It was only after I listened to the next voicemail that I finally understood. “Hello, this is Richard Sieber from the office of Dr. Martin Cline calling to speak to Charlotte Richmond. Ms. Richmond, we received e-mail confirmation from one of your mentors that you would like to interview for an intern position with Dr. Cline. Your response is later than we would have liked, but Dr. Mitsos has assured us that you would be a wonderful candidate for the position. If you could please return my call by the end of the day, I will gladly walk you through the next steps in your application and interview process.”
I stared at the phone in horror. What did I do? The last voicemail flashed up at me, and my stomach sank. I drunkenly e-mailed Dr. Mitsos confirming my interest in the internship program at Miami University. I drunkenly called my best friend and rambled about an archaeology assignment. God only knows what I drunkenly asked Juliana Richmond for.
“Charlotte.” I could practically feel her disapproval vibrating through my skull. “This is your grandmother, Juliana. I regret to inform you of this over the phone.” Oh god, I asked her for the money to support myself through a year-long unpaid internship, didn’t I? “But your Great Aunt Enid has passed. Please call me back once you have received this message.”
My hands shook as I returned my grandmother’s call. I listened, numb from the news. Enid suffered from a fatal stroke earlier in the week. When no one arrived at the coroner’s office to claim the body, the state began to dig into her affairs. It was her attorney who revealed that Enid Wallander had a great niece that was named the sole beneficiary to her modest estate. I was expected in Oxford later that afternoon to meet with the county coroner, the estate attorney, and the director of the small funeral home that my grandparents had already hand-picked for me.
I sank to the floor by my bookshelf as the phone toppled from my hand. My grandmother arranged a flight from Charleston International for that afternoon, and I desperately needed to pack for the unexpected trip home. Numbness started to give way to an odd brand of grief and guilt, and I hated myself a little for the lump that formed in my throat and the tears that welled behind my eyes. How damaged was I to allow myself to feel even the tiniest iota of guilt over the fact that I hadn’t spoken to the woman in six years? She was never kind to me beyond giving me a place to live and encouraging me to get an education. Her words usually cut deep—she took every opportunity to tell me I was too plain, too fat, too stubborn—but there I sat, still grieving the one connection I had to my mother’s family.
Time passed by impossibly slowly as I pulled myself from the floor and packed all I could manage into a carry-on suitcase. The hard lump remained lodged stubbornly in my throat as I locked my front door behind me. Unshed tears prickled my eyes uncomfortably as I crossed the hallway and knocked on Nate’s door, hoping to avoid ridiculous parking fees with a free ride to the airport from the one person that knew me well enough to give me a wide berth that week.
“Hey, Charlie! I was wondering when you would come—” he started as he pulled his door open with a wide smile. The smile dropped and his words faded when he caught sight of the suitcase sitting at my feet. “What’s going on?”
“Can you give me a ride to the airport?” I asked, my voice wavering around the damn lump in my throat. Why wouldn’t it just go away? I leaned my head back and urged the tears to stay welled behind their hazel dam.
“Yeah, of course! I just need to grab my keys and wallet…” His words trailed off uncertainly. His smooth fingers gripped my chin and lowered my face until we were eye-to-eye. I sucked in a deep gasp of air and swallowed my tears. “Charlie, are you okay? What happened?”
I shrugged and cursed myself as a tear finally slipped past my iron defenses. So much for not crying today. “My aunt died.”
“Oh shit, girlie,” he said. He pulled me into a hug as I sniffled, angry at myself.
Nate eventually released me from his grasp. No words passed between us as he helped me load my suitcase into his trunk. The ride to the airport was awkward in a way that suggested he wanted to comfort me but wasn’t sure how to begin. Truth be told, he was probably as confused as I was that I didn’t burst into a chorus of “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead” at the news. I wouldn’t have known what to say to me either.
Nate placed the car in park in the departures lane and turned toward me with a look of determination crossing his handsome face. I spoke before he could, cutting his unnecessary platitudes short. “There’s a job.”
“What?”
