The Man Who Can't Be Moved

“Okay…so at the risk of sounding exactly like the clingy, possessive type that you’ve already stated time and time again to anyone that will listen that you don’t want, I’m going to come right out with this. Where the fuck have you been?”

Autumn’s pissed; I totally understand where she’s coming from and I completely deserve whatever tirade she’s about to unleash on me. She has every right to be angry; I’m the one that’s been on her ass constantly to make whatever is going on between us official and then I turn around and go AWOL on her. I’ve been an immature little bastard; I’ve been avoiding her calls in order to both spare myself any form of confrontation and give myself a chance to come up with some sort of remotely valid excuse to why I didn’t tell her the whole story behind me and Em. I’m a goddamn novice when it comes to women and relationships; I’ve never had to worry about anyone’s feelings and wants and desires other than my own and I’m a fish out of water when it comes to dealing with the present situation. What I did was wrong; I should have been upfront and honest right off the hop when it comes to my history with my ex girlfriend -and now wife of my teammate and former best friend- and I never should have discounted the possibility that someone in the press was going to air my dirty laundry before I had a chance to tend to things on my own.

I can’t say that I’m in love with Autumn. We haven’t been together that long and the pain and humiliation associated with what Max and Em had done to me still has it’s invisible, iron clad fist wrapped tightly around my heart. I don’t know if I’m ever going to get over it completely; if a day is ever going to come where I don’t think about the rage and the hurt that had threatened to consume when it had become painfully clear that I’d lost the first real, true love of my life to someone I’d once called my best friend and had trusted with my life. No one knows what it felt like to hear Max admit that he was in love with her; to have it sink in as I stood in the middle of his kitchen that he’d fucked my girlfriend the night before and didn’t have a single goddamn regret. He had tried to place the blame on me; I’d been the villain because I’d chosen to send back Em to Pittsburgh instead of keeping her in Halifax with me and working out her problems -our problems- together.

Yet even after he’d admitted what had gone done and adamantly insisted that he loved her and that I couldn’t possibly ever feel the same way about her as he did, there’d still be a glimmer of hope that all was not lost. That regardless of how furious and devastated I was and no matter how deep the betrayal, once I got to Emma-Leigh I’d be able to make everything better. I had been convinced that it was just another bump on the road to us living happily ever after together; we were going through some tough shit in regards to losing the baby and the fact that I’d cheated on her and whatever mental and emotional issues were haunting her, but I’d thought for sure that we’d get past all of that.

Her night with Max was just that in my mind; a one time thing that she’d express tremendous regret for. I’d been fully prepared for how she’d cry over what she’d down; I’d honestly expected her to launch into a incessant string of apologies and a few “I’ll never do it again’s” and that after I spent a couple days pissed off and bitter -and miserable and alone sleeping on the couch as a form of inflicting some type of punishment on her- we’d find a way to make things right between. We’d get counselling; we’d sit through sessions with a shrink that specializes in dealing with couples and I’d get Emma-Leigh some individual appointments and have the doctor get her started on medication to stabilize whatever crazy shit was going on in her head. Things would be tough; we’d keep going through our ups and downs until we got to the point we were able to properly deal with our shit. But at least we’d do it together.

And then she’d turned around and chosen Max. I don’t even remember if she’d verbally picked him or if it had just been something she’d made perfectly clear through garbled, rambling nonsense that hadn’t even included an apology. It had all been about what I’d done wrong; I never showed emotion, I’d never tried to stop her from heading back to Pittsburgh, I’d never once shown that I wanted her with the same kind of blinding, all consuming, earth shattering passion that Max was able to show so effortlessly and easily. It had all been about what I hadn’t done and what I hadn’t shown and it had never once been about how she’d turned me that way; I’d become an emotionally absent sonofabitch in order to both deal with all of her issues and protect myself from her often volatile behaviour and the hurtful comments that she tossed in my face. I’d had to shut myself down in order to appease her and it had totally backfired in my face; I wasn’t the same person that she’d fallen in love with when I’d visited Sault Ste. Marie and she simply couldn’t accept or deal with the Sidney Crosby that existed in Pittsburgh. And she couldn’t live up to the expectations of perfection that everyone in my ‘camp’ was constantly pushing onto her; she couldn’t deal with life up on the pedestal that I’d put her on and she couldn’t be the meek and mild Stepford Wife that simply stood in the background with a fake smile on her face.

