Page 45

savannah

I’m doing that thing where I look like a zombie staring off into space. If I sit with my feelings, I’m going to lose my fucking mind. So instead, I choose to compartmentalize everything Noah Kingston-related, pack it up in a little box, and give it a swift dropkick into the ocean.

“Everything alright in here?”

Chloe met me in the parking lot that I wound up in, three blocks from the restaurant, and after I recounted the night—starting with my front-row seat to the Joshua Kingston beat down and ending with Noah agreeing to dump me—I finally calmed down enough to drive us home.

Yesterday, I alternated between molding the mattress to my body and crying in the shower until the water ran cold.

It’s no wonder why my best friend is handing me a coffee like she’s here for a wellness check.

“It will be,” I force myself to answer.

She nods her head, pulls a blanket over her bare legs, and takes a sip from her mug. “Have you heard from him?”

Where’d you go?

I’m so sorry about my dad, please answer me.

Savannah.

I’m freaking out, can you please answer your phone?

I felt like shit adding to his stress. I know he can’t afford to add any more worries to his plate right now.

All I’ve wanted is for him to let me be someone he can lean on.

Someone he can trust enough to open up to.

But when it comes down to it, at the end of day, the thing that matters most to him, the only thing he’ll ever truly lean on, is hockey.

I shrug. “After the third call and the fifth text, I turned my phone off.”

Her lack of response somehow speaks louder than anything she could say. “What, you're not on the Noah train anymore? Not going to tell me to call him back?”

“Do you want to?”

What I want is to understand why all of my feelings for him didn’t stay at the restaurant the second I ran.

I’ve spent the last two days replaying every laugh, every vulnerable moment, and everything in between.

When I decide I’m done with someone, that’s it.

I walk away and never look back. But walking away from Noah doesn’t feel freeing in the way it’s supposed to.

It feels painfully unfinished. I squeeze my eyes shut, but the hold around my heart is tighter.

There’s an ache in the center of my chest that I fear no amount of rubbing can cure.

It’s a pain I recognize. It’s the kind of pain that you only experience when you lose someone you love.

Chloe hands me a tissue and I inhale a shaky breath, sinking further into the couch.

How did I let myself fall in love with someone that I swore would never even get a shot with me?

Emotions clog the back of my throat, making it difficult to breathe, and I focus on the soft rub of Chloe’s hand over my legs.

After a few minutes, my chest still aches, but I refuse to stay on this couch and wallow any longer. I crack my knuckles, filling the silence. The longer I sit here, the redder my vision becomes. I might be on the path to forgetting Noah, but there’s still someone I can take out some anger on .

And I’m a girl who needs to deliver a verbal ass-whooping right now.

I pull up outside the Redline Arena, and my boots hit the pavement on a mission. I don’t stop for a polite smile when I see the cleaning crew, and I sure as fuck don’t stop to return Maverick’s high five as I bulldoze my way past him.

“Sass!” He calls out behind me, but I don’t stop. “Hey.” He catches up to me in two long strides. “He’s not there. He got sent home yesterday.”

“Well, your first mistake was thinking I was here looking for him. ”

“Come on, Sassafras.” I look up at the guy I’ve begrudgingly started to like. His lime-green gum sits between his perfect row of straight, white teeth, and his cocky grin never falters. “He’s been trying to get a hold of you.”

Two days worth of unanswered texts and fifteen calls that went straight to voicemail told me that, but I’m choosing to bail before he can cut me out. I don’t need to hear it.

“Well, you can tell him that you saw me and that I’m alive if you want. Or not.” I shrug. “It doesn’t matter to me. We’re done.” I turn my head, not trusting myself to stay composed in front of him.

“Aw, come on. Cut him a little slack.” His hand wraps around my elbow.

“I gave him more slack than I’ve ever given anyone, and you know what he did?

He hung me with it . ” I hit my chest with my finger, hoping to cut off the cracking in my voice.

“If he’s so desperate to talk to me, he knows where to find me, but my guess is he doesn’t have the balls to do what he needs to do to my face.

” I sniff and twist my mouth, more upset now that I just laid myself out in front of him.

Maverick stares at me, his brow furrowing.