“An internship, actually,” I said, turning toward him with a half-hearted shrug. “It’s at the university in my hometown. I hadn’t actually planned to pursue it, but after everything that’s happened…”
“What are you saying?”
I closed my eyes and sighed. When I looked at him again, it was to see the faintest flash of hurt in his eyes. He ran a golden hand through his hair, and I didn’t miss the slight shake there. “I’m planning on interviewing for the internship while I’m home. If I get it, I’m taking it.”
“Is this because of Devon?”
I wanted to scoff. Instead, I found myself twisting my hands in my lap as I pondered my answer.
“Enid didn’t have much, but what she had she left to me. This internship could change my life; and now that I know I can go home and not have the stress of seeing her looming over my head, I want to do it. I want this more than anything right now.”
Nate took a deep breath; and when he spoke again, his tone was gentle. “You’ll do what you want to do, Charlie—I have no doubt about that. You’ve always been independent. Lindsey and I, we’ll always love you. You’re our girl, and our friendship is too tough to be broken by distance. But this is what I want you to think about: this thing with Devon; it’s tenuous, but it’s pretty clearly there. I don’t know that this would have hurt you so badly if there wasn’t a part of you that didn’t love him, even just a little.”
Words failed me. Did Devon’s actions hurt me? Yes, of course. Only a woman with a heart of stone wouldn’t have been hurt by what he did. Did he break my heart? A little, yeah. Had I fallen in love with the man? No. No way. My breath caught in my chest, and I fought back tears for what felt like the thousandth time in six days. For the love of all things good and hockey, I hadn’t actually fallen in love with him, had I?
Chapter 19
— D —
“You’re a real fucking asshole, you know that?” I grunted from the exertion of holding the larger man against the boards as I dug my stick into his back.
“Fuck you, Cote,” Tremblay spat as he pushed back against the stick that was caging him in against the plexiglass that lined the practice rink. I shoved him forward roughly, and his helmet smacked against the glass with a loud bang. Shouts from the coaches and our teammates sounded from around the rink when it became evident that our scuffle had roots that went deeper than the game. He grunted as I threw my bulk against him.
“Cote, let up, man!” A voice rang in my ear as several pairs of hands grabbed at my jersey and pushed in between us. Enough space was cleared between our heaving bodies for Tremblay to turn toward me with a nasty sneer.
“I did you a fucking favor, Cote,” he spat as he tossed his stick to the side. My own stick went flying from my hands as I tried unsuccessfully to skate forward. Rage, red and hot, boiled through my blood, and I bared my teeth to the man.
Tension was running high in our apartment over the past week, but Cam was doing everything he could to keep the two us separated. When it came to the game, Tremblay and I were on different lines, so we weren’t usually on the ice at the same time. During skates, games, and practices there was always a bench full of equally bulky hockey players separating us. It changed that afternoon when Coach decided we would scrimmage to prep us for our first playoff game against the Solar Bears that weekend.
We weren’t supposed to check each other. The scrimmage wasn’t supposed to be physical at all. But Tremblay and I were on opposite teams for the
scrimmage, and the asshole made one too many comments about the relief of being “free from the weight of commitment.” His emphasis was always on the word weight, and the comment was always made with a pointed look in my direction. I saw red.
“No one wants to be tied down to a girl like that, Cote. How badly did it hurt when she rode you?” He guffawed loudly at his crude comment before continuing. “Or were you too afraid to let her?”
An animalistic snarl tore from my lips as I pulled free from the men that were slowly pulling me across the rink from him. My gloves flew from my hands as I charged forward, my skates covering the distance too quickly for any of my teammates to react. Tremblay’s gloves joined mine on the ice, and we were all over each other. The need to make the other man suffer was a deep, carnal type of thing, and I let it lead my fists. I couldn’t be sure whose helmet was torn off first, but the feeling of bare knuckles on flesh was satisfying, even if he was landing heavy-handed punches of his own.
