Chapter 33: : Chapter 33

I love Jake’s apartment. It’s big, roomy, and always nice and toasty, not frostbite cold like my basement in Hastings. I know I can’t stay forever, but for now I’m enjoying being here. Being with him.

It sucks that some of my friends still aren’t speaking to me, but to be honest, I’m starting not to care. Jonah Hemley didn’t purposely set out to break Hunter’s wrist. I do believe it was an accident. And yes, it wasn’t Hunter’s fault—he had no idea that he’d slept with Jonah’s girlfriend. Violet, or whatever her name is, was the one pretending to be single while cheating on her boyfriend. But at the same time, she was Jonah’s girlfriend, and the kid was upset. Sure, he handled the situation poorly, but not maliciously.

Speaking of upset, my friends are undoubtedly feeling the sting tonight. The Division I Men’s Ice Hockey Committee made its selections—and Briar won’t be one of the sixteen teams playing in the national tournament. Harvard has their auto-bid because they won the conference tournament. And from our conference, Princeton and Cornell received at-large bids from the committee over Briar.

Right now, the talking heads on TV are picking apart the conference finals. I’d been scrolling through my phone while Jake watched the segment, but my head jerks up when Kip Haskins mentions a familiar name.

“Are they talking about Nate? Turn it up.”

Jake hits a button on the remote control. The volume gets louder.

“Briar University should’ve won that game,” Kip is telling his cohost.

I turn to Jake with a huge grin. “Hear that, Jakey? Even the talking heads agree.”

“Uh-huh, well, you didn’t win the game, now did you?”

“Hush, baby, I’m trying to watch.”

He snorts.

On the screen, Kip is raising very good points. “Their two best players were ejected. How in good conscience can you call that a fair matchup? That’s like the ’83-’84 season Oilers playing in the Stanley Cup finals without Wayne Gretzky and Paul Coffey.”

“Oh fuck off,” Jake scoffs. “There’s no way he’s comparing Hunter Davenport and Nate Rhodes to Gretzky and Coffey!”

“They are really good,” I point out.

Jake is agape. “Gretzky-level good?”

“Well, no,” I relent. “But nobody is.”

“I am,” he says smugly.

I roll my eyes, because I don’t want to encourage his grandiose delusions, but deep down I suspect he might be right. Aside from Garrett Graham, there haven’t been many players out of college lately with Gretzky potential. Jake is definitely an anomaly.

“Playing with the big boys is a lot different than college,” I warn him.

“Oh really, played on a lot of NHL teams, have ya?”

“Absolutely. I did a few seasons with New York—Islanders and Rangers. Two seasons with the Maple Leafs—”

“Oh shut up.” He pulls me into his lap and starts kissing my neck.

“I’m not done watching,” I protest. The announcers are still arguing, but now it’s even more hilarious, because Trevor Trent is basically saying the same thing as Kip Haskins. They’re now both in complete agreement that the Briar-Harvard game was unequivocally lopsided.

“See!” I say victoriously. “Even they know the truth! You can’t say you won that game.”

“Of course I can say we won the game.” He’s exasperated. “Because we won the game! Hello? Auto-bid?”

“Yes, but… Okay, I’m not going to argue about this,” I grumble. “Just know that if Hunter and Nate were skating that night, the outcome could’ve been a lot different.”

“That is true,” Jake agrees.

“I heard it was about a girl,” Trevor is saying, and the two HockeyNet hosts chuckle at each other, until Kip dons a thoughtful look.

“But that raises a good question,” Kip muses. “If you’re so immature that you’re swinging your fists over a girl during the most crucial game of your season—do you not deserve to get ejected?”

“Hunter didn’t get ejected!” I yell at the screen.

Trevor backs me up. “Davenport wasn’t ejected. He was injured. The instigator was Jonah Hemley.”

“And what’s Rhodes’s excuse?” Kip shoots back. “He’s the team captain. What’s he doing throwing himself in the middle of a brawl?”

“Damn right!” Jake chimes in. “Rhodes made his own bed.”

