by Abby Burch
We head into the house. I leave my gear bag in the foyer and grab us each a bottle of water from the refrigerator. Then I take Brenna by the hand and lead her to one of the spare bedrooms, where boxes are stacked everywhere, still waiting to be unpacked.
We settle on the plush carpet in the middle of the room and I open one of the boxes. I know that at the top of this box is a photo of Sam and me. It's one of my most prized possessions.
“I have a confession,” she says. I pause, hand still in the box. “The photo you're about to show me... I've already seen it.” She squirms and sighs. “I was poking around your house one day and found it. But I trusted that one day you'd explain it to me, so I never asked. I'm sorry for not telling you before now.”
I could choose to be angry, but I don’t. Instead, I give the photo to her, placing it gently in her delicate hands. “I appreciate your honesty. There's a lot we weren't ready to share with each other, but now it's time.”
We both look down at the photo of two smiling Canadian boys, both innocent and full of life. It feels like a lifetime ago. “This is my older brother, Sam. Skating came as naturally as breathing to him. He loved monster trucks, and pistachio ice cream, but most of all he loved the sport of hockey. He was my best friend and my hero.”
“You look so much like him,” she muses, smiling softly. “You must have been devastated when...”
“Yeah,” is all I can say. We sit quietly for a moment, both lost in our thoughts. “Sam would have been the next Gretzky, I'm sure of it. He was amazing.” I reach back into the box and, after a bit of digging, pull out another photo. I hand it to Brenna and she breathes in sharply. “This was my mother, Daisy.”
“And I thought you and Sam looked a lot alike. You are the spitting image of your mom.” Her hair is in those crazy late-eighties curls and I'm pretty sure she's wearing a windbreaker, but no other photo captures my mother so perfectly. My father is behind her, his arms wrapped around her waist, and their smiles radiate straight off the paper. She looks so peaceful, so free.
“My childhood was normal and wonderful. My parents were crazy about each other, Sam and I were fed and cared for and loved. My dad pushed Sam and I a little hard at times, but he knew we had the potential to make it big and I believe he had our best interests at heart. But when Sam died... everything changed.”
I pull another photo out of the box. “This is the last photo I have of my mom. After Sam died, she completely withdrew from the world. She wouldn't come out of the bedroom, wouldn't eat, couldn't sleep... she was completely different.”
We both look down at the photo in my hands. My once beautiful mother is a stranger, her entire body emaciated, nothing left but hollow cheeks and vacant eyes. She’s at the window seat in her bedroom, head resting against the glass overlooking the lake where she lost her oldest son. I stole the moment in secret, capturing the photo before saying goodbye to her for what would, unbeknownst to either of us, end up being the last time.
“My father became... a monster. He went from being the kind of dad who would take a day off work just to go fishing with you, into one that never laughed or smiled or even said he was proud of me anymore. His training practices probably bordered on torture, but who was I to say? I was just a twelve year old kid who lost his best friend and both parents at the same time. So I pushed myself to be as good as Sam – to be the player he wasn't able to be. I was drafted, and left Toronto for Philadelphia. And I never looked back.”
Brenna rests her hand on my knee.
“A couple years later, Mom died of a heart attack. At least, that’s what it says on paper. But I truly believe she slowly died, over the course of several years, from a broken heart.” I exhale through my nose, quelling the emotion threatening to bubble out of me. “I should have been there for her more, but I didn't know how. I don't know if it would have done any good or not, but I regret leaving her there with my father.”
“You handled your grief, and her grief, and your father's grief as best as you could,” Brenna says. She moves her hand from my knee and finds my hand instead, giving it a light squeeze. “You're only one person, Ryan. And one person can't save everyone, no matter how hard they try. You did what you needed to do to grow and heal and become the amazing person you are today. You have survived each and every attempt by your father to cut you down and destroy you, and yet you've also handled interactions with him with dignity and a grace that he hasn't earned yet you freely give. And you know what? I'm positive that your mom and Sam are both looking down on you and they're so proud of you and all that you've accomplished in life.”
I don't know when they started, but a couple tears slide down my cheeks. “Thank you. You're too good to me.”
“I could say the same for you.” She absently brushes the pad of her thumb across the back of my hand. “Thank you for sharing that with me. A lot of things make a lot more sense now - like why you were so messed up when your dad came to town.”
