Off-Ice Collision: Chapter 24

Lying in my bed, I stare up blankly at the white ceiling above me. I’ve been laying here for some time and watched the sky change from the darkness of the night to the blue hues of the early morning. I didn’t see Vaughn at all yesterday after we parted from our boating trip. He was clearly bothered by seeing some of the guys he used to play hockey with, but there was a part of me that thought maybe I would hear from him.

There was radio silence all night. At one point, well after midnight, I caved and sent him a text message. I shouldn’t have, but I wanted him to know that I was thinking of him. It went unanswered.

Rolling onto my side, I grab my phone from the nightstand and turn on the screen. There’s a message from Emery, but nothing from Vaughn.

Hey girl. You’re still coming shopping with me today, right?

I groan and close my eyes momentarily before typing a response to her. I forgot that when she was last over, she asked me to go shopping. She and her parents are going on a two-week trip to Bora Bora and she wanted to get some new clothes.

Sure. What time?

I don’t really want to go with her, but I can’t just stay here all day long, obsessing over the moody, broody guy from next door. Vaughn made it clear he doesn’t want to talk to me right now, and I have no choice but to respect that and hope he would change his mind.

I’ll be over to pick you up around 11.

I glance at the time and notice that I have two hours to get ready. After sending her a smiley face emoji, I finally climb out of bed and grab some fresh clothes before disappearing into my bathroom to get a shower.

After getting showered and dressed, I pull my hair back in a French braid. It would take too long to blow-dry it and I need to get something to eat before I go out. As I step into the kitchen, I see Maverick sitting at the island with a bowl of oatmeal and some fruit.

I raise an eyebrow at him. “Did you realize that you don’t get the nutrients you need from all the booze you’ve been consuming?”

Mav gives me the middle finger. “Don’t read too much into it. I just decided to go for some healthier choices for breakfast. It is the most important meal of the day, after all.”

“Whatever you say,” I singsong as I grab a banana and a bottle of water. “What are your plans for today?”

Mav shrugs and swallows a mouthful of food. “Mom wanted me to help her with something with the pool. I don’t know, I forget. I think I might meet up with Hudson and Ridge later.”

“No Nico?” I ask him as I check the time on my phone and see a message from Emery letting me know she’s leaving her house now.

“Nah,” Maverick says before he takes a sip of his coffee. “He had to head out for some hockey shit. I’m thinking we probably won’t see much of him now that he’s going to be playing professionally.” My brother pauses and raises his eyebrow as he notices that I’m dressed to go out. “Where are you going?”

“Em wants me to go shopping with her before they leave for Bora Bora.”

“Lucky,” he rolls his eyes. “They always go on the cool trips.”

“Don’t act like you aren’t privileged and haven’t been to some places that most people will never see in their lives,” I remind him, a little irritated with his attitude. Maverick and I have both lived a very fortunate life with our parents, and sometimes he acts like an ungrateful dick about it.

“Yeah, I know,” he sighs and hangs his head slightly. “I just feel like it’s been a while since we’ve done something like that.”

My eyebrows pull together. “Since when do you want to do shit as a family?”

Maverick shrugs. “I don’t know. My life has been fucking weird lately. Sometimes I just miss being a kid and the things we did then. It was a much simpler time.”

“Isn’t that the truth…” I agree with him as I glance out the back door to the lake. My mind begins to drift back to thoughts of Vaughn, until I hear Emery beep the horn to her car out front. “Gotta go. I’ll catch you later?”

“Sure,” Mav says, his voice somber. “I’ll be around. Tell Em I said what’s up.”

I nod and leave my brother with his sobering thoughts at the kitchen island as I head to the front of the house and slip out through the door. Emery is sitting in her black Benz with the windows down and her music loud as she waits for me. She glances over, her eyes covered with her sunglasses as she waves to me and bobs along to the music.

A laugh slips from my lips and I walk down the steps and into the driveway. Just as I’m reaching the passenger-side door, I see an unfamiliar car pulling into the Carters’ driveway. I pause with the door half open as I watch from where I’m standing.

There’s a girl with chestnut-colored hair sitting behind the steering wheel, but I can’t make out her face. My eyes widen and my bottom jaw all but falls onto the ground as I watch Vaughn climb out of the passenger’s side. He’s wearing the same outfit he had on yesterday and my stomach fucking sinks.