“You know these hockey players—they’re hot-blooded,” Trevor counters. “They operate on aggression and passion.”

Jake hoots. “You hear that, Hottie? I’m aggressive and passionate.”

“I am so turned on right now.”

“Good. Get on your knees and suck me off. See how aggressive and passionate I am?”

I punch him in the arm. “That is so unappealing to me.”

“Fine, then spread your legs so I could eat you out.”

“I’ll think about that one.”

He grins at me. “Keep me posted.”

The lighthearted mood dies when the hosts bring up the topic of my father. “Jensen had a great season,” Trevor says. “Shame they didn’t get a berth, but hopefully next year will garner a different result. I really do believe he’s the best coach in D1 hockey right now.”

Sadness coats my throat. I wonder if I should text my dad. He must be so disappointed that Briar’s season ended this way.

“I should text my dad,” I say out loud. “You know, offer my condolences.”

Jake’s tone goes soft. “I’m sure he’d appreciate that.”

Would he? I have no idea, but I still send him a short message saying they played a good season and next year will be even better. He doesn’t immediately respond, but he’s not much of a texter. I simply hope he reads it and knows I’m thinking about him.

To my horror, actual tears well up.

“Are you…” Jake doesn’t miss my watery eyes. “Are you crying?” he asks with a note of concern.

“No.” I rub the side of my finger underneath my eye. “Sending that message made me a bit sad. I hate it when he’s mad at me. I mean, he doesn’t show much emotion around me anymore, but when he does, it’s usually more disapproval than anger.”

“Do you realize how messed up that sounds? You hate the anger, but you’re totally cool with the disapproval?” Jake asks incredulously.

“Well, no. I’m not cool with it. I’m used to it, is all.” I let out a sigh. “And I guess I understand it. I told you, I haven’t exactly been the perfect daughter.”

“Why? Because you ran wild in high school? What teenager doesn’t?”

“I did more than run wild. I…” A lump rises in my throat, and it’s difficult to talk through it. “Honestly, I think he’s ashamed of me.”

Jake looks alarmed. “What did you do, babe? Murder a teacher?”

“No.” I manage a weak smile.

“Then what?”

Hesitation lodges in my chest. I haven’t talked about this with anyone, save for the shrink my father made me see senior year. He’d consulted with the team therapist at Briar, who told him that after what I’d been through, it could be useful for me to talk about it with someone who wasn’t him. So I saw a therapist for a few months, and while she helped me come to terms with some of it, she couldn’t quite tell me how to fix my relationship with my father. And it’s only gotten worse in the ensuing years.

I study Jake’s patient expression, his supportive body language. Can I trust him? This story is embarrassing, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world if people found out. I just don’t like the idea of being judged by someone whose opinion actually matters to me.

But Jake hasn’t judged me, not even once, since we met. He doesn’t care that I’m a bitch. He doesn’t care that I taunt him—he enjoys taunting me right back. He’s been fairly open about his own life, but then again, it’s easy to be open when you don’t have skeletons in your closet.

“Are you sure you want to meet my skeletons?” I ask wryly.

“Oh boy. You totally killed someone, didn’t you?”

“No. But I got knocked up when I was sixteen and almost died.”

The confession flies out before I can stop it. And once it’s out there, hanging in the air between us, I awkwardly stare into Jake’s wide eyes and listen to the crickets.

It’s a solid five seconds before he responds, whistling softly through his teeth. “Shit. Okay.” He nods slowly. “You got pregnant. Was Eric…?”

I nod back. “I lost my virginity to him. But despite what my father thinks, we weren’t irresponsible about sex. We were having it regularly for more than a year, and we were very good about using condoms. I wasn’t on the pill because I was too embarrassed to ask my dad, so I was super strict about condoms.”

“I’ve noticed that,” Jake says. “Now I get why.”

“When I missed my period, I was in total denial about it. I thought, okay, maybe it’s just stress. It’s not abnormal for women to miss a period, and sometimes it has nothing to do with pregnancy. But when I was two months late, I took a test.”

