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“So I came back here, and I’m just focusing on the game and nothing else. It’s the only thing I have. The only thing I’ve ever been good at.”
“I get it,” Hasselbeck said. “So you actually had quite a lot on your mind at the exhibition game. And I do understand how that could be distracting and affect your play.”
“Right. It did.”
“And so now that you’re back where you started, now that you’ve excised the distractions from your day to day, your game has improved, right? Practices are going well? You’re back where you were?”
“I get the feeling you already know the answer.” Frustration had me pacing the apartment.
“Sylvester, there’s a very real chance that running away from the things that are difficult doesn’t eliminate them. Think of them like actual physical obstacles. You can turn back to avoid them, but then you don’t make any real progress on your path, right?”
I felt my eyebrows pulling together. I did not like where she was going.
“They’re still there. And until you actually deal with the obstacles, they’ll be in your way, making it impossible to get any real clarity to focus on anything.”
“Deal with them.”
“Talk to your family. Talk to Clara.”
I sighed. I knew she was right, but talking to them could reveal the things they really believed about me—the things I was pretty sure I already knew. “I’m talking to you. You’re supposed to help with this stuff.”
“No, Sylvester. My job is to help identify things that might interfere with your game. And we’ve done that. Your job is to handle them.”
“Great.”
“They love you, Sylvester. Your family certainly does, and I suspect Clara might too. What if talking to them all results in a really marvelous outcome? What if you end up getting everything you want? What if you end up happy?”
I thought about that, but I couldn’t see it. All I could see was how much I’d already disappointed them all by not being anything more than exactly what I was — a hockey player.
“Thanks, Doc. I’ll think about it.”
“Good night, Sylvester.”
I slid the phone back on the nightstand and switched off the light, not bothering to get up to brush my teeth. At least now I was mentally exhausted enough to sleep.
CHAPTER23
CLARA
LAWYERS HAVE POWERFUL MAGIC
Iknew the first time Sly touched me that I was going to be broken.
Because I never expected that he would stay. I’m not a fairy tale girl, and the writing had been on the wall for us since high school.
He’s the jock, the object of every woman’s desire.
I’m the nerd, the girl no one really notices until they need help with math.
It didn’t matter that a decade had passed. Or that I had a daughter of my own.
And it didn’t matter that Sly had said all the things I’d always dreamed of hearing him say. Except one.
In the end, it was a fling. And I had to be okay with that.
Only I wasn’t okay at all.
I found myself staring into space at my desk, losing track of myself and my work constantly. And at home, I was short with Katie, which she didn’t deserve.