She’d even told me that when it came to her, I lacked a ‘sensitivity chip’; I was capable of being compassionate and empathic with everyone but her. That while I was able to donate time and money to various charities and ‘be out there’ with my emotions when it came to children who had special needs or were underprivileged or terminally ill, I was incapable of bringing that side of me into my personal life. She’d also pointed out that she couldn’t get over the fact that I’d taken off the night our baby had died instead of sticking by her side and being with her when she’d needed me the most, and that it had almost destroyed her when I’d cheated on her while we were both still reeling with grief. And she couldn’t understand why I hadn’t tried to stop her from leaving Nova Scotia. Why, if I loved her the way I said I did, I didn’t fight for her.

I’d realized then that there wasn’t going to be a quick fix for everything that was wrong between Em and I; we were both to blame for the rapid disintegration of our relationship. Both her harsh words and the truth they were encased in had hurt; I’d shut down completely and had decided that tough love was better than none at all and I’d all but frightened her into packing her shit and then had taken her back to Max’s. I hadn’t meant what I’d said; I hadn’t been serious when I’d told her that if she wanted to be with him than I wasn’t going to stand in her way. And I definitely hadn’t meant that they were made for each other; she was made for me and it made me sick to think about her being with anyone else. She had no idea how much it had killed me inside to leave her in front of that apartment building, or how I’d pulled over onto the side of the road only a block away and both bawled my eyes out and argued with myself for damn near an hour over not going back to get her right away.

Dumping her into Max’s lap had been a short term solution. My plan had been to take a few days to cool off and to give her some time to realize how badly she’d fucked up; I had every intention on going to get her and fighting tough and nail to both get her back and to make things right between us. Only sometimes the best laid plans never work out; news of our break up soon ran rampant throughout Pittsburgh and the rumour mill and nastiness kicked into high gear almost over night. I’d decided to hang back for a bit; wait for things to calm down before I went to Max’s to claim what I felt was rightfully mine. But then days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months and the next thing I knew she’d left Pittsburgh and had been admitted into some mental health rehab in Montreal.

I’d gone once to see her; I’d given Mario a huge line of bullshit about how my grandmother back home was sick and going in for surgery and that I’d never forgive myself if something happened to her and I’d never gotten the chance to see her one last time. I’d made the pilgrimage to Montreal only to be refused entrance the second I’d stepped up to the front desk; the nurse and the therapists all knew exactly who I was and what roll I’d have to play in the fucked up mess that was Emma-Leigh’s life and they’d even showed me that my name had been written -and highlighted- on a list of visitors that were not allowed to see her.

Things had quickly gone from bad to worse after that; I hadn’t been able to get in contact with Em no matter how hard I tried and no matter who I tried to enlist to do my dirty work and suddenly I was hearing rumours in the dressing room that she was living with Max’s brother Frank and his family and that things between my teammate and ex were far more serious than I ever thought they’d become. Max was changing before everyone’s eyes; he was no longer the team manwhore and always went home alone at the end of the night despite women practically throwing themselves at him in the arena parking lot or the bars the guys hung out at. That should have been a sure sign that things were about to explode in my face; if I didn’t get in touch with Em ASAP I was going to lose her forever and there’d be nothing I could do or say to repair things between us. The phone call from her father regarding his daughter’s sudden wedding had cemented the fact that I’d completely and totally fucked things up. I’d let too much time to pass and allowed too much water to pass under the bridge; I’d lost her. To Max Talbot of all fucking people.

It still hurts to think about. I still curse myself each and every day for letting Em get away and I can’t stop myself from wondering what things would have been like had I not made all the wrong decisions and had just followed my heart instead of relying on my head to lead the way. Autumn is the first person in five months that makes me feel as if I’m not a useless, pathetic bastard; she makes me feel as if I don’t have to pretend I’m something or someone I’m not. I can be myself around her. She doesn’t care if I’m a socially awkward, shy and sheepish small town boy with little experience in matters of the heart and a million and one immature, horrible choices under my belt. When I’m with her the bitterness and the pain all but disappears; I forget all about what Emma-Leigh and Max did to me. At least temporarily.

I may not love her at this point in time, but I can definitely picture myself falling in love with her. I know that I care about her a lot; I know she takes my breath away whenever she so as much smiles at me and that even the simplest of kisses causes my head to spin and my knees to feel weak. She’s an incredible woman; beautiful, phenomenally intelligent, assertive and independent to a fault. Everything and anything I could have ever possibly asked for.

