Page 141 of Off The Ice

Teachers who noticed if I came without a lunch or walked me down to the cafeteria in the morning to make sure I was eating breakfast.

People who cared about me. People who were responsible. Who made me feel safe. I think some part of me wanted to return the favor, to be that for some other child out there.

And it was true that it still was a safe haven of sorts for me. Kids were gentle in a way that adults weren’t. They hadn’t yet been burned by the world and hadn’t learned yet that they hadthe power to hurt and be hurt by others in ways that a band-aid wouldn’t fix.

But the second I walked out of school for the day, I heard a voice that made every feeling of safety disappear completely.

“Cassie,” Dave said, standing in the parking lot outside of my school.

I stared at him, feeling panic settle over me as I thought of an escape route. I could go back inside and wait for him to leave. I could try to book it past him to get to my car and hopefully speed away, but there was always the chance of him coming back another day.

Besides, I was tired of running. Of avoiding confrontation. Especially from someone like him. Whatever he had to say wouldn’t be able to affect me because I wasn’t giving him any power over me any longer.

I knew it when I finally let myself look at him. The memory of the pain was there, but though I thought seeing him would make the wound reopen, I was slightly surprised to realize that it hadn’t.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I’ve been waiting for you to call,” he said, standing there as if I should have a response for whatever the hell he meant by that.

“Why would I call?” I asked, dumbfounded. “We broke up, remember?”

“Yeah, but I thought,” he started. “I don’t know. Maybe it was a mistake.”

His words stopped me dead in my tracks.

A mistake.

The word settled over me.

Had it been a mistake? I’d been with Dave for six of the most formative years of my life. The period between adolescence and adulthood, when I was becoming my own person, discovering who I was and what I wanted.

Some version of me would’ve married the man in front of me, but now? She felt far away in the deep crevices of the past. She certainly wasn’t present for this conversation.

“Don’t you think so?” he asked, realizing I didn’t have a response. “Haven’t you missed me?”

“No,” I admitted.

“No?” he countered. “We were together for years, Cass. I thought that meant something to you.”

“It didn’t mean anything to you when you dumped me over the phone and told me to find somewhere else to live,” I snapped.

“I told you, it was a mistake. I didn’t realize how much I needed you.”

“I don’t want someone who needs to lose me to realize they want me.

“Give me a break here, Cass,” he pleaded. “We’d been together so long. It’s normal to want to know what else is out there.”

When he said it, I realized that if it weren’t for Liam, I probably would’ve believed him. I would’ve sat here and let him convince me that I should take him back. I would’ve listened to him explain how, after he’d gone out and been with other women, he realized I was who he truly wanted.

But now that I knew what it felt like to be cared about genuinely and completely? I couldn’t fool myself into thinking Dave was what I wanted.

“I can’t,” I said. “You were right to break up with me. Our relationship—it wasn’t right. We weren’t right for each other.”

I didn’t tell him that I realized that because of how right itdidfeel with someone who I wasn’t even dating. But even if Liam disappeared out of the picture forever, being alone was better than being with a person who I never felt on equal footing with.

“Does that hockey guy really have you wrapped around his finger that tightly?” Dave snapped as if he had read the directionmy thoughts had gone to. “We’re broken up for a minute, and you jump right into bed with the next available guy?”

At first, I figured he’d seen the pictures. Heard the rumors swirling on the Internet, and then it all made sense. He didn’t want me until he thought someone else did. And that hurt more than anything because it wasn’t even true.

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