Destiny starts her tricep extensions, and I sit on a piece of equipment intended for cabled rows.
“Okay, so who was this ghost?” she presses me.
“My college girlfriend.”
And the love of my life.
Abby and I met at the beginning of our junior year of college in a biology class. She sat next to me, her minty,freshly-sharpened-pencil scent drawing me in immediately. I eventually learned she smelled like pencil shavings because of her sketching class right before biology. By the end of that first class, I had her number, and within weeks she was my girlfriend.
“Why are you just sitting there? Do some rows.” Destiny gestures to the machine I’m sitting at, and her tone gets me moving like she’s my coach and I just got caught slacking. I adjust the weights and start on a set of rows, intentionally focusing on counting. I can’t keep zoning out, or this will be a wasted workout.
“Did she dump your ass or did you hurt her?” she asks, taking a swig of her water bottle between sets.
“You really cut to the chase, don’t you?”
“You hurt her. I knew it.”
“How could you possibly know that?” I ask, finishing my first set.
“You have the look of a man who has regrets.”
Somehow, I’m not surprised that Destiny can read this on me. She’s the kind of person who picks up on energies; she’s always talking about the other staff members and what positive or negative energies they’re bringing to work.
And she’s right, anyway. I do have regrets. When it comes to Abby, I have nothing but regret.
“Tell me what you did,” Destiny says as she starts on her last set.
“We dated the last two years of college, and she was…god, she was so patient. I loved, lived, and breathed hockey, and Abby never complained about my schedule or how much time we did or didn’t get together. She never complained about my priorities or where she landed. She just…she understood.
“We talked about how we’d handle things when I went to the NHL, what games she would come see. We talked about off season and what that would look like. We talked about marriageand kids. We were…we were planning on spending our lives together. And then I went to the NHL.”
“And where was she?”
“Back in her hometown. She’d gotten a teaching job in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where her parents lived. I went to training camp in Orlando.”
“And you couldn’t hack long distance?” She clucks her tongue at me, a deeply disapproving sound.
“It wasn’t the distance. I—I couldn’t be a good hockey player and a boyfriend. And I chose hockey.”
It sounds lame, even as I hear myself say it, but I really struggled. My performance was lacking, and I was constantly being called out by the coaches and the other, older players. A veteran close to retirement pulled me aside one day and told me I was too distracted by my girl, and, like a dumbass, I took his words to heart.
Destiny’s face as she stops mid-extension, her lips curled up judgmentally and daggers shooting from her eyes, would bury me if I hadn’t lived with the regret of my decision for the last decade already.
“I know, Destiny, I know.”
She clucks her tongue at me again and continues her workout. “You did it to her face, right? You got on a plane and flew to her and gave her the respect of a conversation, correct?”
I bury my face in my hands, elbows propped on my knees, and groan loudly. “Destiny, please. I?—”
“Oh, I see; you were a coward.”
“I was a coward. It was a phone call. I couldn’t get away because of?—”
“I swear to god if you say hockey.”
I knit my eyebrows together, grimacing with guilt.
Destiny just shakes her head at me and gestures that I should continue my set of rows. I do as I’m told.