**********

“I haven’t been anywhere,” I pathetically admit.

What the fuck am I supposed to say? I have no valid explanation or believable excuse for why I haven’t been answering my phone. And if she’s going to go off on a tangent and tear me a new asshole…well I more than fucking deserve it.

“You haven’t been anywhere as in you’ve just been ignoring me entirely or you haven’t been anywhere because you’ve been holed up in your hotel room with some slut?” Autumn inquires, vehemence dripping from each and every word.

This isn’t going well at all. In fact, it’s off to the worst possible start imaginable. When a woman is already furious and irrational the second you answer the phone, you know you’re never going to survive the altercation unscathed. Or get a word in edgewise.

“Autumn…come on…” I sigh heavily -an attempt to disguise my uneasiness and shaky nerves with irritation- and sliding the dead bolt across my hotel room door, toe of my sneakers and drop them in the pile of shoes littering the miniscule foyer. “…you know that I’m not like that. I’d never do something like that. You know how important this it to me. How important you are to me.”

“If I was that fucking important to you why the hell did I have to find out some seriously personal shit about you through the press?” she challenges. “They ambushed me today! They were waiting for me at work and they…”

“I told you that that would happen,” I gently remind her, as I toss myself on top of the wrinkled and rumpled sheets that cover that bed I’d claimed as my own when we’d arrived in Vancouver. “I told you that once word got out that we were together, they’d be on you like flies on shit. You said you were okay with all of that. That you accepted that dealing with them was part of being with me and…”

“This isn’t about them wanting to know all about me!” she argues. “I don’t mind them asking questions about me and digging into my personal life and talking to my coworkers and neighbours and practically pawing through my fucking trash. I don’t even mind that much that there’s reporters constantly at Ryan’s school trying to talk to him at recess and following him home at the end of the day. What I mind is finding out things about you through those goddamn vultures! I shouldn’t had to find out about you and Emma-Leigh Kennedy like that! I shouldn’t have had to…”

“I had already told you about Em,” I interject. “I had already told you that…”

“You only told me half of the story,” Autumn hisses. “All you told me was that you’d been dating Tyler Kennedy’s little sister and that she’d cheated on you with Max Talbot and that she’d run off and married him. You never told me the whole truth, Sidney! You never told me that you’d been living with her at Mario’s! You never told me that…”

“We lived together for all of a couple of months. That’s it. Two months. It’s not like I’d spent a hell of a lot of time shacked up with her or that…”

“….you never told me that she’d been pregnant!” Autumn continues. “You never told me that you’d knocked her up! That she’d lost the baby! You never….”

“I was going to tell you,” I feebly attempt to defend myself. “I was going to wait until I got back to Pittsburgh so that we could talk face to face. It’s not that I intentionally kept it all back from you and that I was never going to tell you. I just…”

“Don’t you think that you should have told me a long time ago?” she inquires. “Don’t you think that I had a right to know about all of that sooner than this? Like say right before or right after we started sleeping together? I trusted you, Sidney. I gave my heart and my body to you. You’re the first man that I’ve opened myself up to like that since my husband died; I trusted you wholly and completely and you fucking betrayed me! You told me that you wanted there to be something serious between us. You said that you thought we had something incredible and that…”

“I do want there to be something between us,” I confirm. “And I do think that we have something incredible.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me the whole truth about you and Emma-Leigh Kennedy? You were almost a father for fucksakes!”

“I was not almost a father,” I argue. “She wasn’t even three months yet! Don’t blow this out of proportion! She wasn’t even out of the first trimester yet and she had a miscarriage and she never would have carried the baby to term. You don’t know the whole story, okay? You don’t know what kind of medical issues she has and how she might never have kids. You don’t know what…”

“I’m sorry that she has to go through all of that. And I’m sorry that she lost a baby. I can’t even begin to imagine what she went through. What you both went through. But the fact of the matter is that you got your ex girlfriend pregnant. And there could have been a chance, no matter how tiny, that you would have become a father! You don’t think I had a right to know all of that? That I had a right to hear about it from you?”