I’ll never forget how my stomach dropped when I saw the plus sign on that pee stick. The first thing I did was call Eric, who was less than helpful.

“Eric said it was no big deal and we’d get it taken care of. But he was right in the middle of playoffs, so his schedule was chaotic. He promised he’d take me but not until after the playoffs.”

Jake frowns deeply. “How long were you expected to wait?”

“A few weeks. But I did some research and found out the procedure is perfectly safe at three months. And before you ask, yes, I wanted to get it done. I didn’t want a baby. I was only sixteen. And Eric didn’t want a baby, either.”

Sadness washes over me as I remember those days. I’d been so terrified. “I couldn’t go alone,” I explain to Jake. “I was too scared, and way too humiliated to tell my cousins or any of my friends, and especially not my father. I needed Eric to take me, and we had it all planned out. He would have more time after the playoffs, and he’d drive me to Boston and we would get it done there.”

Jake runs his hand up my arm in a comforting gesture. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“I… I didn’t actually get the abortion,” I confess. “We had the appointment booked, but we never made it. I started bleeding one morning a few days before it. Well, spotting. I looked it up online, and most of the websites said that spotting during the first trimester was normal. I called Eric, and he went online too and concluded it didn’t sound like a big deal.”

“Where was he?”

“In Newport with his teammates. They were playing their semifinal round that afternoon. He said he’d check in with me after the game, and he did. I was still spotting but not too heavily.” I shake my head irritably. “Eric’s team crushed their opponent, so they were going out to celebrate. I asked him to come home, but he said there was no point because it was probably nothing, and he told me not to say anything to my dad.”

“So you just sat there at home, bleeding?” Jake says in dismay.

“Yes and no. Like I said, it started off really slow. Eric told me not to worry about it, and even I thought I was probably freaking out for no reason. So I ignored it and hoped the bleeding would go away. I had dinner with my dad, watched a movie in my room. And then a couple hours later, it went from spotting to…not spotting.” My throat tightens. “I called Eric again and told him it was getting worse and that I was going to tell my dad I needed to go to the hospital. And he said no way, because he didn’t want my dad to find out and kill him.”

“Selfish prick.”

I feel sick as I relive that terrifying night. “Eric decided to come back and take me to the hospital himself. He said to sit tight, and that he was on his way and would get there as soon as he could. He was two hours away.”

“And your father was right downstairs?”

The incredulity in Jake’s expression makes me swallow a lump of shame. “I get it, I’m a fucking idiot. I already know that, okay?” Tears leak from the corners of my eyes, and I hurriedly swipe them away.

“No, I’m not calling you an idiot,” Jake says instantly, reaching for my hand. “I swear I’m not. I totally understand—you were scared. You were sixteen, and the guy who was supposed to support you chose to keep partying with his friends instead of driving home the second you told him you thought something was wrong.” Jake sounds furious on my behalf, and it’s actually kind of sweet.

I nod. “And at that point, I wasn’t going to risk waiting another two hours for Eric to show up. If he even did show up.”

“So you told your father?”

“I never got the chance.” My voice cracks. “I’d been bleeding all day long, and now it was nine o’clock at night, and I was feeling so weak and light-headed. When I stood up I was hit by a wave of dizziness and I passed out in the bathroom, and that’s how my father found me.” Queasiness pulls at my stomach. “Lying in a huge pool of blood. We actually had to tear out the bathroom floor after that, because the bloodstains wouldn’t come out.”

“Jesus.”

“Dad took me to the hospital. I don’t remember this part. I only remember everything going black in the bathroom. And then waking up in the hospital, where I was told I had a miscarriage and almost hemorrhaged to death.”

Jake’s eyebrows shoot up in alarm. “Is that normal?”

“Nope. Apparently I had an incomplete miscarriage, which is when not all the fetal tissue is expelled from the uterus. That’s why the bleeding was getting heavier instead of improving.”

“Shit. I’m so sorry.”

