Lucky

“I don’t wanna leave,” she buried her face deeper into his chest and wrapped her arms tighter around his middle, definitely not wanting to leave her familiar safe haven for the amount of time she would be.

“Kenzie,” he sighed, placing a kiss on the top of her head, closing his eyes as he held her. “It’s not that long, baby. Six months,” he paused, knowing that she was right; six months was a long time, but he had to be strong in front of her. “We’ll make it through.”

“I know we will,” she whimpered, her voice muffled by his chest. “But I still don’t want to go.”

“I know you don’t, baby. But this is your life we’re talking about,” he shook his head. “You can’t throw it away just because you don’t want to leave me for a little while.”

“David-”

“I’ll be here when you get back,” he smiled at down at her as he finally pried her face away from his chest so he could look straight down into her bright green eyes. “I’m not going anywhere.”

She smiled lightly, still not fully reassured, but somewhat comforted, knowing he was right. He always was, she knew that, it had always been that way. She closed her eyes as he pulled her back into his chest, letting thoughts and memories fly around in her head.

She walked down the sidewalk, letting the wind whip through her hair, keeping her head down as she moved, both to shield her face, and because of the disappointment that wracked her body with every step she took.

The packet of stapled white papers that she gripped tightly into a roll in her hand would forever burn a horrendous image into her brain, and she couldn’t help but wish she could get rid of them someway, making them disintegrate from her memory.A thirty two percent, she thought,the dumbest person in the class had gotten at least a fifty. And that was what discouraged her the most. Not the fact that she’d failed, but the fact that she’d gotten the lowest grade in the class, simply because she forgot to study, instead staying up and watching reruns of old hockey games in an oversized t-shirt, her favorite pair of boxer shorts and men’s socks.

Once she came upon her apartment building, nearly a mile from her school’s campus, she quickly scurried inside, wanting to get as warm as possible, as soon as possible. She nearly jumped into the elevator and punched the large number six, waiting, ignoring the annoying elevator music as the machine took her up five floors.

“Hey,” she looked to her right as she stepped off the elevator, pulling her large lanyard of keys from her purse, towards the stairwell that led from the bottom floor, all the way to the top floor of her building. The man seated there only smiled in her direction, and she couldn’t help but smile back lightly before she walked towards him. He stood up and took her into his arms, embracing her tight, placing a kiss onto the side of her head, just as he’d done every time they’d seen each other previously.

“Hi, David,” she spoke quietly, not really wanting any visitors, due to her mood, but taking it all into consideration when she saw her best friend waiting for her outside her apartment. She decided to allow him in to visit her, smiling lightly again and taking his warm hand in her small, cold one, leading him right into her tiny apartment, one that he couldn’t believe she lived in.

He took in the more-cluttered-than-normal space, allowing his eyebrow to raise upon the sight of her apartment.She was normally a complete neat-freak, he noted, wondering just what exactly happened to her place to make it look the way it did.

“Geez, Kenz. What happened to this place? Did a hurricane hit just your apartment?” he joked, earning a small grin from her in response.

Her mood was definitely lifting from spending only a few minutes with the man she’d declared her best friend a few months prior, after knowing him for only a week and a half. “Yeah, it was called Hurricane I-Totally-Forgot-I-Had-Exams-This-Morning-So-I-Just-Totally-Screwed-My-Life-Up.”

“Don’t say that, Kenz. You know what my dad used to tell me?” he waited for her to answer him, but she said nothing, only stared straight at him. “Life’s hard; get a helmet,” he closed the three foot gap in between them and wrapped his arms around her head, pulling her close to him.

“You smell like sweat,” she mumbled into his chest, shaking her head free from his grasp before turning into her small kitchen, looking into the refrigerator. “You couldn’t even shower after practice before you came to see me? Dang, those Blues really are skimpin’ out on stuff, aren’t they?”

He shook his head, knowing she was completely kidding, and took her searching as a sign to take his shoes off and make himself comfortable, well, more comfortable than he was, seeing as he was already in a pair of jogging pants and a plain hoodie –completely opposite from what he wore in his games.

He plopped down onto her couch and grabbed her television remote, clicking it on and immediately flipping through the channels, smiling when Kenzie spoke to him. “I’ll just have a pop, thanks, Kenz.”

