Page 36 of Aftersome
This was the big leagues.
The NHL and Mal was a part of it.
Too enamored by the sight of all of them, I failed to look for a certain player. It should have been easy to spot him. He had to be the tallest, biggest, grumpiest player out there and yet, as I scanned my eyes over the skillful players, I couldn’t find him.
But it didn’t last long at all, because almost immediately I felt a shift in the air. Like a blast of heat had hit me out of nowhere, and that’s when I found him.
Stick in hand, across the way with his body facing toward me.
But what I didn’t expect was to see his eyes.
Intense and fiery.
And solely focused on me.
13
MAL
It was her.
There was no way it could be anyone else.
Not when her face was forever etched onto the contours of my past and unwontedly appearing in the present.
No one compared. Eyes the shade of mahogany and hair that could only be described as the sun, she was always there in the back of my mind. Whether I wanted her to be there or not.
And while my heart went into a frenzy, my soul had splintered off into a million little pieces. I didn’t want to see her. I didn’t want to know how she was, or what these past ten years had been like for her. It was an asshole thing to say, but I couldn’t bear the thought of having her in my life.
Because all I saw when I looked at her was Hayes.
A cruel reminder that it should’ve been me instead.
As the game neared its ending, I found myself watching her every chance I could get.
Subtly, of course, and the more I did, the more irritated I became. Still standing in the same damn spot with a camera in her hand, I was entranced just like I was all those years ago and I fucking hated it.
I hated myself.
She’s not yours.
And never will be.
Skin on fire and my muscles throbbing, I told myself I could take one last glance at her, and when I did, she was gone. Part of me felt relieved, while the other felt desperate.
What if I never saw her again?
Did she even recognize me?
Of course she did, you idiot.
Fuck.
This was why I didn’t want to see her again. She created a mixture of emotions and feelings inside of me that I wasn’t equipped to handle.
The rest of the game went by without any hiccups from any of the players, besides me.
I played like shit. Couldn’t defend for shit. And couldn’t focus for shit. And of course Vince had nothing good to say to me after the game even though we had won. He could tell my head was elsewhere, just like everyone else who watched me fucking play tonight, but that wasn’t the point.
