I Know It's Over (17 page)

Taking off on Christmas Day isn’t an option, though. Where would I go anyway? Everyone I know is locked into family plans. So I plant myself in front of my computer and check my e-mail and IM again. Not one word from Sasha.

We used to e-mail and IM all the time. A bunch of our conversations and e-mails are sitting on my computer, evidence that we actually used to be together. The funny thing is that I wouldn’t let myself reread any of them. It was proof that I was in control, I guess.

But I’m not in control of anything. I see that now, and I click on her e-mail from Halloween and read it through three times before pushing my chair away from the desk. I remember everything about that night as though it just happened—kidding around with her in bed, singing “I’m with You” in my best Avril imitation, Sasha wrestling with me, grinning at me, telling me how special I was and how it felt like we’d just started over.

That night comes back to me in the shower, ringing up a sale, or warming up on the ice. Lots of things about us come back to me. That hug from last night. Does she still believe anything she said to me on Halloween or is it all past tense? It’s the last thing I should wonder about, but I can’t help it.

Somehow I survive the turkey dinner with Aunt Deirdre, Uncle Martin, and my cousins. I’m quiet, but the giddy noises coming from my two youngest cousins disguise that. After dinner Simon follows me up to my room, sits at my desk, and tries to pretend we have something in common. I try to pretend too, but I know I sound moody and bored. I’m relieved when they leave at ten o’clock, but by ten-thirty I’m bouncing off the walls again.

I don’t sleep until after three and Mom has to tell me to pick up the speed a little in the car the next morning. We’ve been making this mall run since I got my learner’s permit. In fact, I drive whenever we’re in the car together. My road test is in three weeks and I need to pass; I’m tired of walking everywhere. “I don’t think I’ve ever had to ask you to drive
faster
before,” she jokes from the passenger seat.

It’s not just the car. I’m slow at Sports 2 Go too. Brian, the manager, makes cracks about it all morning. By noon I’m completely sick of it and it must show in my face because he claps me on the back and says, “Why don’t you take your break early? Re-energize yourself.”

“I have to take lunch at one,” I tell him. “Somebody’s meeting me.”

“Oooh,” Brian croons. “Maybe she’s the problem.”

“Yeah, and maybe it’s you,” I retort. Okay, so maybe I did sound a little panicked, but is that any reason for him to act like he knows it all?

Brian’s eyebrows leap up in surprise. “Steady there, Nick. This is just friendly banter. You’re normally right on the ball—not like some of the other guys in here. Nobody knows that better than I do, buddy.”

I nod at the ground and try to figure out what normal Nick would say to that. “Man.” I rub my forehead. “Sorry. I’m seriously burnt out. I think I need a vacation.”

“Yo, this
is
your vacation,” Grayson says on his way by to grab a pair of shoes from the stockroom. Grayson, as you probably have already guessed, is still an asshole. He mostly stays out of my way and I mostly stay out of his. It’s an arrangement that’s been working for the past three weeks, but for some reason today’s the day he decides to start talking to me again.

As soon as Brian fades into the background, Grayson’s by my side, straightening the men’s sportswear on the sale rack. “Bossman’s really on your back today,” he comments. I shrug and step aside to avoid being stampeded by a sudden rush of customers. “So what’s with you today? You all right, man?”

I shake my head. Spending the day after Christmas at the mall is not my idea of a good time. Between rabid customers knocking merchandise off the shelves and bitching about the lousy sale prices, Brian’s “friendly banter,” and my approaching lunch hour, I’m about as fucked up as I can be without completely losing it.

“Why don’t you take off?” Grayson suggests. “Store won’t fall apart without you, you know. You tell the man you gotta take care of some shit. An emergency.”

“Someone’s meeting me here at one.” I guess Grayson missed that part of the conversation.

“Oh, yeah?” I wait for him to make his own “friendly banter” about that, but he just adds, “Then you go when they get here. Do I have to figure this all out for you?” He cracks a smile when I look at him.

“You’re doing an okay job so far.” I fire a smile back. The conversation actually calms me down for fifteen whole minutes.