I nod in gratitude. But I don’t tell Jake everything else that happened in my hospital room. Like how I had a total breakdown in front of my father, crying hysterically and saying I was sorry, over and over again, while Dad stood there stoically, hardly even looking at me. And the longer I sobbed, the more embarrassing it became. I’d always been so strong and resilient, and suddenly I was wailing like a child in front of him.

He hasn’t looked at me the same way since. He wasn’t just ashamed that I’d gotten knocked up—I think he was equally ashamed of the way I fell apart. Dad doesn’t respect soft people, and that night I was beyond soft.

“Things were never the same with Dad after that. He pulled me out of school for two months because I was so emotional. Depressed, crying all the time. We told everyone I had mono, and Eric was the only person who knew the truth.”

“I can’t believe you were still with him,” Jake says darkly.

“Oh, I wasn’t.” I give a humorless laugh. “For so many reasons. He officially became public enemy number one to my father. Dad despised him, and he almost beat the shit out of Eric one day, because Eric kept showing up at our door trying to talk to me. Dad forbade me from ever seeing him again, and I was perfectly cool with that. I couldn’t forgive Eric for the way he behaved the night I lost the baby. I was crying and begging him to come home, to take me to the hospital, and he just didn’t care.” Anger bubbles in my throat. “I could have died. But getting loaded with his buddies and smoking weed was more important to him than making sure I was all right.”

I lean my head against Jake’s shoulder, and he plays with strands of my hair. “Dad became overprotective, but it’s funny—he was so busy with his job that he couldn’t really enforce all the rules he was trying to make me follow. So most of the time I did whatever I wanted anyway, and he’d lecture me about it afterward. I went back to school, started senior year, and acted out like every other teenage girl who’s trying to get her parents’ attention. It was the typical adolescent crap, and the more stupid shit I did, the more he noticed. So I’d stay out all night, drink, party, make him worry on purpose.”

It’s mortifying looking back on it. But we all do dumb things when we’re teenagers. It’s all those raging hormones.

“Anyway, now it’s five years later and Dad still views me as a disappointment, as weak. Even though I cleaned up my act a long time ago.” I shrug sadly. “But it is what it is, right?”

“I’m so sorry you had to go through that.” Jake presses a kiss to the top of my head. “You’re not weak, Brenna. Coach Jensen’s blind if he doesn’t see that. And calling your daughter a disappointment because she accidentally got pregnant? That’s a dick move. You don’t deserve that. And you definitely don’t deserve what that prick Eric did to you. I can’t believe you’re still in contact with him, that you actually allow yourself to feel any compassion for the guy.”

I sigh. “The breakdown I had after the miscarriage was nothing compared to the one Eric had. Losing me sent him into a tailspin. He blew off the championship game because of me.”

“No, because of him,” Jake corrects. “Don’t kid yourself, babe—he would’ve gotten kicked off the team eventually, even if he had played in the championship. Eric Royce was never going to the NHL. He clearly already had a burgeoning substance-abuse issue. He would’ve failed a piss test, gotten busted for possession, something. I guarantee it.”

“Maybe you’re right. But at the time, I felt responsible for him. I didn’t want to date him anymore, but I also felt an obligation to take care of him. It’s so messed up, I can’t even explain it.” I lift my head from Jake’s shoulder. “Eric was never there for me when I needed him, so why couldn’t I say ‘boy bye’ and let him self-destruct?”

“Because you’re a good person.”

“I guess.” I hesitate. “So are you,” I tell him.

“Nah.”

A hot lump of emotion fills my throat. “You are,” I insist. “Look at everything you’ve done for me—you helped me rescue my undeserving ex. You gave me a place to stay. You just listened to that whole sordid tale without judging me. Eric was—is—one of the most selfish people I’ve ever met. But you’re not. You’re a good guy, Jake.”

His big body shifts in discomfort, and it’s kind of adorable. You’d think he’d be thrilled to hear someone singing his praises.

I swallow repeatedly, because the lump keeps growing in size. This is so unlike me. I’m not usually this sappy. But despite the tickle of embarrassment in my belly, I still vocalize the words that are tugging at my heart.

“Thank you for being there for me.”