“Look, for reasons I can’t explain, I like you, Hall. So, do us both a favor and let go of my arm so I can leave before I say some shit that I can’t take back.”

He holds his hands up and takes a step back.

At least I have some humanity left in me. When I look at his defeated face, my throat burns and I fight back tears.

“Peanut!” My dad beams before he notices my scowl. “Well, this doesn’t look like a happy visit.”

He motions for me to sit in the seat across his desk, but I’m too pissed and too wired to sit still.

Nothing makes sense inside my head right now. It’s just a wild field of hurt feelings and pent up anger.

“Did you call Shelly from the rugby department?” I yell, skipping the pleasantries.

He drops his gaze to his desk, at least having the decency to look ashamed. “Look, Pea?—”

“Don’t ‘peanut’ me!” I scold. “Did you call her and play Geppetto, pulling all your little strings to get me that job?”

When he looks up, his eyes are pleading with me, and I know the answer.

“I was only trying to help,” he says. “Is there a reason you didn’t want to tell me?”

“Because of this!” I throw both arms toward him.

“You think I want an internship that I didn’t earn?

You think I want to show up somewhere every single day and wonder if someone else was better for the spot, but I got it because of who my dad is?

How can I sit here and torch everyone who has ever used me because they wanted something from you and then turn around and use you to get what I want? ”

His expression hardens. “Who has used you?”

A resigned sigh fills the room as I dig my palms into my eyes and drop into the leather chair across from him. My first time visiting the campus arena was this semester. I've never been inside my dad’s office, but there's a lingering scent in the chair that immediately calms the dragon inside me.

I run my fingers through my hair, sinking lower in the chair.

“It doesn’t matter,” I whisper.

My eyes refocus after rubbing them, and I look around my dad’s office.

The desk is made of thick cherry oak, and aside from the framed photos of hockey teams on the walls and the trophies behind him, the room feels more suited for a lawyer than a hockey coach.

The tall, deep brown leather chairs and dark moss-green carpets are more luxurious than I expected.

I spot a photo of Leo and me out on the lake at our childhood home.

Both of my fists are pumped in the air, with my stick clenched tightly in my palm.

My smile stretches from ear to ear. I remember that day like it was yesterday.

It was the first time I ever scored on my brother.

I’m only now noticing the proud smile he’s sporting behind me.

Another frame sits angled toward my dad, so only he can see it, but it’s a photo I know well.

I can almost smell the salty air through the glass frame.

My mom’s hair blows ethereally behind her, while mine blows chaotically in front of my face.

Our smiles take up our faces. My nose burns, and my chest tightens at the image of us on the beach.

Rationally, I know that everything my dad does is to help me.

To be there for me, ten times over, because he feels like I’ve lost out on having a parent.

And while, technically, it is true, but the things I’ve missed over the years have been very specific to her.

I miss her scent, her gentle and pure smile.

I miss her unconditional love and the safe embrace she provided when I was acting out.

I miss her words of encouragement and advice.

I miss her voice. I just miss her presence.

More than anything. I know if my dad could clone himself—if he could make fifty of himself—he would, just so that I never felt like I was getting any less.

But nothing will bring her back, and she is who I miss .

I close my eyes and lean back into the chair, letting it take some of the load off me. It’s exhausting to carry this uncomfortable weight inside my stomach. “Can we just agree that if I don’t outright ask you for something, there's a reason?”

His long, tan fingers clasp together in front of his face, and he presses his mouth to them.

“It’s hard because I’ve felt like a failure for so many years.

” He pauses, and I go so still at his words that I can hear him swallow.

“There was a long period of time there where I didn’t know how to help you. ”

Tears fill my waterline and my throat grows unbearably tight, but I let him continue.

“I’ve watched you grow and heal over the years, but those memories of you and your brother struggling have always stuck with me.

You were so small.” His voice cracks. “I couldn’t make sense of it myself, but when I saw my little girl unable to get out of her bed, and worse, blaming herself…

I—” He shakes his head, pressing his fingers to his eyes to catch the tears.

“I know it’s not always the right reaction, but when I see you struggle now, no matter how big or small, my immediate response is to jump in and help in any way I can. ”

I tuck my hands into the sleeves of my sweatshirt and use them to wipe away my tears.

