93. Amelia
NINETY-THREE
AMELIA
LATE MARCH, THIS SEASON
The drive to the house is gloomy. Gray skies, drizzling rain. The wind won’t stop howling, and leaves scatter across the road.
I can’t be too mad about it. It fits my mood of lonely, depressed, and absolutely fucking miserable.
My suspension lifts tomorrow, and while I’m excited to get back to work, I’m also dreading it. The idea of slotting back into a routine that doesn’t include Grant makes me sick, and the hope I had about the rumored bylaw passing gets weaker every day.
There’s been no news or updates. The league hasn’t outright rejected it, but they’re also not approving it.
I tried to be optimistic about things changing and looking different, but I’m brokenhearted, alone, and I can’t find the light at the end of the tunnel.
This is my fate now, and I have to accept that for the next however many years Grant and I spend in the league, we can’t be together.
We’re over. The chapter is closed, and I doubt I’ll ever open that book again.
I might fucking burn it instead.
I pass under street lights and stare straight ahead, wondering if it’s possible to go numb to things at a certain point. Am I desensitized to the pain now? In two months, will the dust settle? Will I move on to the next thing in life, and the heartbreak will become a thing of the past?
I didn’t want to make the drive out here today, but I need to grab the last of my things so I don’t have to ever come back. Sighing, I cut the ignition in the driveway and climb out of the car. I pull the hood of my rain jacket over my head, trying to stay dry.
The walk to the front door feels like I’m confronting old ghosts, and when I push the key in the lock and step inside, I swear every good memory I’ve shared with Grant over the last seven years flashes in front of me like a horror film.
The first night we met. His floppy hair and his tattoos—a star, a badger, an hourglass—that are all for me. The winks he tossed me at games and when we first kissed. Dancing in the kitchen and the horrible casserole we burnt one night down in the deep days of December when it was freezing outside.
I’ve held it together for a month. I’ve stayed composed and professional while thousands of eyes have been on me, but right now, in the quiet of the cemetery of a love that I lost, in a love that I’m going to grieve until my dying days, every emotion I’ve kept locked up breaks free.
A sob wretches its way out of my chest. I’m swarmed by anger, resentment, frustration, and disappointment. So many feelings—too many feelings—for how much all of this hurts, and I don’t wipe the tears away as I march down the hall.
I’m strong in so many other parts of my life, and I’m allowed to be broken and lost in here. No one will ever see. No one will ever hear, and for a second, I can be weak. I can mourn the man I loved so deeply, unsure if I’ll ever be put back together in his absence.
I won’t.
Who could ever compare to him?
My job will have to be enough, because I can never give myself to anyone ever again.
The house is empty. The air is desolate and broken.
There’s no laughter, no joy. Grant must have been by at some point, because there’s less stuff than when I snuck in last week.
There’s no hockey stick above the fireplace in the living room.
His coats are gone, his shoes have disappeared, and for some reason, losing those inconsequential, familiar parts of him hurt more than anything else.
It’s an acknowledgment that he’s moving past all of this too. Carrying on with his life in a way I know was bound to happen, but it doesn’t make it sting any less.
With a deep sigh and an ache in my bones that won’t go away, I step into my office.
I take the jerseys off the wall and tuck the frames under my arm.
I move back toward the hall, stopping in my tracks when I hear the front door open and snick closed.
I pause, straining to hear who it might be, and after years of knowing him, I’m well aware that the footsteps moving through the foyer are Grant’s.
I don’t know what the hell to do.
Hide?
Panic?
Sneak out of here like we didn’t spend years together so I don’t have to confront him face-to-face?
There’s no time to make a decision, because he’s in the hall. He’s feet away from me, freezing mid-step and gazing my way.
“Lia,” he breathes out, and my world screeches to a halt.
“Hi,” I whisper.
It’s my first time seeing him this close since we decided to split up, and I wish it wasn’t.
Every logical thought I’ve had about staying away slips from my mind when he walks toward me.
He’s close enough to touch, but I keep my hands to myself.
I’m too afraid that if I don’t, I’ll do something like reach for him.
I’ll pull him close and whisper I love you, I love you, I love you over and over again until my broken and battered heart can’t take it anymore.
“I didn’t know you’d be here.” His Adam’s apple bobs. “I would have stayed away if I did.”
“I was trying to be quick. I wanted to grab my jerseys.” I gesture to the large frames. “Didn’t want to leave them behind.”
“I was grabbing the last of my things too.”
“Guess that’s it, huh?”
He stares at the living room where we curled up next to each other on the couch.
His eyes move to the recliner where we had sex, the night I climbed on top of him and he laughed into the curve of my neck when the chair tipped us back and nearly sent us flying to the floor.
The fireplace he’d light so the room would be warm and cozy when I got home.
“I guess. We had a good run, didn’t we?” he asks.
“The best run.” My throat is scratchy. It takes all of my self-control to not let the tears break free. “I wouldn’t change a thing.”
Except I would change everything.
I’d be more careful. I’d take a job somewhere else. We’d move to Europe where he’d play in a different league that didn’t care that we were together, and we could be happy.
But we’re not.
“I wouldn’t either.” There’s a long pause.