I circulate through the store, looking for people to help, and a woman flags me down in sports accessories. The boy with her must be about ten years old and the woman speaks to me like I’m her shrink. She’s all worried because she wants to get her kid interested in sports, but he hates everything he tries and shouldn’t there be something out there for him? I could easily mess with her—say something like, “Well, have you tried chess or backgammon?” but then the kid would feel bad. Clearly he’s got bigger problems than sports, you know, like his mother spilling his personal info in the middle of a sports store.

Shouldn’t these things be obvious?

I give the woman and her kid a spiel about the individuality of sports and how some people are really into the team thing while others prefer solo stuff. I explain that some people like aggressive games while others are into strategy. There are some people who will play anything and some people who need to find their exact fit. It’s like anything else really. Some people have a calling, one thing they were born to be (like Sasha with forensics), while others can explore a spectrum of options. A contemplative expression slips over the woman’s face as she listens to me. She’s buying it, I can tell, and I explain why hockey is the best sport for me. Skating. Speed. The team. The kid is staring at me too, but it’s her I’m getting to. For some reason she needs to hear this and when I finish, she thanks me and walks out of the store without buying anything.

It’s busier than ever in the mall and I stare out into the crowd, trying to catch sight of Sasha, although it’s not one o’clock yet. I get edgier with each passing second. I haven’t decided what to say yet, but I know how I feel. I’m not ready to have a kid. There’s no possible way I can be someone’s dad.

The minutes crawl by. One o’clock hits and still no Sasha. I hold it together for eighteen more minutes and then I break. How can she be late today? I’m hanging on by a thread, nerves shooting through my veins and making me half crazy, and she’s late. I stalk towards the cash register, calling Brian’s name. He cocks his head as he eyes me.

“I’m taking lunch now,” I tell him. My company T-shirt is stuck to my back and my forehead is wet.

“Go on,” he says, and I walk out of the store and stop by the fountain. Sasha’s cell phone number is burned into my brain and I fish my phone out of my pocket and punch in her number.

She picks up on the first ring. “Nick?”

“Where are you? I’ve been waiting since one.”

“It’s positive,” she announces hollowly. “I took another test this morning and it’s positive.”

“Shit.” It’s what I expected, but that doesn’t make it any easier. I grip the phone tighter. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” she says quietly. “Yeah.”

“You need to get over here. We need to talk.”

“Nick, I can’t…all those people. I can’t deal with going anywhere today and you don’t know anyway, do you? You don’t know what to say to me or what I should do. It all comes down to me and I need to stay here and think right now.”

“That’s not fair,” I protest. “I can’t keep doing this, Sasha, pretending everything’s okay when it’s all I can think about. We need to make some decisions, the two of us, and we can’t do it over the phone.” I pull at the back of my T-shirt and wipe my forehead. “If you’re not coming here, I’m coming there.”

“Don’t,” she commands. “Not now.”

“You’re kind of limiting my options,” I say bitterly.

“Fine, come over!” she cries. “Help me tell the folks. They’ll be glad to see you, I’m sure.”

“Sasha.” I say her name gently. I need her to calm down. “Don’t you think we should get some things straight before you tell them? Do you even know what you want to do?”

“No, but it sounds like you do.”

“I know we’re not ready. We’re sixteen. You can’t tell me you’re ready for your whole life to change.” My throat shrinks as the words slip out. “Maybe we can take care of this ourselves. Maybe they don’t even have to know.”

Sasha’s silent on the other end of the phone. I have no idea what’s going through her mind and that scares me. “Nick, I don’t know if I can do that.” Her voice is brittle. “You think you can just make this disappear. Maybe that would work for you, but it’s not that easy for me.
I need to talk to my mom.
” She sniffles into the quiet between us and it’s such an awful sound that I’m almost relieved when she finally whispers, “I told you first because you have the right to know, but I can’t get through this on my own.”

“You’re not on your own, Sasha.”

“No? I woke up this morning, walked to the drugstore, and bought a pregnancy test. Me. On my own. You say you can’t think about anything else, but I’m living it. It’s with me every moment.”

I draw in a long breath, like I’m testing out a new pair of lungs. “So what happens now?”

“I tell my mother,” she repeats.

“When can I see you?”

“I’ll call you in a couple days, okay? When I’m ready.”

“And that’s it? I’m out of it. Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”

“It’s not like that,” she says. “I just need some time to figure out what’s best for me.”

