Page 50 of Passing the Red Line
“Fuck off. Get your agent to do your dirty work. I want nothing to do with you and your shit career.”
“Do it.” He says and I bet my paycheck that he said those two words through his teeth.
“Or what?” I hackle.
“Remember those pictures you sent me for my eighteenth birthday? One text message and they will be out.”
A chill runs through my body.
Like most people, I did some stupid shit when I was a teenager. One of them was dating Kalen and another was sending the person that I thought I was going to be with for years nude pictures of myself.
At the time I was proud of them, but now I wish they would just disappear, because this isn’t the first time that Kalen has used them against me. The first time was when he first entered the draft. We had been broken up for a few months at this point and he called me out of the blue. At first being the naive girl that I was, I thought he was calling to get back together with me. He was flirty, and even apologized for the cheating and for a week or two I believed every word that he said. Until he asked me to talk to my dad again, that’s when I realized that all he had told me was a lie. He was using me again. So when I told him no, he threatened to put my pictures online. I told him to shove it, but he continued to hold that over my head, and continued to bring me down any chase. It lasted until he got drafted, but I never gave in.
“It didn’t work the first time around, what makes you think it’s going to happen now?” I say, feeling a lump forming in my throat from all the nights I went to sleep crying that he would do something damaging to me in that way.
“Because now you actually have something to lose.”
Iactually have something to lose.
The last time he was put in this position, I had told him that the only person that he was going to hurt by releasing the photos was going to be my dad and possibly himself. I was a nobody in the hockey world back then. I was just the daughter of a player. I didn’t matter in the public eye or to hockey fans, but they did.
Now, starting in a few weeks I will no longer be a nobody, my position in the sport will actually matter and will be affected by something like this.
It would be easy to tell Kalen that I would go to my dad and ask him to consider acquiring him, but me doing that goes against everything I told myself I would never do.
Let someone use me to get to my father. Let someone use me that’s beneficial for them and throw me to the curve afterward.
No matter how much it will hurt me, how much it scares me of what will happen if those pictures come out, I can’t do it. I can’t give in and give Kalen something that he wants, no matter how much it destroys me.
“Release the pictures. I don’t give a shit. I'm not going to let you use me to get what you want.”
I end the call before he can say anything else and quickly block his number.
Kalen can be bluffing, he might not even have the pictures anymore, but I don’t know for sure and he is using that. He knows that I’m going to battle with myself and stay awake every single night wondering if the next day will be the day those pictures make it to the Twitter accounts of hockey fans all over North America. He knows that I’m going to keep thinking about him and the pictures until they drive me so crazy I finally decide to go to my dad.
He probably knew that I was going to tell him no and was banking on his back up plan to get him what he wants.
“Fuck,” I yell out, feeling frustrated beyond belief.
If I wasn’t a stupid eighteen-year-old that wanted her boyfriend to see her as sexy, I wouldn’t be in this mess. But I am and the only thing I can do is blame myself.
The lump that was in my throat earlier is now fully formed and is the root cause of the tears that are currently falling down my face.
I hate that I’m crying over something that Kalen will or will not do. I feel like I’m eighteen again but the difference between then and now is when I cried over him and his stupid threats back then, I had my mom to lean on. Now, she’s not here and I can’t go to her when I feel like I’m going to break.
I don’t even want to go to my apartment. All I’m going to do there is let my mind play mind tricks on me on what Kalen is going to do.
So, the apartment is going to be a no go.
Christian’s place is an option. Even if he’s not there, I can go down to the beach and take in the sound of the waves and let the sound calm my mind and body like it has done many times before.
And when Christian gets there, I can find calm another way.
Not even thinking twice about it, I start the car and start driving in the direction of the beach house. It’s not what I had planned but it’s the one place at the moment that will have a calming effect on me and make me forget about Kalen and his threats of blackmail.
The whole way down the highway all the way until I get to the fishhook part of the road, I cry, and the tears continue to stream down my face as I drive through the neighborhood where the beach house is. The tears don’t stop until I’m in the driveway already feeling the calm that the place brings me.
It’s the proximity of the ocean, not the house itself.
