Page 26 of Halftime

Faith might have messed me up a bit by showing up, but I’d known this was what I was going to do before I even talked to Faith.

“Really? You ex shows and suddenly you want to break up?” There was anger in her voice now.

I huffed a breath in frustration. Guess I’d been too quick to think we could do this without the drama. “I’m not doing this because I want to ask Faith out. And she doesn’t want to be with me.”

I wanted to throw myself into hockey. Not be with someone who didn’t know the real me, and not be with someone who knew me so well that breaking up took months to get over her.

Cooper was probably a lot smarter than I’d given him credit for.

Holly’s arms were crossed. She shrugged. “I guess that’s it. If you don’t want to be with me, then we’re done. But here’s a tip, she thought you cheated once. She’ll never get over that.” She spun around and vanished into her dorm.

That last comment stung. I didn’t see a future with Faith, not like we’d been. But knowing that a stupid misunderstanding would always mess with both of us? That was frustrating.

And now, here in my room, Faith was asking what happened with Holly, and I didn’t know what to say. I tried for honest, because that was always how we’d been together.

“She wanted to be with a hockey player.”

Faith’s brows lifted. “Well, you are a hockey player.”

“Yeah, but it would’ve been nice if she’d wanted to be withthishockey player.”

Faith didn’t say anything for a moment. “Sorry.” She knew what I meant because of her dad’s job. Women who hooked up with athletes because they were athletes. Women who married athletes because they were athletes. Even women who got pregnant to have a fixed income from a professional athlete. Her dad dealt with that kind of thing all the time as an agent.

I’d always wondered if he exclusively represented assholes, because it seemed like every one of his clients had something like that going on.

“Anyway,” I said, not wanting to continue this conversation any longer, “I’ll look up my stuff from last year with Warner in psych. Get your paper, and we’ll see if we can make things better.”

I was a lot more comfortable helping Faith with my best subject than applying the things I was studying in psych to my own life.

8

Faith

It was embarrassing how badly I’d half-assed the assignment. Seb gave me a few raised eyebrows and even an eyeroll, but he didn’t say anything. Somehow, even though we’d started with me on his chair and him on his bed, we ended up on the bed together, backs against the wall, peering at his computer screen.

“You’re good at this,” I said when I’d had enough that my brain was frying.

He smiled, happy with the compliment. “I told you I was thinking of majoring in psych. I like it.”

I leaned back and let my eyes run over him. “Hmmm. I think you would be good at stuff like counselling or advising, or whatever you do as a psych major.”

“Really?”

I nodded but didn’t say a lot more. Seb would be good at it because he was good at watching people and figuring them out. But the reason he was so good at it was because his parents were shitty. Not abusive, controlling kind of shitty. More like forgetful, unaware shitty.

Not everyone knew his story. I did because we’d been together so long. His parents had married because they’d gotten pregnant and had Seb. Then they’d found out they didn’t really like each other, got divorced, and remarried before a lot of time had passed. They each had nice shiny new families, and Seb… Well, he was in the way. A reminder of a previous mistake. They didn’t actively neglect him. They forgot him, showed too much relief when he was leaving, and none when he was with them. I’d seen them at a few of his games, and they’d looked like they couldn’t wait to leave. They didn’t know what to say to him. If I’d thought it would have done any good, I’d have talked to them.

Or maybe yelled at them.

The good part, for Seb, was that he got to go to hockey camps a lot, and it had made him a better player. He loved hockey, even though his family didn’t. He’d never really belonged. When I heard they’d turned his room into a guestroom and put all his stuff in storage in the basement between visits, I wanted to wale on them. Seb had shrugged, but I knew it had hurt him.

Seb was always watching, trying to understand his family and other people around him so he could do whatever would help him fit in. His hockey team had become his real family. My home was shitty for different reasons, and for a while, we’d been family for each other.

I should give being friends with Seb a chance. A real chance. He was a good guy. When I thought he’d cheated, I’d been hurt and cut him off, but it had seemed odd he would do something like that when I’d always thought he was a decent person. I wouldn’t have been willing to try long distance with anyone else.

Cooper showed up in the doorway, looking at the two of us sitting on the bed and smirking. “We were going to order pizza. You two in?”

I looked at Seb, and he cocked his head.

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