My stomach wrenches.I can’t look at it.I pace the kitchen for a few moments, scrubbing a hand down my face.Then I head for the spare room, pushing the door open.
Empty.
Like nobody had even been here for the past three months.
I prop my hands on my hips and walk an aimless path around the house.It doesn’t feel right without her here; I can admit that much.But what the fuck am I supposed to do?
Hockey season begins in earnest in mid-September, but I’ll be leaving with some of my teammates on Tuesday evening to head to Colorado for our first-of-many pre-season skills camps.We’ll be gone for a week.Then when we get back, I’ll be living in Cleveland full time.
The new season will swallow me whole, and I’ll need to be on my A game until it coughs me up on the other side next May.No, higher than A game.I need to play perfectly to compete with the new guys on the team, with their uninjured ACLs and endless endurance.
My second chance with the team demands nothing less than laser focus.
I spend a lot of time that night trying not to think about Casey.Wondering where she is, how she’s doing, whether she’ll ever talk to me again.Part of me is glad she left, because I know I wouldn’t be able to look at her one more time without getting on my knees and begging her to forget everything I fucking said that morning.
Despite everything I told her, I didn’t say the most important piece—I fell in love with her, too.
Instead, I did what had to be done.
Controlled the outcome.Protected the plan.
So why the hell does this feel so fucking abysmal right now?
I go to bed with a knot in my gut.Of course I can’t sleep.I wake up every hour thinking of Casey.I have dreams that she’s falling, and no matter how hard I lunge she’s just out of my reach.She’s the first thing I think of when I drag myself out of bed the next morning.Is she already on the road to Chicago?While coffee brews, my gaze moves to the blue vase on the countertop.It’s empty.
I can’t wait any longer.
I need to reach out.
GRIFFIN: Let me know when you make it to Chicago.Drive safe.
As soon as I hitsend, I feel like the world’s biggest idiot.Why would she share a single thing with me after I broke her heart like I did?I drag my hands down my face, groaning.
I’ve been preparing myself for this separation for weeks, but it still feels like the absolute worst decision I’ve made in my life.All I can do is trust that it gets easier.
And remind myself why I chose this in the first place.
I leave the house and head for my mom’s.I don’t exactly want to talk to my family about this yet, at least not in a traditional sense.I get the feeling that Piper and my mom will not be very happy with me.
I let myself in the front door of my mom’s house, my footsteps falling quietly.
“Anybody here?”I head down the hallway.Mom has been slowly returning to a full-time baking schedule using a temporary commercial kitchen she’s renting downtown while renovation work on her old building continues.If she’s not here, she’s usually there.As I round the corner, I spot what I came for: the hourglass full of Dad’s ashes.
I pick it up and turn it over in my hands.The ashes inside begin to slip from one chamber to the next.I carry it with me to the back patio.
I sit on the floral cushion-lined patio chair, looking toward the big oak tree in the backyard.We scattered some of Dad’s ashes there, too.If there’s any chance of getting a fatherly nudge, it’s this way.
And right now, I fucking need it.
So I sit.
I listen.I dwell.I worry.I try to clear my head and fail.I’m pretty much a breathing ball of anxiety there on the back patio, thinking about a trillion worst-case scenarios, all involving losing Casey.
I was ten when my father, my hero, died.And since then, I’ve battled anxiety on every possible level.Waiting for the dominoes to fall, the other shoe to drop.Loving someone is dangerous, because it can cripple you if you lose them.That’s all I know.And I don’t think I have the strength to go through that again.
But I don’t know if I have the strength to keep myself away from Casey either.
I don’t even hear the footsteps approach until the hand is on my shoulder.I jolt, looking up to find Asher standing above me.He’s got a warm smile on his face as his gaze washes over me with the hourglass in my arms.