“You know, David,” she sighed as she slid onto the couch next to him with two cans of Coke in her hands and a plate with a bunch of junk food on it, putting it all on the table in front of her before she turned to him. “I’m starting to think you’re just using me for my hospitality and great TV.”

She looked at the rerun ofGeneral Hospital that he’d stopped on and began to laugh, smiling even brighter, almost forgetting about her exams all together when she made eye contact with David, who only laughed and wrapped his arm around her shoulder, pulling her in closer to him.

“Doesn’t Europe seem so far away?” she asked him, playing with his fingers, which had previously been linked with hers. She ignored the hustle and bustle all around her, making sure they stayed out of the way of the moving pedestrian traffic of the airport, not wanting to cause any traffic jams.

“It’s really not,” he smiled back down at her. “Who knows; I might pop in and visit you for a weekend, or something.”

She could only smile lightly as the two of them walked through the large terminal, down towards gate A7, where her flight to New York was scheduled to depart from. She would fly to the gateway to the country, have about an hour and a half layover, and then, from there, fly to Amsterdam, where her European adventure would start.

She knew she was lucky; only twenty-five of the other students in the entire university were selected to travel from the somewhat conservative city of St. Louis overseas, to study the culture of the many European people they were sure to encounter. Seeing as she was bound to visit many of the countries that made up her heritage, she could consider herself one of the luckiest people ever; she’d get to experience it first hand.

“So, how many trips are you guys making while I’m away?”

David looked over in his girlfriend’s direction, a small smile on his face, due to her curiosity in his career choice. “I think we have twenty or so; plenty of places for me to go and buy you stuff.”

She grinned at his subtle hint to her hobby: collecting odds and ends from different places she went. She was sure she would have a whole new collection when she came home from Europe, and small things from David would only add to it, and make it more dynamic.

He may have seemed like he was a big tough guy when he skated by you on the ice, and maybe on camera, but to Kenzie, David was actually one of the biggest teddy bears she knew; and for that she was thankful.

“David Perron’s down! Hit by James Wisniewski!”

The screaming of the man sitting only a few feet away from her into his microphone nearly knocked Kenzie out of her seat; the shock of the words almost completely doing so. She stood up, almost upon instinct, and looked out onto the pure white ice, only to have her worst fears confirmed. As the whistles blew to stop all play, she watched as David reached out to TJ Oshie, who skated up to his side in an effort to help him.

He held his side as he hobbled, first up onto his knees, and then up onto the blades of his skates. TJ helped him into the box, and, before he could even think about sitting down, a few of the trainers were up, shoving his arms over their shoulders as they assisted him in getting to the locker room.

Kenzie hadn’t even noticed that she’d been gripping the index and middle finger of Candace, TJ’s girlfriend, so tight that now they were both uncomfortable. When she was released as Kenzie stood up, Candace only shook her hand, in an effort to get feeling back in her now crushed fingers, but kept her eye on her close friend, not wanting her to get too worked up.

“I have to get back there.”

Once those six words passed Kenzie’s lips, she stepped onto the cement stairs next to her, thankful that the boys were able to get them seats on the end of their row, due to Candace’s proclaimed ‘claustrophobia’. Weaving her way through men, women and children alike, most of them with some type of food or drink in their hands, Kenzie took off through the Scottrade Center, in search of the familiar door that would lead her back to the locker rooms; the door she’d been through with David so often before.

Once she found the door that readAuthorized Personnel Only, she wrenched it open and took off down the long hallway, now in search of the smaller hallway that would take her to the place, in which, she was sure David was being taken care of.

Her search was cut short when a man in a security uniform approached her, noticing her franticness. “Can I help you ma’am?”

“I need to see David,” she told the familiar looking man, praying he would have seen her before at one of their practices, or maybe even at one of the games. About halfway through her run to find her best friend, she realized she’d left her purse sitting next to Candace, along with the badge-type-lanyard David had told her to wear if she wanted to come wait for him in the locker room after the game.

The man stared at her for a second, and then, something in his mind must have clicked, because he smiled, nodded, and then pointed to the hallway about twenty feet behind her. “I think you’re looking for that.”

Realizing she must have passed the small passageway in her worried frenzy, she quickly thanked the man and backtracked, going through the small hallway as fast as she could. The lightweight door almost flew open due to the amount of force she used, and she stepped in quickly, looking around for any sign of life.