I can’t believe she’s doing this again, shutting me out like this isn’t even about me. “Okay, so do it, but don’t act like I’m on the outside of this, Sasha. I know it’s your decision, but it affects me too. This is about us whether you like it or not.”

“I know.” She says that like she hasn’t heard a word. “I’ll call you in a few days. I promise.”

A couple days, a few days, next thing you know it’ll be a week. What am I supposed to do until I hear from her?
Press end. Get lunch in the food court. Go back to Sports 2 Go and pretend you give a shit about the post-Christmas blowout sale.
That’s what the voice tells me, but I can’t do it. The sound of Sasha hanging up echoes in my ear and I keep holding on, cell phone pressed against my ear and my shirt melting into my back. I keep holding on. The sound dies and then there’s just silence. I keep holding on.

fourteen

Keelor and I
lean against the boards and watch the Zamboni flood the ice. Keelor is permanently wired when it comes to hockey. He can’t wait to get out there and he bursts onto the ice the moment the Zamboni doors are closed. Gavin is right behind him. Me, I’m not in a hurry for this practice; my impatience comes from somewhere else. I don’t even know what I’m doing here; that’s the truth. I’m no good at anything since Sasha told me on Christmas Eve. I’m just waiting. It’s only been one day since she said she’d call and I can’t stand it anymore.

I drag my ass out onto the ice and Coach Howes orchestrates the warm-up. We run lines. Skate hard from the goal line to the blue line and back. Red line. Goal line. Far blue line. Goal line. And finally all the way down the ice. Coach Howes blows his whistle. “Drop!” he orders. “Push-ups.” Everyone knifes to a stop and falls to the ice. My body isn’t anywhere near tired and I do the push-ups without thinking. Coach blows the whistle again. Circles this time. Two laps forward and two laps backwards for every circle on the ice. My feet know what to do and they do it. I’ve been playing hockey for so long that the basics come naturally.

The shooting drills are a different story. Every pass is in my teammates’ skates and my shots couldn’t hit the side of a barn. No one except the coach gives a shit if you’re crap in practice, but I keep my eyes down in the dressing room afterwards. I don’t want to talk to anyone and I don’t want to listen. Keelor’s busy ribbing Gavin about something, but just when I think I might pull off my invisible man trick, he pulls me aside and asks if I’m going to Marc Guerreau’s New Year’s Eve party.

I’ve received at least fifteen messages about this party in the past twenty-four hours, but it’s the last thing on my mind. “I don’t know,” I tell him. “Maybe.”

“You have other plans?” he says mockingly. “Come on, Nick. It’ll be good for you. All of us are going—Gavin, Hunter, Scotty, Vix, Dani.”

“Nathan?”

Keelor shrugs. “Ask him.” I can tell you right now there’s zero possibility Nathan will be at Marc’s party. It’s not his crowd anymore; bringing up his name to Keelor is a reflex action from years gone by.

I shrug like it doesn’t matter anyway. I have no intention of showing up and Keelor knows it.

“We’ll pick you up,” he says. “No excuses.”

“Whatever.”

“Hey, fuck
whatever,
Nick. I’m serious. You’re going to this party if I have to throw your ass into the back of Gavin’s car.” Keelor’s eyes are blazing. “You’re a walking disaster, man. You gotta shake this. Something’s gotta change.”

He’s serious, all right, but he doesn’t have a clue. A New Year’s Eve party won’t solve my problem. “I said I’d be there, didn’t I?” It’s not worth an argument at this point. I can get out of it later.

I head for the shower and stand under the stream of hot water, wondering if Sasha’s told her mother. Will her parents let me see her again? I need to see her.

It was different during my parents’ divorce. My life felt unchanged when I was on the ice. Now I can’t forget anything for more than a minute and it turns my judgment to shit. We lost our last game because I screwed up a perfect opportunity in the last minute of the third period. We were down 2–1 when the puck sprung loose in front of the Northam Blue’s net. I was closest to the puck and I sped towards it, swung my stick back, and tried to slap it into the net while it was still in motion. That was the idea anyway, but I fanned on the shot and the puck dribbled into the corner. So much for our tie.

Sometimes the puck finds the net and sometimes it doesn’t, but I’ve never had it quite this bad before. Somehow I have to get it together before the tournament in Buffalo tomorrow. I can’t let this shake me up forever. It’s not fair to the team and it’s not doing me any good either.