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And after the worst day of her life, she hadn’t changed that, not really. All of her plans revolved around Tig still, but this time in an Opposite Day way where everything was to block him out instead of hold him close. That’s why Dr. Kowecki kept asking her in session after session why she was afraid to really open up and be vulnerable and go after what she wanted.
Because Astrid O’Malley didn’t know.
Her dreams, her plans, her wants were all still tied up in the man sitting in front of her looking at her like she was the answer to every question he’d ever asked.
But Astrid didn’t want to be someone else’s answer—she wanted to be her own.
“I wasn’t the one who left,” she said, certainty settling in as she said the words. “You were.”
“I know but—”
“You had your say. Let me have mine,” Astrid cut him off, the words bubbling up like they’d been trying to break the surface for years, which they probably had. “When you left, it broke me. I was beyond devastated. Add to that the fact that the media couldn’t get enough of the coach’s daughter left at the altar by the star hockey player? It was like getting gut-punched every time I turned around. But I grew up watching Bear and Parvo and all the other guys who played for or with my dad, so I knew what I had to do. I pushed through the pain and kept moving. To England. To Italy. To Kenya. To Sweden. To Australia. To Mexico. To Peru. To anywhere I could buy a ticket.” It had all felt like so much freedom at the time, but looking at it now with a little more life experience under her belt, she saw it for what it had been in part: running. “Don’t get me wrong, I had a blast. The travel. The people. The food. The adventure. The sex.” Her gaze traveled over all of the postcards and magnets and art and books from her travels, and she couldn’t help but smile. “It was amazing, and I don’t regret a single second of it. I am a better person now than I was before. Stronger. More confident. Happier.” She turned back to Tig and for the first time saw him not as the biggest force in her life, but as just a man she’d loved who hadn’t been able to love her the way she deserved. It was a bittersweet realization. “And I owe that—at least in part—to you, because if you hadn’t left, I never would have experienced any of that.”
Tig’s face crumpled. “You make it sound like I was holding you back.”
She lifted one shoulder in a gesture of you-said-it. “I was doing it to myself, too, though. I centered my whole life around you. That wasn’t fair to either of us.”
He shoved his fingers through his hair, desperate tension coming off of him in thick waves. “So we’ll be better this time. I’ll be better. I’ll—”
“Tig.” She took his hand, cutting him off. “We’re not kids anymore. It’s time for me to live my life. It’s not our time anymore.”
He squared his jaw and looked up toward the ceiling, his eyes getting red rimmed. “But it’s like our song. We’re meant to be.”
That song. That damn song. It had haunted her for years, setting off her fight-or-flight before the first lyric was even sung. Even now, her pulse started to kick in. Then an image of the bridge and her friends from last night popped into Astrid’s head, and all that anxiety melted away to something that felt a whole lot like hope for a happy ending to that bride’s love story.
Astrid squeezed Tig’s hand and then let go, years later than she probably should have. “That song belongs to someone else now.”
He looked at her like he was about to make another run at making his case, but something he must have seen in her face stopped him. He glanced down and blinked a few times before looking back up and shooting her a small smile—the kind that reminded her of that boy she’d met all those years ago. It was kind of nice to know that he was still in there. It made her optimistic that maybe she wasn’t the only one having her eyes opened today.
“I really am sorry, Astrid,” Tig said as he stood up. “I mean it.”
“I know you do. Maybe this can be a fresh start for both of us as friends,” she said as she walked around the island.
“Probably more than I deserve,” he said, his tone self-deprecating.
“Yeah, but the offer stands anyway.” She started toward the door, Tig beside her. “It’s good to have people in your life who you’ve known for almost forever.”
He agreed and gave her a quick, kind-of awkward hug before she opened the door.
Tig paused just outside her door and looked back at her. “It wasn’t all bad, was it? There were good times?”
She thought about the pizza nights, the calls that went on forever, and all the firsts they’d had together. She remembered what it had been like to see him spot her in the crowd before a hockey game and have him smile at her like she was the only person there. It had ended so, so badly, but it hadn’t always been that way.
“There definitely were a lot of good times,” Astrid said.
He nodded, his eyes grateful, as if he wasn’t sure he should believe her but he really wanted to. And then he walked down the hall.
Astrid closed the door and just stood there staring at it, feeling freer than she had in years. If she had to explain it to someone else—she wasn’t sure she could—it was like she had been wearing a down jacket in the tropics and had finally taken it off right as a cool breeze had come in from the ocean.
Three quick raps on her door jolted her back a step, her palm pressed to her heart that was really getting a damn workout today.
When she opened the door, her dad was standing in the hall, a concerned look on his face.
“Passed Jones on the stairs,” he said, a deep V of worry etched into his forehead. “Should I be regretting asking you to help get him back on track?”
“No.” Astrid shook her head as she grabbed her keys and phone off the table by the door and then walked out into the hall. “I think it actually turned out to be helpful to us both. And before you ask, no, we are not getting back together.”
“Thank God.” He let out a sigh of relief that was big enough Mrs. Duffy probably heard it. “I’m not sure I could take you falling for a puck head married to the job again.”
