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But Zach was still pushing forward, still trying. He was going to make it. I had looked into his stats from previous seasons, and this past season, he had played his best.
All eyes would be on the 6’4” center player—who was nearly seven feet tall on the ice—as he skated his way to victory after victory, and eventually the NHL.
A groan mixed with a hiss left my mouth as I slammed my laptop closed and shoved it aside on my bed. This was absolutely ridiculous. I was getting worked up over something that was so obviously temporary. I was driving myself bonkers.
I needed to focus on what was in front of me, even if that was Zach. Power Play was my main focus right now, and I didn’t need a tempting hockey player shifting that focus in the slightest.
I had always focused on work, which was probably why I had never really dated. It was hard to find time to go on a date with someone when you worked three jobs and volunteered.
It kept my mind busy. If my mind was busy, I wouldn’t think about my dad. I wouldn’t think about how he had looked the last time I saw him, so frail and gray in the hospital bed.
Another groan. I threw my hand over my eyes that began to sting with the threat of tears. I didn’t want to cry right now because that would leave me in a heap for a few hours, absolutely wracked with guilt.
My emotions didn’t listen. Tears streamed down the side of my face and into my ears, irritating me enough to sit up and wipe desperately at my face.
When my dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he didn’t tell anyone for months. He slowly started shifting his life, tailoring it around chemotherapy appointments that only made him weak and tired all the time. He’d sold his hockey team, and he started staying home during weekend games.
That was what had clued me in, along with my dad shaving his head “spontaneously,” as he had tried to weakly explain it away.
Dad had cried on his forty-seventh birthday and admitted to his family that it would be his last. He could feel it, and he then told us. Mom had been furious, but not at Dad. She was mad that she hadn’t caught on sooner, that my father had suffered in silence for as long as he had.
Annie Beth had just wailed. My sister had cried so loud, all attention was on her to try to calm her down.
I’d sat in silence, staring at the man I looked up to so much, the man who I spent more time with than any other person. I couldn’t imagine life without him. There wasn’t a world I wanted to live in that didn’t have my dad in it.
It was my reality. Nine-year-old me was now the one crying and screaming, pounding her tiny fists against my ribcage, burrowing her sadness deep in my heart.
Everything had fallen apart after Dad died. Annie Beth had started getting in trouble more and was always fighting and screaming, most of all with me. She had pushed me off the top of a slide because I was going to go down it before her. I had broken my arm, yet she’d caused such a fuss in the hospital that she was the one who everyone fawned over.
Keeping quiet and staying in the background became familiar. Comfortable, even. I had a few close friends I spent time with, slowly growing apart as they got boyfriends and chose them over friendship. Ali would be just like them, once she decided she wanted to settle down with someone. And I was okay with that. It was a harsh reality I had decided to accept long ago.
I would be left behind.
And now Zach would leave me behind, too.
* * *
Zach texted me before I woke on Thursday, but I didn’t have the courage to check it until the afternoon. I didn’t want him to apologize for stating the obvious in a roundabout way. He didn’t need to apologize, because he’d done nothing wrong.
Zach
Good morning, lucky.
It was a simple enough message, an invitation for a conversation that I had ignored.
Me
Good afternoon, Zachy.
Zach
I was wondering if I’d hear from you today.
His words sounded mad or exhausted, I couldn’t quite tell. I hated trying to decipher what people meant through their texts. I always overanalyzed their words, pulling theories out of thin air that were usually wrong.
I wanted to be wrong now.
Me
