Chapter 31
Margot
Game seven of the Stanley Cup Final starts in an hour, and I've spent most of the afternoon pacing the cottage like I’m in a cage.
I've wiped down counters that were already clean, rearranged the couch cushions twice for a watch party of one, and made a cup of tea that I’ve yet to sip, all while my mind runs its frantic loop of what-ifs.
Sabrina is at a film seminar, so there's no one here to witness me losing it except the muted pregame coverage, where two men in suits keep gesturing at a graphic of Cillian's face.
Cillian is out there right now, somewhere inside that arena, preparing for the biggest game of his life.
I can't stop wondering if he's as rattled as I am.
Probably not. He gets calmer as things get bigger.
Meanwhile I might as well be the one playing tonight, for how hard my heart is going and how much this night has come to mean to me.
I want to be there so badly it's a physical ache.
I've picked up my keys twice tonight and put them back down both times, running the same useless debate on a loop.
He's never once pressured me to come. His texts have been all patience, telling me to take whatever time I need, and somehow that makes it harder, because the decision is entirely mine and I keep failing to make it.
What if I pop up out of nowhere and it throws him, tonight of all nights?
What if seeing me in the crowd puts my meltdown front and center in his head when he needs to be thinking about nothing but the ice?
And what does it say that the first game I'd show my face at is the biggest one of his life, like someone who skips the grind and only turns up for the trophies?
There's no version of this where I'm not failing him somehow. So I'm here, pacing my own cottage, watching the clock eat the last hour.
I desperately need something to do with my hands, so I head out to the porch and survey the garden for anything that needs me.
Weeding? Deadheading? Aggressive, unsolicited pruning?
I settle for crouching down to check on Gilbert, who after a good watering and some sincere groveling is thankfully looking bright again, his leaves glossy in the low evening light.
"We're both going to get through this, Gilbert," I tell him firmly, even if I don't quite believe it myself.
I'm still hunched there, refreshing the hockey feed on my phone, when a knock sounds at the front door. Sabrina, maybe, home early from her seminar and locked out for the millionth time. I head back inside, already mentally drafting the frog-in-the-herb-garden lecture, and yank the door open.
Jason is standing on my porch.
I stare at him in total shock, my hand frozen on the handle, speechless.
"Hey." He does an awkward little shrug, a bottle of wine dangling from one hand.
"I know I should have called. I've just been feeling weird about how we left things at the party, and honestly, I've been worried about you, the way you ran off like that.
I was passing through anyway, so I thought I'd check on you. "
I finally recover my voice. "We survive one excruciating conversation at a fundraiser and now you're doing house calls?"
“Come on, Margot.” He sighs, and shifts the bottle from one hand to the other.
"Seeing you again after all this time...
I just couldn't let it go. This doesn't have to be weird.
Chelsea's at a bachelorette thing in Sonoma tonight, so she doesn't even need to know. It’s not a big deal, we can just talk, like old times. "
She doesn't even need to know.
The phrase hits like a bucket of ice water, and I look at him, really look at him. The wine. The outfit. The quick glance he just sent past my shoulder into the cottage, checking whether the hockey player is home.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" I ask, my voice vibrating with a sudden, sharp clarity.
"Margot, I know you're pissed, but I'm trying to make things right.” He frowns. "The way you ran out of that party. And then I heard around town that you haven't been seen with that guy lately. I thought maybe something happened there, and I wanted to be here for you."
"You think Cillian cheated on me and you've come up here to pick up the pieces?" I ask, and the bastard actually looks sincere.
I start laughing.
He blinks, looking confused, then glances over his shoulder as if checking whether anyone's witnessing this. "Uh. Are you okay?"
I laugh harder, wild and a little hysterical, doubling over with a hand pressed to my chest while he stands there holding his big stupid bottle, and somewhere in the middle of it, something I've only ever known intellectually finally lands in my body.
There's a profound difference between knowing in your mind and actually feeling it in your body.
Because there he is. The man I spent years believing I drove away by being too anxious, too much, too heavy to love, and he's standing on my porch trying to cheat on his sweet new girlfriend.
