Page 9 of Replay (Toronto Blaze #3)

Was That Your Choice?

Katie

“I swear—he thinks I’m just here to get my Mrs.” I stabbed my salad to punctuate my point. “ Do you think you can handle this project you’ve selected? Like I’ll faint away from brain strain.”

Andrea picked up a mouthful of hers more delicately. “He’s the oldest tenured prof. He’d be shocked to know that women are allowed to vote.”

I sighed. “It was just so discouraging. I thought I was used to this—there aren’t a lot of women in STEM courses, but there are more than there were.”

“I was lucky—I’ve got one of the younger and female profs. I am grateful every time I hear some other TA talking about their advisor.”

“Is it just me or is it worse now that we’re grad students?”

“It’s worse.”

“Thanks.” A tomato leapt off my plate and rolled onto the table.

“Take it easy on the defenseless produce.”

I shook my head. “Sorry. There’s been a lot going on these past few days.”

Andrea set down her fork. “Is everything okay with Madeline?”

I stopped, fork in midair. “What? Oh, Madeline is great. I love staying there. I owe you for that.”

“Yeah, I love that I’m living with Lisa now, but that place was a pretty sweet score. If it’s not Madeline, and not Professor Grinch, what’s up?”

I set down my fork and considered. I was dying to talk to someone.

There was a lot of frustration and anger burbling inside, and I wanted to figure out my thoughts before I next spoke to my family.

We were close, and I needed to express myself without hurting them.

Or maybe I shouldn’t worry about that. I couldn’t talk to any of my friends from back home, because of the Josh factor, and it was a little awkward talking to Madeline because she and Josh had been about to hook up.

I was still making friends here at U of T, so if I was going to unload on anyone, Andrea was it.

“I ran into my ex. And I learned some things that are messing with my head.”

Andrea shoved her plate aside. “Tell me about this ex—a guy, right? You’re straight?”

I nodded.

“What did he do? We can take steps, restraining orders or—you blocked his number and on social media, right?”

I held up a hand. “No, no, it’s not like that.

” When her eyebrows lifted skeptically, I rushed to reassure her.

“I swear, I’m not having those kinds of problems. He broke up with me in high school, and I took it hard.

I did block him everywhere, because I was really angry and hurt.

But when I talked to him recently, I learned that my parents manipulated him to do that, and now I’m hurt and angry with them too. ”

Andrea crossed her arms and leaned on the table toward me. “Are you sure your parents are at fault here?”

“Yeah, after talking to him it made a lot of sense. They were worried he’d distract me from school, as if my boyfriend was the only thing that mattered to me. I’ve got all this anger inside, and I’m trying to get a hold on it before I talk to them.”

“Maybe if they did something shitty, you should be angry at them.”

“But we’re really close. My family is big on education, and I appreciate that.”

“They support you being here.”

“With money and encouragement, yes. They’re paying for everything my TA money doesn’t cover.”

“Helicopter parents?”

“Not really. See, when they were going to university, they got pregnant with my sister Nora. Their families freaked out, didn’t want them keeping the baby, but they dropped out and raised her and me.

They worked long hours to make sure we had an education fund, could take extra classes if we wanted.

They didn’t hover, and didn’t micromanage what we did, but gave us a really good support system. ”

“So what’s the but? Since you’re pissed now.”

“Nora and I didn’t get jobs while we were in high school, just did some tutoring, so we could focus on school. I started to tutor this one guy.”

“The ex?”

“Exactly. And that led to dating and falling in love.”

“The parents didn’t approve?”

“His mom didn’t, but she was a single mom and kind of jealous of anyone. But she didn’t do anything beyond making comments when Josh wasn’t around. I thought my parents were okay—they said as long as I kept up my grades, that was fine.”

“Obviously it wasn’t.”

“My senior year, Nora, who was in pre-med, got pregnant and dropped out.”

Andrea’s eyebrows rose. “I’m guessing they weren’t very happy about history repeating itself.”

