49. Reese
“Do I look fucking interested?”
The girl who hasn’t fucking shut up snaps her tiny mouth closed. Finally. “Well, uh—”
“Well, uh, nothing. Go away. I’m not interested in whatever you fucking want from me.”
Some fucking people don’t know how to leave others alone. Just because I’m sitting alone at a bar doesn’t mean I want company. Maybe I just want to fucking be alone. Wild idea to some people, and apparently impossible to others. Fuck.
I push from the bar and stalk from the hotel lounge. Exhaustion hits me like a brick, but I slam a fist into the elevator button, praying I hit the right one. It’s a little foggy right now.
Finally, the ding sounds, and the door eventually pops open. I stumble inside and lean against the wall, closing my eyes and dropping my head to it at the same time. I should have taken the stairs, but I’m not sure I would have made it up them, and the last time Coach found me passed out someplace that wasn’t my room, he threatened to bench me. He wouldn’t have done it with how good I’ve been playing, but the threat was more about me respecting his wishes than the threat itself.
“Alcohol only masks what you are feeling for a short period.”
I shrug, not bothering to look at Coach Miller. “Temporary relief is better than no relief.”
“True.” He punches a button with a thud, and I can only hope it’s my floor because my limbs are heavy. I should have quit after the… whatever drink number was before the last.
“Me and my wife lost a baby when Zoey was four. He was three months old, and one morning, he just didn’t wake up.”
“I don’t want to hear this,” I ground out, feeling that same pressure rising, ready to wrap around my neck and choke me until I can no longer breathe.
“Sometimes you need to hear things you don’t want to,” he tells me, sounding so fatherly I want to punch him. “The grief was heavy, as you know. It destroyed my family. Part of me believes that’s why Zoey is…”
A whore? I almost say, but even in my drunk state, I keep my mouth shut.
“Well, you know.” Unfortunately. “We didn’t mean to, but I think we neglected our daughters because of the grief. Eventually, I surfaced, but by then, it was too late. My wife, however…” He trails off, and I pop an eye open. Squinting against the bright light of the metal elevator. “She never really did. We were officially divorced a few years later.”
“That’s shitty.” But what the hell does this have to do with me?
“It was. She let it change her into a woman I no longer knew. My last straw was when she drained my account and left on a holiday I had planned for the family, alone. The men she hooked up with on the trip weren’t even an issue since I was already in contact with a divorce lawyer. I served her the moment she walked in the door, and she didn’t even blink as she signed the papers. She was gone a week later, without even a goodbye to the girls.”
Confusion hits me, and I pinch my eyebrows. “Zoey has talked about her mom. She’s married to a cop or something. In fact, it’s you she never mentioned.”
His face stiffens and his lips flatten. “Yes. That’s because a year or so after Lindsay left, she came back wanting partial custody of the girls. Zoey was young, missed her mom, and was eager to jump at the opportunity. It wasn’t long before Lindsay had her convinced I was the problem, and when she came of age and was able to pick where she wanted to live, she chose her mom and her rich boyfriend. I can’t blame her. They were buying her everything she wanted, and I was still recovering from the divorce.”
“No offense, but I don’t really care about this.”
“I know. I’m not telling you this for any other reason than one. Lindsay was the love of my life before she let grief change her.”
All at once, recognition settles as anger bubbles inside me. “Are you comparing my Winnie to your ex-wife?”
“No.” He shakes his head, and he’s lucky because I’m drunk enough and stupid enough to throw a punch at one of my coaches for comparing my sweet girl to his bitch of an ex. “But grief can change people more than you ever thought possible.”
“Or it brings out their true self.”
He shrugs and lifts a palm up in my direction. “Is this your true self?”
I scowl and cross my arms over my chest. I’m aware of how childish I look right now, but he’s purposely trying to piss me off. It’s working.
“I didn’t think so. My advice? Go be with your girl. Hold her, and grieve together.”
He has no idea how many times I’ve thought about driving to Winnie’s and pulling her into my arms, doing just that. But I’m a pussy.
I push off the wall when the doors open. Before stepping out, I glance over my shoulder. “I’m sorry for your loss and everything that came after it.”
Normally when I drink as much as I did, I pass out as soon as my head hits the pillow, but it’s almost as if that conversation with Miller sobered me. Mostly. Brushing my teeth was interesting, as there were two of me in the mirror, but lying in the dark hotel room, my mind is swimming with everything.
Which is why I don’t notice when the door opens. Not until Sawyer’s big body drops onto his bed next to mine with a thud. He throws an arm over his eyes and sighs. “Why are women so fucking complicated?”
“I think they say the same about us,” I mutter, barely coherently.
“Yeah, well. Amy wanted me home for the weekend, and I said fine, but I’d have to leave after the games. Well, she changed her mind and said never mind.”
I sit up and cock an eyebrow. “And you believed her?”
“She fucking said it was no big deal, so yeah, I believed her.” Idiot. “But what does she want me to do? Skip the games? This from the same girl who has been pushing for me to go pro since she found out how much pro goalies can make.”
“Well, it’s Amy. I don’t think she even knows what she wants most of the time, but rule one for girls, never trust what they say, but how they say it.” I found that very early on with Winnie. She would say one thing, but her body language would say a whole other thing. Confusing as fuck, but I think it’s programmed in them to beat around the bush or something.
He grumbles under his breath, and I drop back to the bed with a sigh. “Coach Miller called me out for not being with Winnie.”
Sawyer is quiet for a beat. He’s really been the only one I’ve spoken to about anything, but still, it’s not been much. He just happened to be the one to find me crumpled in my shower after a panic attack when I got back to school.
“Why aren’t you with Winnie?”
“I’m scared.” This is the first time I’ve admitted it out loud, and it feels good. “I’m scared that seeing Winnie is going to bring back all the hurt. The memories.”
“You mean the hurt and memories she has to deal with daily?”
I flick a look his way.
“I’m not trying to piss you off, man, but you can pretend to hide from it. She can’t. Every time she changes, she sees—or doesn’t see—what should be there. What they did to her after…” He trails off, and I’m glad. I never want to think about that ever again. I’m not sure how I managed to explain it to him in the first place. “These are all things that probably haunt her daily. Alone.”
“She’s not alone,” I mumble. “Her mom is home more than not.”
He shakes his head. “Nah, that’s not what I mean. You guys made the baby together. Don’t you think you should be grieving the loss together?”
The pain of losing our baby is nearly unbearable, but the pain of knowing Winnie is suffering alone because I’ve been selfish is soul-crushing. Sawyer’s right. I’ve been avoiding my feelings, lost in hockey and the bottom of a bottle, anything to keep my mind off the grief. But Winnie doesn’t have that privilege.
My goal was never to make her feel worse. I just knew that, this time, I couldn’t slip into her room, pull her against me, and promise everything would be okay. Winnie was always the person to hold me when I cried. It feels wrong making her do the same now, but maybe it’s not about me holding her, or her holding me, but us holding each other.