Losses suck, and I miss my girl.
With our last four games at home, Edith and I have started to make some real progress. Playing chess and watching movies between away games, eating meals together, and simply hanging out and enjoying each other’s company. On a foundational level, everything has changed between us, but I’m doing my level best to ensure that everything also stays the same. At least for now.
No sudden movements, like Athena said. Don’t spook her. It seems to have been working.
But she’s been distant over the past week or so. Avoiding me, even. While I thought it was because she’s not going to make her audition deadline at the end of the month, I’m starting to wonder if it’s because she’s coming out the other side of her injury, and she’s realizing she doesn’t want me.
The curdling in my stomach is worse than when the final buzzer sounded in the Kansas City Cyclones arena and their home crowd erupted at our defeat.
I need to talk to Edith.
* * *
Something isn’t right from the minute I walk into her apartment.
There’s an eerie quiet, a sterile smell that takes me back to when she was first brought home from the hospital. She’s not on the couch watching TV, and the kitchen is empty, save for a small pile of dishes from the night before in the sink. It’s early, but she’s always been a frustratingly chipper morning person.
I peek into Edith’s room. She’s lying on the bed out cold. Movement in my periphery draws my attention to Penelope sitting in a chair next to Edith, quietly turning the pages of her book.
Edith’s leg is propped up on pillows, and it’s then the details hit me. Fresh cast. Fresh hospital band around her wrist. Fuck. All signs point to something I can’t process.
Penelope sees me lingering in the doorway and leaps from her seat, coming out to meet me in the hallway. “It’s not what you think.” Her whispered tones contrast the bubbling anger searing my veins.
I’m shaking. My chest is tight, my breath thin and ragged. “Did my girlfriend have another surgery behind my back?”
Penelope goes bright red. “Okay, it’s exactly what you think. But she had her reasons.”
Her fucking reasons are bullshit. She didn’t want me to leave my team, to stay by her side and hold her hand because of my responsibility to my teammates, and my fucking future in the NHL.
Spearing my hair with my fingers, I pace back and forth like a caged animal in front of Pen. She’s pale, watching me with caution as I mutter to myself, trying to rationalize Edith’s behavior.
She doesn’t want me to fuck up my career, I get it. But keeping this from me. This... this is big. I can’t believe she didn’t give me the choice to be by her side when she needed me.
She needed me. Fuck. I can’t make this all about me, no matter how tempting it might be. She’s had another surgery, which means her foot didn’t heal right the first time. Spinning to face Pen, sympathy flickers across her face as she gives me a sad nod.
“They put pins in her foot. It’s... not good Apollo.” She shakes her head. “She’s going to have to learn to walk again. Dancing... I don’t know. It was a stretch before. Now...” She reaches out and pats my bicep. “She thought about telling you, made me promise not to though. She knew you’d skip the game if you knew she was going back in again.”
Damn fucking straight.
“She didn’t want you to get in trouble with your team.” She winces. “Or with your dad. She’s day two post op.”
“I don’t need her to be a fucking martyr. I need her to let me love her.”
Penelope nods again. “I know. I tried to tell her you needed to be here for her as much as she needed you to be here, but she wouldn’t hear of it.” She smiles. “Downside of being in love with a fellow athlete I guess. She understands what it takes to excel at what you do.”
“Maybe I don’t want to fucking excel. Maybe I wanted to be by her goddamn side.”
“Don’t be so dramatic, Pollo.” Edith’s sleepy voice washes over me, calming some of the ache. “And you can’t be mad at me. I’m broken and in pain.” She grunts.
Penelope and I go back into Edith’s room, she’s trying to sit up. Rushing to help her, I almost trip over a duffle bag on the floor. Penelope leaves me to get Edith sitting upright, and when she returns a few minutes later with a granola bar, meds, and some water, we’re still sitting in silence, staring at each other.
“You need to eat more than that.”
“I’m nauseous.”
“That’s only going to get worse when you take meds on an empty stomach.” My words are ground out through clenched teeth. I’m trying hard not to be angry, but I’m being accosted by strong emotions making it hard to be rational right now.
“Should I stay, or...?” Penelope hooks a thumb over her shoulder.