There was a quiet groan coming from the area behind the lounge, from the players’ stalls. Kenzie followed the noise around the corner, only to find David sitting in what she assumed was his stall, with one of the trainers sitting in front of him, cutting the excess of the white tape that hung from his side. The tape was wrapped tightly around his middle, from what she could see, and was helping to keep him all together.

Her foot hit a small trash can in the corner, and out of surprise, his head jerked up in her direction, as did the trainer’s. He kept his eyes locked with Kenzie’s as the trainer stood up and walked out of the area, leaving the two of them alone.

“Are you okay?” she asked timidly, after a few seconds of silence.

He only nodded, and didn’t say anything, making things even more awkward than they were supposed to be. He lowered his eyes to the carpet, trying to find interesting patterns in the knots, trying to find something to say to her. She, on the other hand, could feel her heart almost bursting out of her chest.

“I didn’t want you to see me like this,” he admitted, finally taking his eyes off of the floor as he looked up at her, his eyes showing that he was no less than ashamed at the way he was presenting himself to her.

“Like what, David? Hurt?” she asked, watching him nod as she stepped forward. “Why?”

“Because you’re not supposed to,” he answered her question, and by the tone of his voice, she knew it was nearly killing him to speak. “I’m supposed to be the one who takes care of you when you’re hurt.”

She kneeled in front of him, a small smile on her face, in an effort to reassure him that it didn’t matter to her if he was injured or not, he would always be her courageous best friend. “David,” she sighed, “It doesn’t matter to me if you get hurt; I know you’ll always take care of me, and that’s why you’re my be-”

She was cut off, and nearly shocked by his lips coming into contact with hers. Neither one of them moved their mouths to take things any further, but just the simple touch sent shivers down her spine, and made her stomach erupt in butterflies that she hadn’t felt since her first, and last, boyfriend from high school.

“Don’t say best friend,” he spoke as he pushed his forehead up against hers and placed his hands on her neck, rubbing her jawbone with his thumbs.

Her eyes, which had closed during their kiss, were still that way, and she waited to open them until she decided to voice her opinion. “David, you are my best friend; but-” she paused to take a breath, and also to gather her thoughts, “do you know how long I’ve wanted it to be so much more than that?”

He could only smile at her words, before he pressed his lips back onto hers, knowing he was ridiculously lucky to have a best friend that he could also call something more.

“I love you,” he spoke as he kissed her forehead, nearly grunting as she tightened her grip around his waist. He knew she didn’t want to let him go; he could easily see that, but he knew that once she got on the plane and away from him, it would be easier for her to continue with her studies.

“I love you, too.” She leaned up to kiss him, only to be surprised when he reached into his back pocket and presented her with a square Tiffany blue box, wrapped in a white ribbon.

“Flight 4872, to New York; last call!”

“Don’t forget me when you meet some of those hot Parisian guys,” he laughed as he pressed the box into her palm and placed a long, lasting kiss on her lips.

“I could never,” she shook her head, and he pushed her towards the check-in desk, smiling at her in reassurance that he wasn’t planning on going anywhere. She handed the receptionist her ticket before she began to walk through the folding hallway, down to the plane.

“Oh, and Kenz,” he called after her as she walked away. She turned back around to face him, with her eyebrow raised. He smiled, “Don’t open that until you get bored on the plane.”

Yeah, right, she thought. As soon as I sit down, I’ll be bored. She smiled back and nodded, blowing him a kiss, which he pretended to catch and stick in his pocket, before she continued her walk, all the way to her seat, which happened to be in the very first row; first class.

She sat down in her large, fluffy white seat and looked down at the box in her hand, debating on whether or not to open it. She decided on the fact that she was, indeed, already bored, and slowly untied the white ribbon on the top. She removed the lid, and instantly smiled at what she saw inside.

There was a gold locket in the center of the white fluff, and she couldn’t help but wrench it open, smiling at the photos inside: one of David, and one of the two of them together. Tears sprang to her eyes as she clipped it around her own neck and admired the open necklace. She most definitely wouldn’t forget her lovely boyfriend, and no matter what happened, she was convinced that they would stay best friends for as long as the world would let them.