The fight only lasted a few minutes, but the damage was done. Tremblay’s left eye was swollen shut and his lip was split. Physically, I was fine, but Coach slapped me with a suspension for instigating the fight. I’d been pissed off before the fight, but the suspension only incensed my anger further.
I cursed as I threw my bag into the back seat of my car. I dropped into the seat and sighed as I closed my eyes. Exactly nine days had passed since I was pushed roughly from Charlie’s apartment and been told not to return. Exactly ten days had passed since I was able to hold the woman in my arms. I wasn’t sure how many days it had been since I realized I was entirely, hopelessly in love with her. I started the car and pulled away from the coliseum.
My hands gripped the steering wheel tightly as I turned my car in the direction of Charlie’s apartment complex. Nine days had passed with her not responding to my texts or calls. I wouldn’t disagree that what I did was wrong. Explaining the logic behind making the bet with Tremblay would be hard, and my words would probably never be enough. But she at least owed me the chance to fucking try. My feelings were real and had been since day one. Surely she could remember how right our bodies felt when they finally connected?
Nine days had passed, and the desperate way my heart pounded against my ribcage wasn’t going away at all. I took the stairs two at a time when I got to her building. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to say to make her understand, and I couldn’t even begin to fathom how I was going to convince her to forgive me. All I knew at that point was that I was going to make her actually fucking listen to me.
My fist banged against her door, matching the erratic rhythm of my still-pounding heartbeat in my chest. My patience wore thin, and my fist pounded even harder against the door. It was well past the time she should have been home from work. My logic was probably flawed, but all I could think was that she couldn’t ignore me if I made a scene.
“C’mon, Charlie,” I bellowed through the door. “Open the door. I know you’re pissed, but this can’t be the end! Please just talk to me.”
“Devon,” a soft voice called from behind me, and my stomach lurched. I turned, desperate to finally see her after nearly two weeks, only to have my heart crash around my feet at the site of Lindsey and Nate standing in the doorway of the apartment across the breezeway. My stomach sank at the looks mixed of fury and pity that I was receiving from the two people in the world that loved her nearly as much as I did.
“Listen, I know you’re both probably really fucking pissed off at me,” I started in a rush before either of them could speak. If anyone could convince Charlie to at least hear me it out, it was one or both of them. “And I get it; I really do. I deserve every bit of your anger, and I might even deserve every bit of her hatred. But it wasn’t supposed to happen like this. I can’t explain it. She hasn’t talked to me in nine days, and it has been nine days of absolute misery. I know I fucked up, but there’s a goddamn hole in my chest where she should be, and it’s killing me. I know I hurt her, and I know I don’t deserve it, but I just need one chance to talk to her, to make her see that what we have—it’s real—and it cannot fucking end like this.”
Something subtle in their demeanor changed as I ranted like a madman. Lindsey stepped forward. She placed a hand on my arm and squeezed gently. “She’s not here, Devon,” she said. There was a soft quality to her voice that I had never heard nor would have expected from her. “She’s in Ohio. Her aunt died.”
I was torn between hurting for Charlie and being really pissed off at her. If she would have just told me what happened, I would’ve given her the space she needed. Instead, I’d blown up her phone with calls and texts when she was dealing with the stress of burying a family member that emotionally abused her for years.
An impatient kind of anger kindled within me. Why did she have to be so goddamn stubborn and independent? Why couldn’t she ever just ask for support when she clearly needed it? Probably because she’s had a long line of assholes like you breaking her trust. The realization pulled me up short.
“Is she okay? When’s she coming back?”
My world started to crack just a little when Lindsey clutched onto Nate with a sob. A somber look crossed the man’s face. “We just talked to her a little while ago. She isn’t coming home.”
I stumbled backward slightly and braced myself against the wall as I stared at her friends in shock. The crack deepened as Lindsey continued to sob in Nate’s arms, and I felt my entire world crumbling down around me.
“What?” I managed to choke out. Surely Nate was fucking with me, digging at me in an attempt to make me feel the way I made Charlie feel. Lindsey’s reaction told me my thought was irrational, but I couldn’t accept that this was how this entire thing was ending.
