Page 100 of The Hockey Grump Saves Christmas

It’s an experience I had this week that will live with me forever. Something I want but can’t have.

I get that she needs to go through with the move to New Orleans to prove something to herself. But I wish she’d understand she has nothing to prove to anyone else. What’s there to prove when you’re as perfect as any human could hope to be?

I, on the other hand, am riddled with flaws. Deep, dark rivers of them.

Natalie’s head flies back in a hearty laugh I can almost hear from inside my car. Whatever the kid said makes his mom laugh too. But not in the same way that Natalie does. Not in that unbridled, giving-herself-fully-to-the-joy way that she has.

She places one hand on her chest and the other on the boy’s shoulder and tells him something that changes his face from that of a serious world-saving scientist to that of a child who wants to have fun.

Then the boy’s mom looks like she might be saying thank you, and Natalie’s waving her hand to dismiss the transformation she brought about in the kid as nothing.

Of course she is. She has no idea of thenatural gift she has for what she does. The children and parents of this town are lucky to have her. And I bet they’re going to miss her like holy hell.

They exchange waves and Natalie turns away from me, head down, trotting into the wind toward her Jeep farther up the street.

And all I do is sit and watch. Watch her open the door. Watch her get in. Watch her toss her bag onto the passenger seat and pull on her seat belt. Watch her drive away.

I grip the top of the steering wheel with both hands and drop my head onto my knuckles.

Fuck.

My heart races. I should follow her and talk to her the moment she gets home.

But I really am everything she said I am.

A man whose only friends are his parents.

A man too weak to tell those parents that he wants to spend Christmas alone.

A man who had a friend but fucked it up so badly that when that friend turned up out of the blue, he told the woman who he’d spent a week falling for that she should stay away from him.

And she should have.

Just like I should have stayed away from her.

I’ve been right all along. Not getting involved with people and living alone in an isolated house or a penthouse in a Manhattan apartment tower and doing nothing but training and playing hockey has to be way better than how this feels.

Should have stuck to my guns.

Because now I’ve had a taste of it, it’s worse than never having tasted it at all.

The person who might make me happier than I ever dreamed possible has just driven away and taken a slice of my heart with her.

This is not good. It is not good to be this vulnerable. Vulnerability is what I spend my whole life fighting in hockey.Stay strong. Show no weakness. Guard your blind spots.

Natalie was a blind spot I didn’t know I had.

And that I didn’t see coming.

I straighten and let my head flop back onto the headrest.

Whatever I tell her, it’s only going to sound beyond bad.Hey, I’m the big, rich athlete who cruised into your small town, banged you for a week, and now I’m headed back to the city. See ya.

No matter what I say or how I say it, that’s what she’ll hear. And I couldn’t blame her. They are the facts.

But they don’t take into account the torrent of feelings racing under them.

“You are such a fucking idiot.” I slam the side of my fist against the steering wheel.

---