“I should have told you before we got serious,” I agree. “And I was going to tell you when I got back to Pittsburgh. And I know you probably don’t believe me when I say that, but it’s the truth. I never meant to keep it back from you, Autumn. And you shouldn’t have had to find out the way you did. I’m sorry for that, okay? I’m sorry that you feel like I betrayed you. I never meant for things to go down this way. I never…”

“Is it because you don’t trust me?” she inquires, her breath escaping her mouth in ragged pants as her temper finally begins to simmer down. “Is that why you didn’t tell me right away? Is it because you thought I wouldn’t understand? Is it because you thought I’d get upset or…?”

“It was because I didn’t want to talk about it,” I admit. “Not because I didn’t want to talk about it with you. I just didn’t want to talk about it at all. It hasn’t been that long, Autumn. It’s only been six months since the miscarriage and only five since Em dumped me for Max and only a couple since I found out they were married. I’ve had all this bad shit constantly dumped on me for almost half a year. I needed some time to deal with it before I talked about it. It had nothing to do with you and everything to do with me.”

“Were you going to tell me about her bi-polar too? About how she was in a psychiatric hospital back in Montreal? That she…?”

“Everything,” I insist. “I was going to tell you everything. Even the stuff that isn’t really any of your business. Like her bi-polar. That has nothing to do with either of us and she doesn’t deserve being ridiculed because she’s sick. It’s a legit illness and…”

“Is that what you think I’m doing?” irritation and hurt seep into her voice. “You think I’m going to ridicule her because she’s got a mental illness? You think that I’m going to make fun of her because of it? What kind of person do you think I am? I work in a hospital. I see sick people day in and day out. I would never, ever make fun of someone because they’re ill. Whether it be physical or mental. I’m twenty-six years old, Sidney. I’m not some immature, pathetic little girl, you know.”

“I know, Autumn. I know that you’re better than that and I know what you deal with on a daily basis. I wasn’t insinuating that…”

“Do you still love her?” she blurts out. “You obviously were at some point in time, right? You moved her into Mario’s house, you were going to have a baby with her, you took her home to Nova Scotia and you were planning on marrying her. You wouldn’t have done all of that if you didn’t love her.”

“I did love her,” I confirm. “And I did want to spend forever with her. I did want to get married and a have a family. I can’t lie about that. I can’t…”

“And you’d probably still be with her if she hadn’t have had the baby.”

“I don’t know that. I don’t know what would have happened between Emma-Leigh and I. Maybe it was inevitable, you know? Maybe we would have broken up anyway.”

“I can’t imagine you being the type to break up with someone that gave birth to your child,” Autumn mutters. “You’re not the type to just shirk your responsibilities.”

“I would have helped her take care of the baby. I would have paid support and had visitation and all of that. If things hadn’t had worked out, I still would have been a dad. What’s the point of even talking like this? What’s the point in wondering ‘what if’? She did lose the baby and we did break up and now I’m with you and…”

“Do you still love her?” she repeats. “Do you ever wish you were still with her?”

“She’s married to Max now. She’s moved on with her life and she…”

“That isn’t what I asked you. I asked you if…”

“I’m not in love with her anymore,” I can only pray that the lie isn’t as transparent to Autumn as it is to me. That I at least sound believable. “How can you love someone that did something like that to you? She fucked my teammate behind my back. She ran off and married him. She…”

“But you’d still want to be with her if she hadn’t had married Max? You would have taken her back if it had been nothing more than a one night stand? You would have…”

“This is a lot of ‘would have’ and ‘should have’ and ‘what if’s‘, Autumn. This is a lot of…what do you call it?…when you talk about something like it never happened?”

“It’s all hypothetical,” she stresses the last word. “And so what if it is? I think these are all relative questions, don’t you? I think I have a right to know what the hell is really going on in that head of yours. You’ve been on my ass about making us an official thing and about putting a title on us, yet…”

“I don’t know what I would have done if she hadn’t have run off and married Max, okay? I don’t know if I would have been able to forgive her for what she did. I don’t know if I would have taken her back or if I would have just cut all ties to her. I just don’t know, Autumn. I’ve never thought about all of this. I’ve never seen a reason to. All I know is that I’m…” I briefly close my eyes and inhale deeply. “…I’m falling in love with you. You’re all that matters to me now. Em is my past. You’re my future. And talking about her isn’t doing us any good. I’m sorry that you found out about all of that stuff the way you did and I wish I could take it back and tell you myself. But I can’t.”