“She was recruited for an internship back in Oxford,” Nate explained as his eyes hardened toward me again. All of the compassion from a few moments before dissipated quickly. “She was going to turn it down because of you and because she couldn’t afford to work for a year unpaid. But her great aunt left her enough to cover the expense, and we clearly see how things have progressed with you.”
My body shook and my heart stuttered irregularly in my chest. Charlie chose to run. She freely abandoned her relationship with the two best friends she told me she had ever had. My part wasn’t insignificant. I was the catalyst to her fleeing.
I cradled my head in my hands and tried to breathe. The part of me that was falling apart outside of her apartment wasn’t sure that I could ever make this right. But quitting wasn’t in my nature, and I knew I could never live myself if I didn’t at least try.
“I need her address,” I said, determined and sick to my stomach all at once.
If moving back to Ohio was what she really needed, fine. But she didn’t get to do it without knowing how I felt. She owed both of us that closure at least.
“Don’t you think you’ve done enough?” Nate asked.
I ran my hand through my hair with a groan. As her best friends, they deserved an explanation for my choices, but they didn’t deserve it before she did. I closed my eyes as my fists clenched and unclenched at my side. How could I possibly get them on my side?
“Devon,” Lindsey’s whisper pulled my attention away from my thoughts. She was wiping away a trail of mascara with shaking hands. “She’ll never forgive you.”
“I have to try, Lindsey.”
“You hurt more than just her pride, you know that right?” Nate butted in, and I nodded along resolutely.
“I know I hurt you guys in the process, too, but I need you to trust that I didn’t mean for any of this to happen this way.”
“Yeah,” he said with a resigned sigh. He ran a hand down his face, marring his golden features as he grimaced. “What I meant is that while yes, you did hurt her pride, the part of her that you hurt the most was her heart.”
“Nate!” Lindsey admonished with a glare.
Nate rolled his eyes with a huff. “You know what, Lindsey? We’re not innocent in all of this. We’r
e the ones that pushed her at Sean so much in the beginning, and we never stopped to even consider her feelings. That makes us assholes, too.”
“But to insinuate that she loves him,” the fiery redhead screeched as she threw her arms in the air.
My heart thudded almost painfully in my chest. “You weren’t there at the airport, Lindsey. The way she’s hurting right now? The only logical explanation is that she’s in love with him.”
“Oh, or I don’t know… maybe she’s so hurt because she found out her boyfriend had been fucking lying to her the entire time they were together!”
Nate’s mouth opened to argue back, but I cut the bickering pair off. My heart pounded in my chest, but the pressure was different from a few seconds before. If what Nate said was true… Maybe I could fix this. There was a nauseous feeling in my stomach could’ve been easily attributed to nerves—but I couldn’t pinpoint if the nerves were from saying the words aloud for the first time or from the fear that the pair might try to tag-team kick my ass once I uttered them. Either way, they couldn’t live within me any longer.
“I didn’t sleep with Charlie because I thought he was going the win bet. I slept with her because I fell in love with her. I know that I don’t deserve to say that to her, but I’d really like to opportunity to try.”
Chapter 20
— C —
Shifting through Enid’s belongings was far more time consuming—and enlightening—than I could have ever imagined. I wouldn’t have called the woman anything other than meticulously clean while growing up. Her death granted me another perspective. On the outside, everything seemed to have a place—the house was neat and organized. It was only when you started to dig that you realized the woman kept everything.
I found a large bible with my mother’s entire family tree inked meticulously onto the first few pages. I found a box with newspaper clippings of family births, marriages, and deaths dating as far back as 1981. A bankers’ box with my name scrawled across it revealed an old copy of my birth certificate, my baby photos from the hospital, the paperwork granting Enid legal guardianship over me, and every single report card, paper, drawing or project I ever brought home from school. The cap and gown I left crumpled on my bed the day I left had been ironed and folded before being placed carefully at the top of the unintentional time capsule.
Breakaway: A Hockey Romance Page 20