by Naomi Niles
“Dad!” I gasped in shock. “I would never do that! I know how important your work is, I really appreciate what it takes to be a doctor, I really do. I would love to be able to do it myself, but it just isn’t for me. I’m sorry that you can’t seem to understand that, but that’s just the way it is.”
I broke off panting, half expecting him to turn around and yell at me, but he didn’t. Instead, he calmly stood up and grabbed his car keys, before indicating for me to follow him, which I did in a subdued manner, fearing what the day ahead would hold.
If only he would treat me with the same respect as I do him!
*****
By the time our lunch break came around at the hospital, I had to rush outside to get some fresh air. I was feeling sick with all the horrendous procedures I’d been forced to witness all day, and I just needed a break from it all. I had seen things throughout the day that would haunt me forever, and I really needed a time out. Blood was literally the least of my problems in that kind of environment.I really should have known that I was going to end up a fucking mess by the end of the day.
I tugged my phone out of my pocket, all ready to call my sister for some advice, but what I saw there was a text message from Miles.
‘Hi, sorry I haven’t been in touch – things have been a little crazy. Would you like to hang out tomorrow?’
It took all that I had inside of me not to freak out and send him a whole range of abuse back. How fucking dare he message me like that when the entire Goddamn world knew about him and his girlfriend! How stupid did he think I was? Did he think that I would be content to be his bit on the side while he paraded his truly hot piece of ass around the place? No fucking way – I had more pride than that.
In a fit of temper, I scanned through all of our previous messages, deleting them one by one. I couldn’t even stand to see them anymore; they were all tainted now with his betrayal, and I really just wanted him gone. All his sweet words, his kind messages, they were all a load of fucking bullshit, and I never wanted to look at them again.
Then, as a last sting, I deleted his number too, so that there was no way I could contact him at all. The moment did feel a little painful, but I knew that it was the only way to keep my pride intact. It was the only way that I could regain some kind of control over the situation.
With a deep sigh, I tucked my phone back into my pocket, no longer wanting to speak to my sister. This would all be unnecessary drama to her.By now, she was fully settled back into her real life, so I didn’t really feel like I could speak to her about it anyway. It wasn’t as bad as she’d experienced anyway, so I really should just focus on that.
I turned and walked back into the hospital, feeling even more defeated than before. How the hell was I going to muster up the energy to get through this traumatic afternoon with all of this floating through my mind?
Chapter 27
Miles – Four Days Later – Tuesday – 2nd week in January
“That’s right,” I grinned at the kid in front of me, as he imitated my move exactly, really getting it. “Brilliant.”
My time spent on the ice with that young kid, Lucas, had really inspired me, and since I was trying to convey a new image of myself in front of Coach Jordan, I had finally agreed to come and do a school visit – which I was surprisingly enjoying. I hadn't expected to have a lot of fun with a bunch of kids, but they were actually a really good laugh.
“Right kids,” the sports teacher – Mr. Beeds – called out to the kids. “It’s time to go and get changed.” They all groaned loudly, which caused him to burst out laughing. “Good God, you kids are always keen to end my lesson; why are you sad now?”
“We wanna hang out with Miles some more,” someone yelled, which made me grin to myself. It seemed like I was becoming increasingly popular with every passing second.
“If you get ready quickly, I’m sure he’ll set some time aside to sign some autographs for you.” By the time that sentence had come out of his mouth, they were all already gone. “Well,” he turned to face me. “It’s good to see you again kid,” Mr. Beeds was my own sports teacher, so it was pretty good to see him again too. “I hope you decide to come around more often;the kids have really enjoyed it.”
“I think I will,” I replied honestly. “I think I avoided it for so long because I was nervous of how it would go, but I think that was a great laugh for all of them.”
“You’ve honestly inspired them,” he told me, shaking my hand as he did. “I normally can’t get much out of them so that was amazing. I think they need someone like you, someone that grew up here, someone that went to this school.It makes them see what they could be.”
That statement made my heart swell with pride, as it hit me again what I should be doing with my fame. People like Hailey weren’t even worth my time of day; these kids, they were. I should give more back to them, make them feel good about themselves once and for all.
“Thank you,” I replied, a little blindsided by his kindness. “I really appreciate you saying that.”
“And maybe once your career with hockey is done, you could think about coaching? From what I’ve seen today, you would be very good at that.”
“Yeah?” I asked, feeling taken aback. I had worried on and off about what I was going to do once I couldn’t play professional hockey anymore, and coaching wasn’t anything that I’d ever considered – but maybe it would be agood move for me. It was certainly something to think about at any rate. “I think I’ll talk to someone about that; that’s actually a pretty cool idea.”
I wasn’t entirely sure that I could do it, that I would be capable or any good, but it was something for me to look into all the same. I wanted to get some professional advice from someone, and I knew that Coach Jordan would be a great place to start – he could at least point me in the right direction.
After that, the kids came out and I spent the next half an hour signing autographs for the kids and posing for photographs with them. Of course I still didn’t feel very comfortable in front of the camera, but I did it all the same, thinking only of them.