I let myself look at him in the silence, categorizing the beard he’s started to grow and how his hair is longer before.
Tiny pieces stick out from under the bill of his hat, and I want to tuck them behind his ears.
“No one is ever going to be as good to me as you were, Lia.”
I can’t fight it anymore. A tear escapes and rolls down my cheek, but Grant is there. There’s a hand on the back of my neck, a thumb wiping away the evidence of my pain. Smudged paint on a canvas. Spilled wine the color of blood while my heart feels like it’s being ripped out of my chest.
“Don’t cry,” he whispers, resting his forehead against mine. When I blink, I find tears on his own cheeks. It’s so typical of him to take care of me before he takes care of himself. “It’s going to be okay.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for hurting you. For being selfish and putting myself above you. Above us.”
“Don’t ever apologize for going after what you want, baby. I’m so proud of you, Lia. And I’ll be fine. I promise I’ll be fine, but I have to tell you something, because we’ve only ever been honest with each other. It’s the last secret of the day I’ll ever bother you with.”
“What?” I whisper. The word splinters into a thousand pieces, each one a memory I’ll have to forget.
Last.
Bother.
This is it.
“I’m never going to stop loving you. I’m going to wait for you in the off chance you ever want to pick me again when the time comes.
You’re it for me, and I’m never going to love anyone else.
Not when they won’t hold a candle to how I feel about you.
You’re the greatest gift I’ve ever been given, and I’d do it all again. Even this part.”
That should make me happy, but in a way, it makes me feel worse.
He’s going to be miserable because of me, and that’s a responsibility I never wanted to have.
I sniff, wanting to respond but not knowing what to say. Before I can gather my thoughts, my phone is chiming in my pocket. Grant’s is blaring too, and we separate to look at the devices.
Is it another article? More pictures? I can’t take another gut punch from the media, but a message from Emmy sits in the center of my screen.
Six words bring my heart to a screeching halt.
Bylaw passed. Go get your man.
“Oh my god,” I whisper.
“Holy shit,” he whispers in return, and our gazes jerk to meet each other. “Did you just—the bylaw.”
“The bylaw.”
“It passed.”
“That means…” I lick my lips. “What does that mean?”
“Let me make a call,” Grant says, and he steps away to press his phone to his ear.
I wait. Somehow five minutes feels longer than the four weeks I just suffered through. My heart is in my throat. I can’t stop pacing, a million scenarios running through my mind.
We can be together.
We can do this without getting in trouble.
We can share a life that we build and no one can tell us we’re wrong.
“I was talking to Coach.” Grant stands in front of me.
His hands tremble as he puts his phone away.
“The league officially passed the bylaw, and it’s effective immediately.
He said the commissioner’s office received pages and pages of anonymous support from current players and members in organizations to approve the change.
Someone even tried to fast-track it. We’re not the only ones who are in a relationship the league deems inappropriate.
We’re just the only ones who got caught. ”
I wonder how many other couples have hidden their love from the league, afraid of what would happen if they went public with their relationship. How many people have had to suppress parts of themselves for someone else, and now they’re finally free?
“You did this,” I say, and my bottom lip trembles.
“You made this change for me. For the next a hundred years, whenever someone asks how that bylaw came to be, the answer will be because Grant Everett loved Amelia Green, and he didn’t think he should have to be quiet about it.
” New tears—this time ambitious, hopeful—flood my eyes.
“Because you love me, and you weren’t going to give up on me. ”
“Never.”
He closes the distance between us, and I fling my arms around him the second he’s within reach.
A month apart was more like a year, each passing second an agonizing waiting game to see what happened next.
Throughout it all, Grant remained true. He stayed in place, unwavering in his love for me while I wasn’t sure about him.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble into his neck. “For slamming the door and throwing away the key. For keeping you out in the cold.”
“You never slammed the door, baby. You said to call you in ten years when I left the league, and I wasn’t going to let it shut.” He strokes my hair, careful with the knots from the rain. “But guess what? Now it’s wide open, and we can do whatever we want.”
“Whatever we want,” I echo, pulling back to look at him. “That means we can stay here. We can coexist in the league and have a home and chase all of our dreams. Oh my god.” The reality of how life-changing this news is hits. “We can have our careers and each other.”
“We can.” He sniffs. A beam splits across his face, and I can’t believe how long I’ve gone without seeing that beautiful smile.
“No one can ever tear us apart. It’s you and me, Lia.
I have about seven more years of hockey left in me, and I can’t wait to love you on and off the ice for every one of them. Because I fucking can.”
The rest of the world ceases to exist after that. We make up for lost time, talking about all the things we were feeling and what we did while we were apart. We share a hot shower when we both start to shiver in our wet clothes, giggling when we realize we don’t have anything to change into.
Grant lights the fire and puts a blanket in front of it where he fucks me nice and slow.
He uses words like mine forever and always going to love you, and for as selfish as I was about my career, this is what my heart truly wanted.
A man—this man—who loves me. Who would rip apart every rulebook to find a way to be with me and not stop trying until he made it happen.
When I think about the defining moments of my life, this will be the one I flip back to on my gloomiest days.
Eternal hope, new beginnings, and every dream I’ve ever had coming true.