Nausea rolls in the pit of my stomach and the bile begins to rise up my throat. My mind barely register’s Emery’s voice as she tells me to get in the car. It’s like watching a train wreck, and I can’t tear my eyes away from Vaughn as he flashes a smile and a wave to the girl in the blue car before he begins to walk to his front door.

My body moves without my command and I drop down into the front seat of Emery’s car. I’m still staring straight ahead, my eyes wide and my mouth hanging open. Emery grabs my shoulder and gives me a swift shake. It feels as if my head could detach from my body and roll onto the floor. Even if it did, I don’t think I would care.

“London. What the hell is wrong?” Emery demands.

I silently stare at her and lift my hand to point over to Vaughn’s driveway. I watch Emery’s face transform from confusion to anger as she sees the girl pulling her car away from the house as Vaughn walks through the front door.

“What. The. Actual. Fuck.” Emery looks back at me and there’s rage burning in her eyes. “I’m going over there to put my fist through his face.”

She goes to reach for the handle to her door and I quickly grab her arm, pulling her back. “Em, don’t. It’s not important, okay? He can do whatever he wants.”

She narrows her eyes at me as her lip curls up in disgust. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I don’t know,” I admit, my voice quiet as I don’t fully trust it right now. The pain tears through me and I can feel my heart splitting in two. “We never defined anything or even discussed other people. After what happened yesterday, I don’t even know if he wants to see me.”

“What do you mean? What happened?”

I tell her about our time on the boat and when we saw his old hockey friends. I tell her everything, not leaving out a single detail—how things went from being completely fine to him pushing me away and doing a complete one-eighty.

“Nope. Fuck that and fuck him. I don’t care if you guys defined anything or not. You don’t go and jump in bed with another girl because your past decides to come back and haunt you.” Emery puts her car in drive and whips it out of the driveway. “We’re going shopping and maybe we’ll go get drunk and you can find someone else’s bed to crawl into.”

I laugh softly, although it’s more forced than it is genuine. “You know I’m not like that, Em.”

Emery shrugs as she continues to speed down the road. “They say that one way to get over a guy is to get under another.”

“Yeah, I think I’d rather process it in a healthier way.”

“You do you, girl,” Emery smiles at me, although the rage is still burning in her eyes. If I wouldn’t have stopped her, she would have followed through on what her plans were. That’s the type of girl Emery is. She would have easily punched him in the face, defaced his Jet Ski, or burned his house down and walked away with a smile on her face.

It was hard to ignore the thoughts of Vaughn while I went shopping with Emery. My memory couldn’t even hold on to the hundreds of outfits that she tried on and what she actually bought or ended up putting back. She practically forced me to buy a new bathing suit, which I didn’t even care about.

The only thing I could think about was Vaughn. The scene from this morning replayed in my head over and over.

Perhaps I need to take a page from my brother’s book and chase my worries away with a bottle of alcohol.

Thankfully when I get home, the house is completely empty. My mother and father are out on a date and it doesn’t look like Maverick has made his way home yet. I wander through the silent house and head straight out the back door.

There’s something peaceful about the lake and it’s a place I like to go to clear my mind and my soul. I don’t bother changing out of my clothes and walk straight through the yard to the small beach area my parents had put in. I kick off my shoes and the sand seeps between my toes as I walk through it.

I walk directly into the water until the ground drops out and I’m left with no choice but to swim. Lifting my hands above my head, I dive in and the water slides across my skin as I go deeper and deeper. It gets colder the farther I go down. I stop kicking my feet and let my body float for a moment as I hold my breath.

My lungs grow tighter and my throat constricts as my body begins to crave the oxygen that it so desperately needs. I force myself to stay below the surface, testing my limits as I begin to grow light-headed. There’s a sense of peace that washes over me. A strange euphoria that mixes with the panic that fills me.

A few more seconds pass and it feels like an eternity before I begin to kick my feet again. My head breaks through the surface and my lungs burn as I inhale deeply. My heart pounds erratically in my chest and I finally feed it the oxygen I just deprived myself of. I slowly spin around to face the house and I want nothing more than to sink to the fucking bottom when I see Vaughn standing knee deep in the water.

He’s the last person I want to see right now, but he makes no move from where he’s standing. His arms are crossed over his chest and his expression darkens as he glowers at me. The only way he’s going to leave is if I go to him because it doesn’t look like he’s coming out to me.

