think if I had to skate one more lap, I’d be lying down next to Blair.
Claire skates to the sidelines, joining Tony on the bench, and as I pass them on my way to the locker room, I overhear Tony asking her if she’s okay. She tells him she is, but he doesn’t look convinced, “you don’t have to lie, I know this is hard for you. You’re gonna be okay, sweet girl.”
Weird.