Page 2 of Tempest

Ones that played visions of a future power couple; him the NHL star winger and me styling all the most famous celebrities while I travel around the country to watch him play during the season. And cozying up together in our Manhattan high-rise home in the off season.

Youth makes us all a little stupid in love, I suppose. Maybe no eighteen-year-old should count on love to last and all I’ve done is set myself up for disaster and heartbreak. But age doesn’t make my feelings less valid.

What’s the saying? Love loves its youth.

Love is what I feel for Gavin. It’s not just lust, though there is that. And it isn’t only a strong liking that will easily fade with separation. The thought of losing this relationship sends a sharp pain to my chest. As if it’s shattering into a million tiny fragments, exposing my heart to every painful detail the world holds.

I guess that’s why they call it heartbreak. Even if that doesn’t sound as horrible as it feels. Looking down to check I’m still whole, my hand rubs at the pain. It’s useless, of course. I can’t ease this pain or untie the thick knot tightening in my stomach.

I’ve had crushes before. Even a few boyfriends. It didn’t skew my entire existence when we broke up. I fear losing Gavin will. Life won’t be the same without hearing his deep rumbling laugh, or without the way he rests his free hand on my nape as he drives.

The curtains, ones I made myself from old tablecloths I found at the thrift store for a dollar, flutter from the breeze wafting in the open window. Sun shines in, only highlighting the vibrant colors I’ve decorated everything with.

It’s a small space, the smallest of the three rooms in our trailer. Dad once offered up his home office for me, but I declined. My room is tiny, but it’s the only one I’ve ever known, and each piece has been carefully curated over time. Like the throw pillows trimmed with felt balls that I worry with my fingers when I’m thinking. And the landscape painting that my friend Tiffany did for me in the eighth grade before she moved to California. I decoupaged a frame I found in a dumpster with magazine cutouts, so it’s a little bit of me surrounding a lot of her.

The colors can’t penetrate the bleakness overtaking my thoughts, though.

Gavin has been radio silent for days now. Five, to be exact. The first day I didn’t hear from him made me concerned. By the third, I was stressed out, calling and texting in regular intervals.

Yesterday, I received a response.

Gavin:

I’m so sorry.

Nothing more than that one text, despite my attempts to get him to explain.

I know the reason now. I know we’re over. What I don’t know is how. Or why. Well, I guess I know why, to some extent, thanks to Dad’s stubborn refusal to stop his subscription to the New York Times.

An explanation would be nice, though.

The last time I spoke to him, he said good night and that he’d call me the next day. The next day turned into the next and the next. Each without a word. Until those three words.

I’m so sorry.

For what, I’ve been wondering.

A tear spills out from the corner of my eye, and I angrily swipe it away. I won’t cry over this. He duped me, played with my heart and my trust. That doesn’t deserve tears. It deserves anger and rage.

Sixty-nine days shouldn’t be so hard for me to incinerate in the hellish depths of my soul. It’s a short span of time at the near beginning of my life’s line. One day, I’ll forget Gavin Vaughn, the love we made, and the hurt that followed.

Staring down at the wedding announcement printed in the New York Times, the one my mother quietly handed to me with sadness, I make myself a promise.

Never fucking again.

1

Gavin

“Oh. My. Fucking. God. DAD?”

“In the kitchen,” I holler, trying to be heard over my daughter’s screams as she barrels down the stairs. I think it’s excitement. I hope it is, anyway. But who the fuck knows. Tori is a nineteen-year-old tornado. I can never keep track of her trajectory.

I wouldn’t change that for the world, though. This past year has been rough on both of us, and for her mother. The divorce was long overdue, but Tori didn’t realize it. Caroline and I sheltered her from that as best we could. In hindsight, maybe we should have given her a heads-up. We threw a lot at her in a couple of years’ time.

Starting with our move from the East Coast to Seattle when the Blades picked me up in their expansion draft. Tori was sixteen. Leaving behind all her friends and her dumbass boyfriend, Richy, was a lot to ask of her. I can feel bad about ripping her away from her girlfriends, but not about Richy.

That kid was the douchiest of all douchebags. He had big dreams of being a DJ, but the kid couldn’t keep a beat if it was hitting upside his stupid bleached-blonde head. I was tempted to dump her into therapy, convinced something major had to be wrong if that asshat was who she was bringing home for dinner. Caroline talked me down, saying he was “just a phase”.

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