“Thankfully, he only drops by once a year, which is one time too many,” I say gruffly. “He’s such an asshole, but he’s still my father, you know? I try to keep myself in that happy medium of caring about him as my father but keeping enough distance for my own health and safety, but it isn’t easy. I’ve taken a lot of shit over the years from friends and family who think that me cutting him out of my life is selfish and wrong. I had to cut those people out of my life, too.”
“Only you can know what’s best for you,” she says thoughtfully. “I think it’s brave to make a decision like that, even when it’s in your best interest.
I feel my cheeks warm. “Thank you.” We stare at each other. She leans in, close, her breath a whisper on my cheek. Neither of us move, uncertain of what to do next.
“So... what does this mean for us?” she finally asks.
“I’m not going to sugarcoat anything,” I tell her. “I’ve missed you, Brenna. So fucking much. But I think you already know that.”
She squirms a bit. “I figured, but once you stopped trying to contact me… I wasn’t sure… if maybe you’d changed your mind, moved on from me.”
It kills me that she would think I could move on from her so fast. “There hasn’t been anyone else. Even after our game in Edmonton when a couple of the guys tried to hook me up with a puck bunny.” Her eyes widen and I quickly continue before she can jump to conclusions. “That night I locked myself in the hotel room and did nothing but think about you. I can’t even try to picture myself with another woman because every time I close my eyes, all I see is you. Every time I breathe, all I can smell is you. It has taken everything within me to not contact you at all for these past few weeks. I didn’t move on because I can’t just go and move on from you.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. “I love you.”
Everything stops as what I’ve said processes for both of us. I’ve filleted my heart and laid it out onto a platter for this girl. I’m scared shitless waiting for her to say something.
Thankfully, her cheeks flush as a smile spreads across her face. “I love you too.”
Our lips meet, and I know I've found peace... happiness... home.
Epilogue
“That’s the last of it,” John says, closing the front door behind us. I trudge across the snowy sidewalk to my car, squeezing the box in my arms into the backseat with the others before shutting the door. I turn to look back at the house I’ve lived in with Carly for the last several years and shiver in the winter air. Carly and John are looking at the house as well as we all lose ourselves in a few moments of memories shared in this place.
“So this is it,” Carly finally says.
“This is it,” I echo.
We hug each other as tightly as two girls in giant poofy winter coats are able. Their wedding is only a month away, and Ryan closed on his house this week, so it made sense for us to both move out now rather than wait any longer.
“I’ll call you every day,” I tell her earnestly.
“Of course you will, s
illy,” she says with a grin. “Or else we’d both go crazy.”
I give John a hug. “Take care of my girl, okay?”
“Always,” he replies.
We say our goodbyes and I hop into my car. With one last glance at the tiny dump I’ve called home for the past few years, I drive away and head toward Ryan’s new house in the suburbs.
The last several months have been wonderful. One of the first things Ryan did after we reconciled was to hire a lawyer for me to get a restraining order against Ashton. I didn’t want to believe it was necessary, but Jane agreed that separating ourselves from him as much as possible would be best. Not that I’d ever go back to him. I’ve loved and nearly lost it all because of Ashton. I won’t make that same mistake again.
My father reached out to me around Christmastime to try to make amends. With guidance from Jane and lots of support from Ryan, my dad and I have been having weekly phone calls and are slowly rebuilding our relationship. I’m still not ready to talk to his wife or my step-sister, and that’s okay. I know it will take time, and I’m in no rush.
Ryan has been completely killing it on the ice. He’s been having his best season in several years. Playing on the first line with his friend Nils and Morgan’s brother Patrick seems to work well for him, and I now know what the term “first line” even means. Between Ryan, Carly, and Morgan, I’m turning into quite the hockey buff.
Ryan took me on vacation to Cabo during the All-Star break last month. Apparently every year each team gets a break built into their schedule as sort of a mid-season vacation. I spent so much time on the beach and got insanely sunburnt, and it was wonderful. Of course, a ton of photos of Ryan and I ended up on the blog sites, but most of them have finally stopped calling me a bunny and now refer to me as Ryan’s girlfriend instead.
Ashton did a lot of damage to me that has been difficult to unravel, much like the pain Ryan’s father caused him has been something we’ve had to work through as well. However, we’ve been growing closer to each other, and I feel myself healing, slowly but surely. When Ryan looks at me, it’s as if I’m the only girl in the entire city. He works very hard to show me he loves me in every way possible, and his patience in the difficult times has been a blessing.
