Page 63 of Halftime

I wish I could have done something to change the way things ended with Faith, but I could at least deal with my own shit. And this was the first step.

The state of the union went on longer than planned. There was something messed up about the fact that the most attention I’d ever gotten from my parents was coming when I was finally old enough to be considered an adult, and it was all because they were trying to ensure they didn’t have to be responsible for me.

They didn’t. I’d find my own people since they were too busy to be mine.

They both ended leaving the rest stop late enough to disrupt their Christmas dinners. I hadn’t wanted to screw up anyone’s holidays, but I was done feeling guilty. I’d put up with a lot over the years, trying to not be a burden, trying to make everyone else happy so they’d want me. I was done trying.

It was time to make me a priority.

19

Faith

It was going to be a horrible Christmas.

My dad’s parents spent every winter in Florida, so they were never around for the holidays. They left gifts behind—usually cash—and always called before they went out golfing on the day. It was my mom’s parents who’d been the centre of our Christmas celebrations. After Grandpa died, Gramma had continued that tradition. Last year, she hadn’t been able to do much, but she’d been there, the heart of the holidays for us.

This year, she was gone.

My parents were fighting, though since it was Christmas, they were having a cold war. When they’d acted like this in the past, my grandmother had always made sure I was taken care of, made to feel special. Had someone paying attention to me. Now it was just me and my parents.

We opened presents on Christmas morning, and then my mom made a big production of how hard she was working to make the dinner. I offered to help, but she waved me off. The food was delicious, the conversation almost non-existent. Most of the time, I’d try to keep some kind of talk going, but I was out of fucks this year.

After Christmas, my dad hung around the house. He technically wasn’t working over the holiday, unless a client got in a mess. He wanted to go to the rink and gym with me, help me train, talk hockey. I didn’t want to talk about my problems with Coach with him because he’d stick himself in the middle, so those conversations were stilted. He was often distracted with phone calls, though, so we made it through.

My hockey success was largely because of him. He loved hockey, and I’d watched games with him as a kid. He’d taken me skating and signed me up for lessons. I was grateful for all he’d done when it came to hockey. He’d always made sure I had whatever I needed to succeed. He supported my dreams and wanted to be my agent when I turned pro. Only the family connection would be tricky, and my mom would see it as me taking his side, and I was not going to continue being in the middle of their fucked-up relationship.

My mom wanted me to help her clean out Gramma’s place and choose what I wanted. I wasn’t ready for that. I was still struggling to accept that she was gone, and as a college student living in a dorm, I wasn’t really looking for family heirlooms to drag around. Plus, I knew Mom probably wanted to complain about Dad. After a couple of days of super uncomfortable juggling between the two of them, Dad got a call from one of his clients and had to jet. That should have made things easier, but not with my family.

My mom followed all my dad’s clients on all forms of social media. So once Dad left, she started cyberstalking the client, their girlfriend…

It was depressing. This was why I was going to be single or find a nice accountant. Someone who stayed put, someone you could count on. Someone who wouldn’t be surrounded by extra-relationship temptation and who could be trusted. If you couldn’t trust your own father, who could you trust?

* * *

Sebastien

Getting to visit Cooper was a relief. Seeing the size of his home wasn’t a surprise. I knew his family had money. Cooper had an older brother and an older sister, and they were all very busy, very important people. All lawyers or investment bankers or something money related like that. I wondered how a bunch of lawyers and bankers, apparently really successful ones, felt about Cooper playing hockey. He wanted to go pro. I knew he had declared a business major, and I’d never heard that he had problems keeping up his GPA, but outside of classes, he never showed interest in anything but hockey, girls, and parties.

I’d expected his family to feel about hockey the way mine did—that once you graduated, it was time to grow up and stop playing games. I never got a chance to find out how they felt, because I hardly saw them. They were always somewhere being busy and important.

Coop and I had a good time though. He had his own car, an Audi, not a Ferrari, so they were apparently wealthy but not to the point of buying a country. We did some working out, because Coach would have our balls in a vise if we got out of condition, but there was a lot of time to go to parties, and there were a lot of parties. Cooper knew everyone who hosted one, though he never had other people over to his place.

I didn’t ask why that was. We all had our version of a fucked-up family.

I did my best to have fun. I thought I was pulling it off, until we headed out for the big New Year’s bash Cooper had promised. I was wearing nice jeans, and Cooper had lent me a shirt to wear that he swore looked good on me. I didn’t bother arguing with him, because based on the number of women who were always trying to get his attention, he knew what he was doing.

I did not.

“So, Hunts, you gonna have fun tonight or what?” It took a minute to figure out what he was saying, because my thoughts had been back on the Faith treadmill.

“What?” I’d hoped I’d fooled him.

“You said it’s over with Faith, right?”

I nodded. It still hurt, but every time I went through what had happened, I was positive I’d done the right thing. She didn’t trust me, would never trust me, and it would eventually end in disaster.

“So you’re a free agent, right?”

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