Page 97 of Cherry Picking
He stares hard, but I keep my eyes forward, watching the empty street as it passes by.
“Is that why you broke up?”
I almost slam on the breaks to make the stop sign, heart pounding like an out of beat drummer.
“Who said we broke up?”
“Me.” He shrugs. “Your friend left all doom and gloom that morning. Then, you shut yourself in the room. It was easy to put two and two together.”
Parker is a smart kid, an observant one. Not all brawn like Dad and I.
“We’re taking a break. Getting our heads on straight. Without hockey, I’ve got a whole lot to figure out about life.”
“Isn’t that the kind of thing you’re supposed to do together?”
“There are some things you have to do alone … no matter how much you love someone.”
Parker goes quiet, and we sit in silence for the rest of the drive. When I park in the driveway and turn the car off, however, he doesn’t make a move to get out.
“A few years ago,” Parker says, slow and soft, like he’s puzzling through something. “You came home out of the blue. Stayed for a couple of days, and mentioned just before you left that Matty had moved to Boston. Every other time Mom brought him up, you avoided the subject.”
I remember that. Requesting leave from Coach for a few games. Coming home and purging all the little traces of Matty I could find. He was strewn all over my home from the one summer he spent here.
Recovering from a surgery he didn’t feel safe getting back in Tennessee.
My family welcomed him with open arms. The roommate who needed a helping hand, and the hockey player who was willing to lend one.
“You cared about him,” Parker says, matter-of-fact. “Just like you care about Griffin.”
That’s what does it.
What rips out the last stitch keeping me together.
I buried the pain of giving Matty up so deep, and when it came back out I used Griffin to stuff it back in. But I never dealt with it.
I never made my peace with breaking not only my own heart but someone else’s.
Now every little reminder makes me lash out, brings up all of the ugly feelings I push aside until I’m too numb to feel them.
A pair of small arms wrap around my shoulders, and Parker’s head knocks into mine. He’s sitting on the center console, sideways and awkward, but I still manage to wind an arm around him in return.
“I see you, Riley,” he says, squeezing me as strong and comforting as a twelve year old can. “I see you now.”
Yeah, kid, I think I see me, too.
CHAPTER 23
RILEY
Boston is a serene,beautiful white in the middle of winter.
We don’t play their minor team often except for in preseason and the playoffs, and I’ve never had a reason to make a social call, so I’ve never seen it like this before. Usually we’re here when summer has faded into fall with multicolored leaves littering the pavement.
All it took was one phone call. To a number I could never bring myself to delete, but who had sat in my contacts collecting cobwebs, messages encased like polaroid pictures at the bottom of a shoe box.
The diner is nice. Retro. A white and light blue checkered floor with a pink neon glow that almost makes it feel like you’ve stepped into a fifties movie. It’s soft. Theatrical. Like someone put meticulous care into the space. Not just slapped together to make a quick buck on ambience.
It’s no wonder Matty picked a place like this. It’s somewhere he’d feel at home, I bet.