“I’m sorry, Peanut.”

Salty streaks still stream down my face, but I’m on my feet, rounding his desk. I throw my arms around him. “I know, Dad.”

He pats my hair as he pulls me in close. “I love you so much, Savannah.”

“I love you, too.”

I don’t know if it’s because I got to yell, or because I needed this hug, but it feels like a chunk of the uncomfortable feelings in my chest has been hammered off. There’s a block that sits half-buried in there now.

I sniff, wipe my face, and sit back down on the chair across from him .

“How’s Noah doing?”

I fight to not show any kind of reaction, but I am completely taken aback by his question.

“I don’t know. Why would you ask me?”

He twists the black watch around his wrist. Leo and I worked all summer to be able to afford to gift him that watch when he scored the head coaching position. I feel a small smile tug on my lips at the memory, at how proud we felt making that big purchase for the man who gave us everything.

“Well, I might be his coach, but you’re the one who is dating him, right?”

I open my mouth and close it quickly.

“How—”

“I might poke around in your life, Savannah, but your new relationship was glaringly obvious, whether or not you told me yourself.”

“Well, I was going to tell you the other day at breakfast before I found out you had been meddling” I say, half pointedly, half jokingly.

He nods for me to go on.

My shoulders fall with a deep exhale. “I don’t know. There's nothing really to tell anymore.” I roll my eyes, hating how soft and weak my voice sounds.

“Does it have anything to do with why he came into practice with a Savannah-sized chip on his shoulder?”

“I heard you kicked him out?” I don’t know why I ask, it’s not going to help me forget about him any quicker.

“I considered it when he started screaming at me, frantically asking if I had heard from you, but when he started fighting with his best friends, yeah, I blew the whistle on him.”

I look down at my hands, picking at the polish on my pinky. I shouldn't feel bad, but knowing how stressed he already is, I still don’t want to add to that .

“We… We had dinner with his dad the other night.” He makes a face, and if this were any other time, I would snap a picture and send it to Leo, and it would become our new meme. “So, you’ve met?”

“Unfortunately. Joshua was drafted and signed a two-year deal with the Tampa Bay Wolverines. He struggled quite a bit during those two years. He popped off when things didn’t go his way, had a terrible temper, and placed the blame on everyone but himself.”

That checks.

“I know he coached a few of Noah’s teams growing up, and the ones that he didn’t, he definitely tried to.

He’s been hanging around over the last three years, and I finally had enough of him.

I told them it was because I couldn’t focus and do my job to the best of my ability with him here, but really, I just couldn’t stand the way he talked to Noah.

So, I banned him from practices,” he says.

“Anyway, I don’t think he ever really had anything else to fall back on, and the only good thing that came out of that time for him was meeting his wife. ”

“Victoria?”

“Mhmm.” He nods. “Her dad was his coach.”

Of course he was.

I shove the new information aside because it doesn’t change anything. “Right. Well, he said some pretty crazy things.” I leave out the offensive parts about me. “And basically, by the end of it, I think they both decided that Noah was too distracted from hockey right now.”

“I see.” He lifts his head in a slow, deliberate nod. “Joshua is hard on him. I know that. But honestly, I don’t give a shit about him. I do, however, give a shit about Noah. What does Noah want?”

If you had asked me last week, I would have easily believed he wanted it all, including me. But I have since come back to my senses .

“He wants what they all want. He wants to make it.” I swallow. “No matter what it takes.” I hate that the words still feel like a lie on my tongue.

“Well, I’m not one to put my nose where it doesn't belong.” He gives me a look, and I playfully roll my eyes. “But I’ve known Noah for three years, and that boy doesn’t do anything half-assed. If he’s gotten into a relationship with you, he didn’t do it with an expiration date in mind.”

I can’t afford the feeling of hope attempting to bloom in my chest. I leave my dad’s office, and the entire walk home, I shove those hopeful thoughts of Noah to the pit of my stomach, determined that this will be the last time I think about him.

The elevator up to my apartment dings, and when the doors slide open, the eyes of my favorite summer storm are in front of me. I freeze, as my breath is knocked from my lungs.