“Are you being serious?” she asks, and for the first time since we’d begun our conversation, genuine emotion takes the place of her rage and hurt. “Are you telling the truth? About falling in love with me? Are you…?”

“I wouldn’t lie about something like that. I am falling in love with you and you are the only thing that matters to me. You and Ryan. Did you really think I wasn’t serious about you? That what was going on between us wasn’t serious? It’s not just sex, Autumn. It stopped being just about sex a while ago now. And I fucked up by now telling you sooner about everything that happened between Emma-Leigh and I. But it wasn’t intentional. You believe me, right?”

“I believe you.” she says, her voice barely above a whisper.

“About everything? Because it’s all true. Everything I’ve said to you is the truth. Especially the part about you and Ryan. I wouldn’t make that up; I wouldn’t just say it because I think it’s what you want to hear. I just want to be with you. Only you.”

“That’s all I want too,” she admits. “It’s all I’ve wanted for a while now and I’ve just been too scared to tell you and too afraid to open myself up like that and I…I don’t know…I guess I’m not as strong and independent as I like to think I am. I never meant to freak out like I did. I shouldn’t have called you acting like some kind of pathetic, possessive, immature fan girl. I never should have…”

“Women get territorial,” I reason with a shrug. “Doesn’t matter how old or how young they are. It’s just what they do.”

“I overreacted,” she concludes. “I was irrational and bitchy and I got jealous when I thought about everything the two of you went together and even more jealous when I thought maybe you were still in love with her. I should never have acted like that. And I never should have called her and…”

“Whoa…whoa…” I frown and bolt upright into a sitting position. “…you did what?”

“I called her,” Autumn sheepishly admits. “Emma-Leigh. I was so pissed off and so hurt and so jealous that I called the Lemieux house and Lauren went into her dad’s office and got Max’s house number and…”

“You called Max’s place? When?”

“This afternoon. I couldn’t get a hold of you and I wanted to get to the bottom of things so I thought maybe the best thing to do would be to talk to Emma-Leigh. I didn’t mean to come across as confrontational and nasty as I did. I had wanted to be civil about the entire thing. But she’s just so goddamn smart mouthed and so little girl bitchy that I…”

“I can’t believe you called there…” I burrow the fingers of my free hand in my curls and drop my chin to my chest. “I can’t believe you’d do that. I can’t believe you’d talk to her about this. About me. I can’t…”

“I was upset,” Autumn sounds legitimately worried about my reaction to the news. “I didn’t think I was going behind your back and I certainly would never have said anything bad about you. I just needed to get to the bottom of all the craziness and like I said, I couldn’t get a hold of you so I figured she was the next best thing. She didn’t take it so well, though. I guess ‘hissy fit’ is the best way to describe her reaction.”

“This isn’t good…” I mutter. More to myself than her. “This isn’t good at all.”

“Like I said, I wasn’t thinking clearly and I…”

“I’ve got to go,” I cut her off. “I’ve got to go and straighten all this shit out. There’s already enough issues in the dressing room. I don’t need anymore ‘cause you decided it was a good idea to call my ex girlfriend. Why couldn’t you just leave well enough alone? Why couldn’t you just wait until I got a hold of you? Why couldn’t you just have…?”

“I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong,” my girlfriend defends herself. “It may not have been the smartest thing to do, but I certainly never meant to cause issues. I just wanted to talk to her and see where things stood between the two of you and…”

“Things don’t stand anywhere between us. She’s married. To my former best friend. She’s with Max now. And pretty soon, if things go right, they’re going to start a family and…”

“She’s still in love with you,” Autumn reveals. “She may not have come right out and said it, but it’s a hard thing to hide. She’s still in love with you and she knows she made a mistake.”

“I don’t care…” I practically hiss. “…I don’t care if she still loves me and still wants to be with me. I want to be with you. Not her. You shouldn’t have called her. You should have just left it alone until you talked to me. Don’t you realize you just made things worse? That you just opened up a whole other can of worms? Why didn’t you…?”

“It wouldn’t bother you so much if you were still in love with her,” Autumn spits, and then abruptly disconnects the call.

“Motherfucker…” I mumble, and then pressing the END button on my phone, toss it aside and rake both of my hands through my hair.

I need to straighten this out. I need to get a hold of Em and make things right.

And then I need to get my ass back to Pittsburgh.

Back to Autumn.