With me. There is no version of me, calm or spiraling, polished or falling apart, that was ever going to change what he is.
His cheating was never a verdict on me. It was only ever a fact about him.
And I've spent two weeks hiding from the man I love because of a rule this pathetic creature wrote.
Waiting until I was fixed enough, shiny enough, manageable enough to be seen.
Cillian never asked me for any of that. Jason's the one who taught me love had a weight limit, and I've been running my whole heart by his rulebook.
The laughter winds down, and I wipe my eyes, and what's left underneath it is clean and quiet and absolutely certain.
"You're so pathetic," I say, still catching my breath. "I can't believe I gave you this much power over me. Years of believing I had to earn affection by never being a burden. Two weeks of hiding from the best person I've ever met, trying to get perfect enough to deserve him. Because of you."
"I don't know what you're on about," he mumbles, looking defensive. "I came here to help."
"You don't care about me, and you don't regret what you did. You only regret that you got caught and lost your security blanket, and you're just as slimy as you've always been." And then I stop, because I don't even care about going further.
I always imagined I'd want to deliver the 'big speech' one day. The one that detailed every hurt and every wrong, the closure I'd drafted in the shower a hundred times. The one that would finally set the record straight.
But standing here now, I simply don't care. I'm not wasting another second of my life on this man. All I want is Cillian.
"Get the hell off my porch," I say, and he actually looks stunned by the dismissal.
"What?" He gapes at me, taking a tentative step forward. "Margot, let me explain. I still care for you, and seeing you with a man like that, knowing he could break your heart?—"
"Cillian would never do that, so you can retire the performance of fake concern," I say, shaking my head, feeling a strange sort of wonder that I ever found him impressive.
"He's more of a man than you'll ever be.
You'll never build anything real, because there is nothing real inside you. Now get the hell away from my house."
He tries to step closer. "Listen, if you'd just stop being so?—"
I slam the door in his face.
I'm finished being gracious, finished drafting his excuses, and finished being polite while he insults my intelligence. I'm so fucking done.
I march through the cottage to the muffled sound of him mumbling at the door about texting me later, as if I won't have him blocked before he reaches the driveway, and push out onto the back porch, pacing the length of the boards with my blood still humming.
The game coverage is on the TV, and the camera is already panning the crowd in a slow sweep. I spot his family in the stands, all four sisters looking tense and expectant. There's an empty seat beside them. I don't know if it's actually mine, but my heart hammers against my ribs like it is.
What am I doing?
Why am I allowing this fear to dictate my life? The anxiety, the old scars, the what-ifs. How am I letting a ghost from my past push away the person I love just because I'm terrified of the dark? I'm so tired of being scared and choosing exile over happiness. I'm tired of poisoning my own well.
I spin in a frantic circle, trying to decide what to do first, and move to close the back porch door when my eyes catch on Gilbert, his little leaves bright and green, perked up and sprightly again after two weeks of neglect nearly did him in.
"Gilbert, buddy, I think it's time we stopped hiding."
He doesn't answer, obviously, but I like to think he's rooting for me. I pull the door shut and glance at the clock, pulse racing. If I leave right this second, I can still make it. I'll miss the opening puck drop for sure, but not the whole thing. Not the part that actually matters.
Cillian is about to play the biggest game of his entire career, the one he crawled out of a year of wreckage to reach, and if I'm not in that building to see him win it, I will never forgive myself.
His jersey is still hanging on the back of my closet door, pressed two weeks ago for a game I never made it to. I yank it over my head as I run through the bedroom, snag my keys, and tear through the cottage. I throw open the front door and sprint down the steps.
Jason is just reaching his car when he turns, his brow furrowed. "Wait, Margot, what are you?—"
"Move!" I shout, shoving past him with a force that nearly sends him into the gravel.
I scramble into my car and fire the engine and pop my head out the window.
"And if you ever contact me again, I'm getting a restraining order!
And I'm telling Chelsea exactly why you came here tonight, you pathetic prick! "
He stands there slack-jawed, watching me reverse out of the drive with gravel spitting under my tires, and I don't look back. Because I finally know exactly what I want, and I'm so fucking done letting fear run the show.