By the time I got outside into the fresh air, I felt a lot more positive about everything. That going so well made me feel like I could finally try calling Danielle since all of my texts had gone unanswered for some strange reason.
Ring, ring.
Ring, ring.
As the phone rang out, I felt my heart pounding heavily against my chest as an odd nervousness overcame me. I suddenly felt like I was calling this girl to ask her out on a first date, and that I was a stupid teenage boy that didn’t know any better. It didn’t seem to matter that I was grown-ass man and that we’d already had sex ; the butterflies were flapping wildly regardless.
“Hello?” she answered, sounding a little stressed. “Danielle Fisher speaking.”
Huh…that felt weird. Why was she acting so formally? After all, I knew that she had my number. I shook my head, trying to rid my brain of negative thoughts and I started to speak to her.
“Hi, Danielle, it’s Miles; how are you?” She didn’t answer for a few moments, and that silence cut deep within me. “Are you there?”
“What do you want?” she asked coldly. “Why are you calling me? Why aren’t you with your girlfriend right now?”
“Huh?” I replied stupidly, not getting her point at all. “Girlfriend?What the hell are you on about?” Did she think that I had a girlfriend, was that why she’d been blowing me off? If I knew that, I would have been calling her much quicker.
“I saw you on the news, kissing her. Hailey – the one you pretended to me was your ex.”
Oh fuck, of course!
I knew about all of that being publicized but I didn’t pay any attention to it. It seemed so laughable to me that I didn’t even consider how it might come across to anyone else.
Fucking Hailey, screwing everything up again.
“Danielle, Hailey is not my girlfriend,” I started. She tried to interrupt, to get some more digs in, but it was
time to tell her the truth now, and I had no intention of getting derailed. “She was my girlfriend, and I did fall for her pretty hard, but she’s nothing more than a publicity whore. She cheated on me with someone else, someone more famous than me, and I didn’t find out until their sex tape leaked online.” I heard her gasp in shock, but I still ploughed on with my story. “She had her fifteen minutes of fame, but that quickly vanished, and she just wanted to get pictured in the paper to try and get some of that back. She doesn’t want me again, and I sure as fuck don’t want her.”
I broke off, panting and at the end of a rant, and I seemed like Danielle had no clue how to respond to that. Of course she didn’t; I wouldn’t have either.
“Look, I know that this is hard, and that you might not want to believe me, but will you please come and see me anyway? You only have a couple of days left in Minnesota and I think you’ll regret it if you don’t give me a chance to prove to you that I’m not lying.”
What could I do? How could I make her see how serious I was about her? Clearly that fucking stupid news story, combined with me being checked out for such a long time had not gone down well, and I really needed to make up for that.
“Will you please consider coming to dinner with me and my mom?” I asked, feeling a little desperate now. “She wants to meet the girl that I’ve been talking to her endlessly about.She wants to get to know you.”
“Really?” she replied, a little snidely. “Are you sure that it’s me you’ve been talking about and not Hailey.”
“Don’t be like this,” I pleaded. “There hasn’t been anything between me and Hailey for a very long time, and believe me, if I took her anywhere near my mom, she would end up murdered.”
“She hates her that much huh?” Danielle eventually grumbled out, but I could hear that there was a softening to her tone. “Was it really that bad?”
“It was horrible,” I confirmed. “Hailey hurt me so bad that I haven’t even been able to look at another girl until you. You helped me to open up again and to get over the ego damage that girl did to me. I really don’t want things between us to end on bad terms. Please?”
“Okay,” she finally sighed, conceding to me. “Fine, but only to meet your mom – who sounds like an awesome woman. I might hear you out, but I don’t know yet.”
There was a slightly joking tone to her voice, one that had my face bursting out into a huge smile. I wasn’t quite sure how I’d done it, but I managed to break down her icy exterior and I needed to jump on that while we could.
“Will you come tonight?” I begged. “I’ll cook, it’ll be nice, honest. Around six pm?”
“Fine,” she said, before hanging up the phone.
I felt happy, but I also knew that I needed to get my mom on board too. I was certain that she would be happy to help, but I had to check for sure.
“Mom?” I gasped out, as soon as she answered the phone. “I need your help!”
“Hello, son,” she laughed. “It’s nice to speak to you too.” I knew that she was joking, but I didn’t have the patience for it today.
“Mom, this is serious.This is about the girl I talked to you about.”
“The new one?” she asked curiously. “The blonde one?”
“Danielle, yes, she’s kind of mad at me right now because of all the Hailey bullshit on the TV, and I really need to impress her with a nice dinner.”
“Isn’t she going soon though?”she asked in surprise. “I thought that she was headed back to California soon.Isn’t this a lot of effort for someone that you have no future with?”
“I know mom,” I replied, pounding my palm against my head. “I know all of that, but I can’t stop myself from liking her anyway. I just…I want to have the last few days together. Will you help me? Will you help me plan a dinner for her and will you also eat with us tonight? Get to know her a little better?”
“Of course I will,” she laughed joyfully. “You know that. Anything to make you happy son!”