A sigh slips past my lips and the high I was riding from depriving my brain of oxygen suddenly leaves me in a rush. So much for that. Now it’s back to reality and facing my problems…

I kick my feet and move my arms as I swim toward the shore. Vaughn is still glaring at me, staring me down as I begin to walk toward him.

“What the fuck was that?” he snaps at me. “Are you trying to drown yourself?”

I stop directly in front of him, fully dressed in my soaking wet clothing as I cross my arms over my chest defensively. “Does that really concern you?”

He stares at me, his eyes dropping down to my feet before he drags his gaze back up to my face. “Why are you wearing your clothes?”

“Like I said, does any of this really concern you?”

“Fuck yes it does,” he snaps again. There’s a storm brewing in his eyes. “Who the fuck walks out into the lake with their clothes on, goes under the surface for who knows how long, and then just pops up like it’s nothing?”

I cut my eyes to him. “Were you watching me?”

“Yes.” He answers me without hesitation and there’s no embarrassment in his expression. He just says it like that’s exactly what it is.

“Well, don’t do that anymore.”

A wave of pain washes over his eyes. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means exactly what I said. Don’t watch me, don’t worry about me. I’m no longer your concern. Until you can get your shit together and figure out what it is you want in life, I’m done.” My heart splits in two and the words taste bitter on my tongue. “I’m not going to be a little plaything for you to fuck when you’re in a good mood and then push away when your mind goes to those dark places.”

His jaw clenches and his expression grows even darker. “Don’t do this, London.”

“I saw you get out of her car this morning,” I admit, my voice barely audible. I hate myself in this moment as the tears prick at the corners of my eyes. “Who is she?”

Vaughn’s eyebrows tug together. “Charlotte? You know her. We all know her. She’s no one. I went to the bar last night and she was there.”

“Just fucking stop,” I choke out, my throat swelling shut with emotion. “I don’t want to hear the goddamn details. You were wearing the same clothes that you were wearing when you left me last night.”

“She was there on a date. I got shit-faced and they were going to give me a ride home, but I passed out in the back seat.” Vaughn blinks, his lips in a straight line. “Nothing happened with her, London. She dropped me off this morning while her fucking boyfriend was making her breakfast.”

“And I’m supposed to just believe you?”

Vaughn’s chest lifts as he inhales deeply and rakes his teeth over his bottom lip. “Why the fuck would I lie to you?”

I fall silent for a moment as my mind bounces back and forth like a goddamn ping-pong ball. He could very well be telling the truth, and he’s right—he has no reason to lie to me. But that doesn’t change anything else. He pushed me away and went out and got drunk then got dropped off by another girl this morning. Regardless of what happened, it doesn’t look good.

“You still could have called me or answered my text. I don’t think you slept with her, but why are you ruining your life like this? I thought you were getting over what happened in the past and moving on. This is like taking a leap backward. I was fucking worried about you. What if they wouldn’t have been there and you would have gotten behind the wheel and killed yourself or someone else?”

Vaughn’s jaw clenches. “This is what I do, London. I fucking ruin everything around me.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” I tell him, my voice catching in my throat. “I feel bad for you that you can’t see past your own shit. I won’t stand around and watch you spiral into self-destruction like this. When you decide to get your head out of your ass and get your shit together enough to face your problems like an adult, you know where to find me.”

A wave of emotions wash over his eyes but I can’t distinguish each of them separately. And just like that, it’s as if he turns it off completely. His eyes grow distant and there’s a coldness that rolls off of him, chilling me to the bone.

“If that’s what you want, London.” His voice is flat, his tone cold and calculated. It’s like anything he was feeling before is completely gone, leaving me with nothing but this shell of a person.

I want to scream into the void that he is. I want to reach deep inside him and pull out his goddamn soul. This isn’t my Vaughn. This is the exact person I know I can’t have in my life. My brother was fucking right…

“It is.”

His eyes are vacant but there’s something dark lingering in there. “Cool. I’ll see you around. Or maybe not,” he adds with a shrug.

Vaughn leaves me with that as he spins around and strides in the direction of his house. There’s so much determination behind the way he’s walking that his limp is barely noticeable. He leaves me standing in the lake as I bleed out into the water.

Even though I was the one who ended things between us, he was the one who ripped my heart to shreds.

I knew this would always happen… I just wasn’t expecting it to hurt this fucking badly.