“They were really upset. I’ve never seen them like that before.” I stared over Andrea’s shoulder, not really aware of the rest of the sandwich shop behind her. “I’m not sure why, but it wasn’t Arlo who insisted she stay home while he finished his degree. Nora said that was what she wanted.”

“This is when your parents started manipulating your future?”

I focused back on her. “Exactly. They convinced my ex that it would be better if we split up. I was getting acceptances from universities, and they thought I’d give up school to follow him or try to pick a school near him. So he sent me a text that it was better for me if we broke up.”

“A text ?”

“Dick move. I know. But when I ran into him again, he said if he talked to me in person, he might not have been able to go through with it. And that my parents told him they were going to explain it to me, but they didn’t.”

Andrea held up her palm. “Why couldn’t he have followed you instead? Where did he want to go to school?”

I paused. Was I sure about sharing this? “He wasn’t going to school. He played hockey, and he was good. Everyone said he’d be drafted. Obviously, he didn’t know where.”

Andrea blinked for a minute. “Oh. You knew all that, right?” I nodded. “So what had you planned to do?”

“We hadn’t talked about it. But Josh knew the schools I applied to, and he didn’t try to sell me on places that had hockey teams. He wanted me to accept the best school I could go to. We kind of ignored what would happen after graduation.”

“You didn’t think about it at all?”

“Of course I did. I went through all the options in my head, but we hadn’t talked about it together.

I think I’d have suggested we try long-distance, but it would have depended on where he was going.

If he’d gone to the West Coast, and I couldn’t see him for months at a time?

That wasn’t going to be feasible.” And how could I expect him to do long-distance with me when there’d be so many women available to him?

“So, your mom and dad didn’t think you’d make the right decision and went behind your back and manipulated your boyfriend to make things work out the way they wanted.”

I shifted in my chair. It sounded so bad when Andrea said it out loud. Even though they’d done it out of love.

“I’d say you had perfectly realistic expectations about what was going to happen and didn’t need your parents to step in and make a choice for you. Wait, you said you just found out. You met your ex, and he told you?”

I nodded.

“Your parents have kept it secret all this time?”

“I spent all these years thinking he was a total asshole. And that my judgment about guys was shit.” That I wasn’t good enough.

Her eyebrows rose. “Have they done anything else like that?”

I started to shake my head, but had I even considered that possibility? “I—I don’t know. I would have said they’d never do something like that, but now I’m not sure.”

“In my opinion, you have every reason to be pissed. What happened with your next boyfriend?”

“I never got really serious about anyone after Josh. But you know, after all those college applications, I ended up staying home and going to Dalhousie.”

“Was that your choice?”

“I thought so. With Nora having the baby, and me wanting to help out, it just seemed like staying home was the best option.”

But had that been my idea? I was second-guessing everything now.

Andrea started to put her napkin and plate on the tray.

“I should get moving. Another class of first-years to deal with. But here’s a thought—see if your ex wants to go out with you again.

Just to mess with your parents. He’s here in Toronto now, right?

Since you just ran into him?” She stood up, throwing her bag over her shoulder.

I nodded. “Yeah, but it’s been a long time. Honestly, he’s more out of my league now than he was then.”

A strange expression crossed her face. “Uh, did he get drafted?”

“Yeah. Nashville. Which wasn’t any place I’d applied to.”

She stared at me. “And he’s in Toronto now?”

“Uh huh.”

“Is he, like, one of the players? On one of the fucking NHL teams?”

I eyed her warily. “Yeah.”

She ticked off her fingers. “From Halifax. Drafted by Nashville. Playing in Toronto.”

My cheeks heated up. If I’d been trying to keep his identity a secret, I’d blown that.

Andrea’s eyes widened. “Is that your ex—Ducky?”

I turned to look at the TV, where a team photo of Josh was up on half the screen. The other half had words like injury and treatment.

My stomach dropped. What the hell had happened to him?