“Okay, I’ll see you in a bit,mom; we’ll go over all the details then. Love you!” My mind was racing with ideas by that point and I was keen to act on them. I wanted to get everything perfect, and for us to have a great night, and if that was going to happen, I needed to get started right away.
“Love you too.Bye.”
As soon as my mom was gone from the line, I raced to the grocery store, glad to be able to return the favor for Danielle. She cooked for me once, and it had ended up as one of the best nights of my whole damn life. I just hoped that we could replicate it with this one. I decided that since Danielle had cooked me a Californian meal, that I would bring some of Minnesota to her life, even if it was just for her to remember me by. I decided to cook bundt cake and a tater tot hot dish: real, cold-weather food that would hopefully get her mouth salivating.
This was sure as hell going to be the saddest goodbye ever when Danielle had to go back to college, so I needed to do my best to ensure that we had some happy memories to keep us going. I didn’t want everything with Danielle to end up bitter sweet, when she’d done so much for me.
I hoped that it was a good sign that she’d agreed to come to the meal, rather than completely blowing me off, and I prayed desperately that I would be able to win her back around. I hoped that seeing me face to face would be enough to have her convinced that I really was being honest, and that Hailey meant absolutely nothing to me.
Chapter 28
Danielle – Tuesday
It really sucked that I had no one to talk to about my issues with Miles, which meant that it was all stewing around and around in my mind. I wanted to call Cynthia and go over it with her, but I didn’t want to bring back any memories of her and Marek, and I was also pretty sure that Kim had a stocked up schedule, so I didn’t want to interrupt her either.
Instead, I decided to try and be productive, so that I could get my frustration out in a positive way. The only job that I really needed to do was all of my laundry and packing, which was actually a little sad because it reminded me even more clearly that my date for going back to college was rapidly arriving, and that there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to slow that time down.
As I filled up my suitcases, I separated out my new,wintry clothing that I’d brought when I arrived here, feeling a little gutted that I wasn’t going to need it any more – not until I visited home again, anyway. I had just adjusted to the sweaters and the jeans, so it was going to be strange to see myself in summer dresses once more.
As I filled up the wardrobe, I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to actually live there full time, to suffer through the cold, and the snow. It wasn’t such a terrifying thought after all; it certainly wasn’t as scary as it had once been, but that didn’t change anything. I couldn’t get excited for something that wasn’t going to happen for at least a year and a half, so I might as well shut that down right away.
However hard that felt.
“Danielle,” my mom yelled up the stairs. “Would you like some lunch?”
To be perfectly honest, we hadn't hung out just the two of us since I’d arrived home for the holidays, and I hadn't actually seen her at all since my awful time at the hospital with dad, so I felt like a lunch and some one on one time might do us some good.
“Thanks,mom, that sounds nice,” I yelled back to her, feeling my spirits lift a little bit. Okay so she wasn’t exactly the person I could confide in when it came to my life problems, but it would be nice to have another human to communicate with.
I banged down the stairs rapidly to see that my mom had prepared us a whole range of sandwiches. “Oh, wow, this looks lovely,” I grinned at her. “Thanks.”
As we sat down at the table, I instantly spotted a glint in her eye, one that suggested she was about to grill me. I felt a cold sense of doom, instantly realizing my mistake – I got sucked in when I really shouldn’t have.
“So, you didn’t enjoy your time at the hospital, huh?” she asked, but the weird thing was that she actually s
ounded calm, and like she wanted to hear me out. “It didn’t change your mind?”
“No, it really didn’t,mom. I just don’t see that ever being my life.” I figured that I might as well be brutally honest, now that the truth was out there. “I really love teaching; it genuinely makes me happy.”
“I know,” she surprised me by saying. “I can see that. You’ve stood your ground for so long now that it has to be important to you.”
“It is!” I replied, my body filling up with relief. “It really is.”
“We just worry about you, sweetie,” mom stroked my arm, making my heart swell with emotion. Was she really being honest? Did she really mean it? Was the whole black sheep thing a construct of my mind? “Teachers don’t make a lot of money, and we worry about your future.How will you buy a house? How will you be able to raise a family? How will you afford to pay your bills? Your sister struggles with all those things, and she is a doctor.”
“Mom,” I told her seriously. “I appreciate your care, but I don’t need you to panic. Teaching might not pay as much, but that doesn’t matter to me. I’ll figure it out, honestly.” But the look she gave me showed me that she wasn’t quite convinced, so I decided to make a joke of the whole thing. “Anyway, I’m going to be married to a famous hockey player soon enough…didn’t you know?”
I started laughing, but mom didn’t join in. Instead, she continued to stare at me with worry in her eyes. “I really wouldn’t get your hopes up too high with that boy,” she warned me. “I don’t want you to end up with your heart broken.”
I resisted the urge to tell her that she wasn’t around the last time I got hurt because she was still mad at me for choosing the wrong course in her eyes. “I’ll be fine,mom, I know what I’m doing – I’ll be back in California soon and all of this will be over. I was only joking.”
“Okay,” she smiled at me, sadness filling her gaze. “I was only worried because I saw some news thing about him with another girl, and I never want you to be cheated on.”