“Hello?” my mother says after one ring.
“Hey, Mom,” I say, smiling. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing much. Packing up to leave,” she huffs out. “Your sisters are modeling their new swimsuits, and I think the vein in your father’s head is going to pop.” I laugh, imagining what they are doing now. “What’s up with you?”
“I don’t know,” I say, and then I hear her stop moving. “I’m just … there is a lot going through my head, and I’m not sure what to do.”
I can hear her moving, and the sound of the door closing lets me know she stepped out of the room to give me her full attention. My mother has not had an easy life. To be honest, her life was shit before Justin came into the picture. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” I admit, and she just listens to me. “I just … my head is messing with me.” I close my eyes, and all I can do is see Alex smiling at me.
“Well, from what your father told me, you have very big life changes coming,” she says softly. “And I know it’s scary for you.”
“I’m not scared,” I tell her. “I just don’t want to make a decision I can’t undo,” I confide, not sure if I’m talking about Alex or my career. Or maybe it’s both. “I want to make sure that what I’m doing is the right thing to do.”
“It’s okay to make a mistake,” she says. “Heaven knows I’ve made enough mistakes to last a lifetime. But if I hadn’t made those mistakes, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I wouldn’t have you or your brother and sisters.”
“Yeah,” I say softly. “I’m just not used to being so in limbo.”
“I have faith that you will make the right decision,” she reassures me, and I sit up, my stomach turning when I think about how she would react if I told her exactly how I was feeling these days. How would she look at me if I told her I was crushing on Alex? How would she look at me if I told her I couldn’t stop thinking about her? How would she look at me if I told her that last night I dreamed of kissing her? Fuck, how would anyone look at me? How would Alex look at me? She would probably never talk to me again. “Whatever it is, you know that you have us behind you.”
“Yeah,” I reply, the pain in my chest coming on, and I have to rub it to relieve the pressure. “Thanks, Mom.”
“I don’t know why,” she says, “but something tells me that you have something else on your mind.”
I laugh. “It’ll work itself out. It always does.”
“It does. We’ll see you in two days,” she replies, and I hang up the phone with her and turn to grab my notebook out of my bag.
I make columns for New York, Pittsburgh, and Dallas. I sit up, tap the pen on the lined paper, and look out the window, not sure if I want to put what I’m thinking down on paper. Instead, all I can do is think in my head. I’m the best on the ice. My game is only going to get better.
“So why the fuck aren’t you happy?” I ask myself the loaded question. “Why the fuck are you so pissed off? Why are you so pissed she was out with someone?” I swallow down the lump forming in my throat and fight back the burning sensation in my stomach. It feels as if my stomach is eating itself. My hands get clammy when the answer comes to me, shocking me. “You can’t ever go there,” I tell myself. “For everyone’s sake.”
I close the notebook without writing anything else in it. I slam it shut just like I do the thoughts that are coming into my head. I lock it away behind my mind. When I hear the front door open and slam, I get up and walk downstairs and see her crouched in front of Mac. She looks up at me. Her hair is tied on top of her head in a bun and her blue eyes are shining bright. The smile on her face makes me stop moving. My whole body stops, and a shiver goes up my spine. “Hi,” she says with Mac licking her face. “I see someone missed me.” She hugs her around the neck, and I want to tell her that she’s not the only one who missed her, but instead, all I can do is stand here on the stairs and look at her. “Did you eat?” she asks, standing up and I see that she’s wearing a pair of white jeans that mold to her and a blush-pink silk tank top tucked in the front.