The Right Kind of Wrong

Lying on her back, the sheets pulled up to cover her chest and looking up at the white ceiling, Emily listened to the sounds around her. The party was clearly winding down on the floor bellow them and the music had been turned down to where she could no longer hear the words being sung, though she could clearly hear the breaths coming from less than a foot away.

“His name is Erik,” she said softly, knowing from his uneven breaths that he wasn't asleep.

“What?” Chris frowned slightly as he rolled onto his side, looking at her as he propped his head up in his hand, watching her closely.

“The reason I practically broke down tonight,” she mumbled, refusing to look over at him. “We were engaged,” she revealed.

“What happened?” he asked carefully, observing her as a range of emotions passed over her features.

“He cheated on me with my best friend and roommate,” she said evenly, surprising herself with how little it actually hurt to say it. “And I found out by walking in on them, doing it in his bed.”

“Wow,” he breathed, nodding slightly.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “And it wasn't the worst part,” she admitted. “It was that he didn’t…he…we’d been together for so long that I just expected that he would tell me if something was wrong.”

“How long had you been together?” he wondered, suppressing the urge to reach out and brush away the strand of hair that had fallen across her forehead.

“Seven years,” she smiled softly. “I met him my first week in high school, he had the locker above me and practically knocked me out when he opened it.”

“And you still went out with him?” he raised his eyebrows.

“He made an impression,” she joked slightly. “A few days later I found him lingering around after classes had ended and he asked me out, and…I don’t know, we just spend so much time together that all of a sudden we were together,” she shrugged. “I don’t even know when we went from dating to a couple,” she admitted. “He asked me to marry him a few weeks after graduation, and there wasn't a single part of me that wanted to turn him down, I loved him with all my heart.”

“Then after the summer I enrolled at the University in the city and I thought everything was going great,” she said, chewing her bottom lip slightly.

“But..?”

“He’s a hockey player,” she threw out there.

“Should I be offended?” he wondered, a small smile playing across his lips.

“No,” she smiled widely, for the first time looking over at him. “He played since he was a little boy and when we were in high school, he was brought up into the first team in the club he played for, getting to play more and more matches. Then when we graduated, he continued playing for them full time and he was able to work out more, perfect his skills…” she trailed off. “Anyway, sometime after Christmas, he began talking about the NHL draft; his agent had told him that he was predicted to go in the first round, which really surprised him.”

“He wanted me to go to Vancouver with him, which I ended up doing, but he also told me that he’d already applied to University of Minnesota,” she revealed, scoffing slightly. “That should have been my warning, he didn’t ask me, he didn’t even talk to me about it till he’d already sent the application in,” she shook her head slightly, taking a deep breath before she could continue. “He didn’t ask me once if I wanted to move across the world so that he could go to school and play hockey.”

“He’s a Gopher?” Chris exclaimed surprised. “You were a Gopher?!”

“I might have not mentioned that,” she nodded slightly.

“You want me to beat him up? Ask someone else to do it?” he smirked, happy when she smiled again.

“Thanks, but you don’t have to do that,” she assured him. “I ended up sending in the applications just because he wanted me to and I pretty much gave up my whole life when we were both accepted,” she admitted. “I never thought I was that girl. The one who followed a man to the end of the earth just because he asked…I didn’t think I wanted to be,” she sighed. “I mean I've always believed that I’d go there just because I loved someone, but I just didn’t think I would be asked to do so… does that make any sort of sense at all?” she frowned.

“Not really,” he shook his head slightly. “But I kind of get what you're saying.”

“And then he cheats on me with my best friend, and roommate since freshman year,” she said coldly. “I gave up my life, my friends, most of my education for him and he goes and do that, I just don’t get it…” she trailed off, glad to find that the pain she’d felt in the summer was all but gone, or at least reduced to a dull ache. “I have student loans that is going to have me paying some I don’t know how many thousands of dollars every year for the next twenty years because he wanted to pursue his dream. And I don’t even know what I'm going to do when I graduate,” she admitted.

“I thought you had some scholarship?” he frowned slightly.

“Yeah, the loans are added on to that,” she nodded slightly. “And I'm not resenting him for getting me here, causing me to attend school here, cause honestly I thank him for that cause I’ve loved every minute of it, it’s just that…”

“He betrayed you, went behind your back…” he nodded slowly.

“Yeah,” she confirmed simply.

“So how do you go from University of Minnesota, Gopher territory, to attending UND, their biggest rivals?”

“You hit back where it hurts,” she shrugged slightly. “In three years he’s become Gopher through and through and whilst I cheered him on at every home game, I didn’t identify with the whole maroon/gold thing… I just didn’t feel that connection, I went to the games and I was decked out in them colors because Erik was playing there.”

“You have any Sioux spirit?” he smirked down at her.

“I went to the game tonight,” she pointed out.

“Because we asked you to,” he retorted.

“I would probably have gone anyway,” she admitted. “Somehow I felt excited, in a way I haven't felt since high school, when I was living back home, and I liked it.”

“So can we be expecting you next weekend?” he wondered. “During the Gopher series?”

“Oh I will be there,” she assured him, a naughty glint in her eyes. “And I’ll be wearing white like everyone else,” she added as she reached up and snaked her hand behind his neck, pulling him down and pressing her lips against his.

“Good,” he growled against her lips as he pushed the covers away from her and ran his hand down her side, smirking into the kiss at how she arched her body to get closer to his touch.