Chapter 50
Rhys
After we hang up I sit on my bed and stare at the wall.
He told me about his dad, everything. I think about young, little Jamie Nash alone in a room being taught that who he was needed to be beaten out of him. I think about that for a long time. He said I care about you. I don't know how to do that without losing myself.
Not a declaration. Not a promise. Just the realest thing he knows how to say right now, offered up in the dark over the phone because he couldn't say it to my face. I felt it in every word.
Blake is on the couch when I come out of my room.
He looks up.
"How'd it go?" he says.
I drop onto the couch beside him. Lean my head back.
"He told me his dad died in September," I say. "Right when I got here. He never told anyone. He told me—he said his dad was abusive."
"Jesus," Blake says.
"Yeah."
We sit in the silence.
"He said he cares about me," I say. "That he needs more time to figure himself out."
"That's real," Blake says.
"I know it's real." I close my eyes. "That's not the problem."
"Then what is?"
I press the back of my hand to my mouth.
"Marcus told me he loved me," I say. "And he meant it.
And then he chose himself anyway. Jamie caring about me is not the question.
I already knew he cared about me." I pause.
"The question is what he does with it when the real choice comes.
When it's me or hockey. Me or the career. Me or the version of himself that his father built. Jamie acts like control is the only thing keeping him alive. I don’t know how he gets past that. "
Blake doesn't say anything.
"The draft is coming up after," I say. "He wants to go pro.
That's the whole thing — it's always been the whole thing for him.
And I'm—" I stop. "I'm a man he's falling for in a sport that still hasn't figured out how to handle that.
I'm the exact problem his father spent years making sure he didn't have.
I know how this looks and I know how it ends. "
"Rhys—"
"I'm not saying he's bad." I sit up. "He's going to get to the line and he's going to stand there and he's going to choose the safe thing.
The certain thing. The thing his whole life has been aimed at.
" I look at Blake. "And I'm going to be standing on the other side of that line waiting to find out if I'm enough. "
Blake looks at me.
"And you're going to wait anyway," he says.
"Yeah," I say. "Probably."
"Why?"
I think about a man who built the highest walls I've ever seen around the most real person I've ever met and still — still — picked up the phone and called me and bared his soul.
"Because he called," I say. "He didn't have to call. He didn't have to say any of it. And he did. And I know how hard that was for him. I know he’s probably never said any of that out loud before. I know he’s so alone. Like I was. Probably even more."
Blake nods slowly.
"Because he's trying," I say. I rub my face with both hands. "I just—" I drop my hands. "I'm bracing. That's all. I'm going in with my eyes open this time. Caring about him and bracing for the worst at the same time."
"That sounds exhausting," Blake says.
"Yeah," I say. "It really is. I think there was a version of me that existed before Jamie Nash. I can’t remember what he was like anymore. He changed me."
He reaches over and puts his hand on my shoulder. Doesn't say anything. Just leaves it there. I’m not able to stop myself, thinking about Jamie and being terrified of Jamie and not being able to stop either one.
The Eldridge game is in five days.
Marcus is going to be on that ice.
And Jamie is somewhere across campus figuring out whether he knows how to choose me. I close my eyes.
I hope he figures it out fast.