In addition to asking me to move in with him, Ryan also went behind my back and paid off all of my credit cards and student loans. I didn’t know he did it until I went to pay one of them and the company told me I had a zero balance on my account.
At first, I was livid - how dare he pity me and secretly throw money my way? And then I realized what a blessing it was - because I was starting to receive default notices on all of them. He told me that he did it because he knew I was killing myself trying to stay afloat, and he hated to see me suffer so much over something he could change so easily.
With the debts gone, I was finally able to stop taking on so many side-jobs at my normal job and focus more on the quality of my work. Of course, now Ryan knows to ask me before he does something ridiculous and crazy like that again, but he also knows what an incredible gift he gave me with that simple - to him - act of generosity.
I’m so incredibly thankful that I have him in my life.
I pull into my parking spot in the garage of the mansion Ryan purchased. Okay, so maybe mansion is a stretch, but it’s certainly bigger than one person could ever need. I grab one of the boxes out of the backseat and head inside.
“Honey, I’m home!” I call out in as sing-songish of a voice as I can muster before bursting into giggles. My voice echoes through the front half of the house and is met with silence. I set the box down on the kitchen counter and kick the shut the door behind me as I take off my gloves and coat. “Ryan?”
He’s supposed to be here, unpacking. I trek through the kitchen and round the corner to the living room where I am met with a hundred white balloons floating around the room. Ryan is standing in the middle of it all and, as soon as I walk in, he drops to one knee. I feel my breath catch in my throat.
“Brenna Lynn Wilson, will you move in with me?” he asks me, opening a ring box to reveal a key to the house perched inside of it. I exhale the breath I was holding and laugh.
“Ryan! I already agreed to move in with you, you dork.”
“Oh, yeah,” he says, scratching his head with his free hand. Then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a ring. My heart stops. “I guess that just leaves this other question I had: Brenna Lynn Wilson, will you marry me?”
“Yes,” I say, the words strangled in a sob as my eyes fill with tears. I rush to Ryan and he captures me in a hug, spinning me in a circle around the room. “Of course I’ll marry you.”
“I love you so fucking much,” Ryan says in my ear.
“I love you too,” I say through happy tears. He finally releases me, grabbing my hand and sliding the ring onto my finger. The center stone is a large, pale blue aquamarine, the exact same color as Ryan’s eyes, surrounded by tiny white diamonds.
“Ryan, this ring is so beautiful,” I say breathlessly.
“Do you like it?” he asks, his tone giddy. “I had it custom made just for you. I hoped it wasn’t too much.”
I stare at the ring gracing my hand and smile. “It’s perfect.”
I may never in a thousand years feel like I deserve this man and the life we are building together, but he chose me, and he chooses me over and over, every single day. And of course, I choose him.
Overcome with emotion, I impulsively pull my shirt up and over my head, throwing it to the floor. My eyes find Ryan’s, searching their crystalline depths, as I place his hands on my bare skin. He watches me carefully, a smile tugging at the edges of his lips.
In the lowest, quietest, most husky voice I can muster, I beg him, “Please, fuck me.”
I don’t have to tell him twice.
Thanks
To my husband Allen, for introducing me to hockey in the first place, and for being supportive of this crazy little adventure (and all the other crazy little adventures both past and future). I love you.
To Jessica, Morgan, Elizabeth, Sandra, Lara, Katherine, Taylor, Adrienne, Kat, Lauren, Melinda, Jami, Lona, Jonathan, and anyone else who listened to me talk about this book, let me bounce ideas off of them, proofread early manuscripts, or encouraged me not to give up writing it. I couldn’t have done it without you all!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Abby Burch had never even seen an NHL game until the Red Wings were in the Stanley Cup Playoffs in 2013. Even though they were eliminated in the Semifinals, Abby was hooked. She attended her first game for her birthday in the 2013-2014 season.
When she isn’t cheering for the Red Wings or Golden Knights, Abby enjoys running her wedding photography business, traveling, watching videos of other people playing video games, running in 5K races, and being an advocate for type 1 diabetes awareness, a condition which she was diagnosed with in 2012.
You can find more of Abby at her diabetes blog, photograbetic.wordpress.com, and on her wedding photography website, lewayneproductions.com.