Page 71 of Friendzone Hockey
Chest heaving.
Can’t catch his breath.
Body shaking.
It’s like watching all the hope inside him die. As if someone’s racing around his body, snuffing it out and this is the physical reaction.
“Ripping,” he chokes out. “What’s h-happening? Ri-Ripping.”
He clutches his T-shirt, twisting his hand into the cotton as if he’s contemplating ripping out his own heart. Dash drops to the floor.
I go too. My back hits the side of the island, and I pull him to me, even though I’m not sure I should.
“No. No! I hate you, I fucking hate you,” he screams. He lashes out, punching with those brutal hockey fists of his, landing a nicecrackto my cheekbone. But I know how to take hit after hit. I let him get it out, beating my face, my chest, screaming in my face.
I refuse to let him go. I won’t. He’s gonna know that despite all this, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.
He exhausts the anger, breaking down further, chest swelling with violent breaths that must be threatening to implode him from the inside. Sure looks that way. He rubs at his angry red eyes, face glistening with wet.
My left ass cheek loses feeling, lactic acid burns my arms, but I hold my ground.
Eventually, it’s just him crying brokenly into my chest. “Please, Stace. D-Don’t do this. Y-You’re wrong, you know?You’ve got this one wrong,” he says in a watery voice. “This is a huge mistake.”
I don’t say anything. How many more times can I tell him no? The silence does it for me.
His lip trembles. “You said goodbye, Stace.”
The reality washes over me. I did. I don’t plan on going anywhere, but I still said goodbye.
We spend two of the longest days of my life not talking. I need to buy groceries for the house, but I can’t leave my room. Frankly, I’m almost ready to become a monster for him. Who fucking cares about my integrity if keeping my integrity means pain for him? The look on his face haunts me. The terrible heartbreak. He wasn’t the only one. My soul left my body, and when it returned, half was missing.
He’s got the other half.
Dash storms into my room on the third day. “Well?” he says.
“Well what?” My body’s a limp bag of bones, reduced to the useless heap it usually is after a hockey practice. Only, there’s been no hockey practice, just me crying my guts out until all my limbs have hollowed out, leaving me with nothing but a rising sense of dread.
I don’t have the strength to refuse him again. If he’s here to beg me, I might cave.
“I get it, fine. I’ll give it up. You won’t date me, but someone will.”
A tendril of jealousy slithers and curls in my chest. Someone will. It won’t get to be me.
“You think you’re ready to start dating people?” I don’t like it, but if he’s ready, he should. Then he’ll have something to compare his affection for me to. He’ll know if his feelings for me actually exist, or if I’m just the safest thing for him to latch onto.
You’ll know, too,a little voice whispers.
“Won’t know unless I try,” he snaps. It sounds more like a threat. Or like maybe he wants me to stop him.
“Fine.” I’m not sure I’ve ever been angry at him. Annoyed, maybe. This is a first for me. It’s too much anger for this room. I need to get out of here, but if I am, I’m taking him with me. “Now get your fucking ass in the car. You’re coming with me to get groceries.”
“Well, you sure as hell weren’t going without me.” He reveals my keys, jiggling them. “But for the record, I hate you right now. I hate you so fucking much.”
Maybe he’s trying to punish me with his presence. Never gonna work. I can’t be with Dash like he wants me to be, but he’s more than welcome to be with me wherever I go.
In fact, I fucking insist.
Iasked to see Travis, but I’m the one who feels like I’ve been called to the principal’s office. Travis’s fingers tap across his laptop at lightning speed. I have to give the guy props. He’s from the generation that didn’t grow up with computers, and while he’s slow to bring in some pieces of technology, he’s taken to others quickly. The whole restaurant runs on iPads and screens versus the much older “chit” system we had for a short while at the beginning of my career at The Wicklow.
