The Hardest Thing

I sat awake in Audrey’s bed thinking about everything that just happened. I had never seen my mother like that, sure she had yelled at Dave and me when we were kids, but never an explosion like I saw against Audrey. Then again, I shocked myself when I yelled back at her. I was brought up to respect my parents and I always did, but as they say, love makes you do crazy things.

I looked over at my girlfriend sleeping next to me; I could still feel her hand squeezing mine for protection. It seemed like she wanted me to tell her that everything would be fine and that my mother would accept her; I too wanted to believe that, but there was something wrong. Laurie must have told more lies to my parents. It was hard enough to believe that she tried to tell my mother that she lost the baby, she played the sympathy card to hurt the most important person in my life. Audrey was so peaceful when she slept; I curled up next to her, holding her body against mine. “I love you, Aud,” I told her sleeping body, “I will never let my mother get in the way of that. No matter what, you’re mine forever.” I knew that she was a deep sleeper, so I wasn’t sure if she would ever know what I said, but I still had to say it.

In the morning, before I went back over to my place, I talked to Audrey about the playoff games and wanting her there. She never seemed excited about going to support me. I wanted her to want to be there and to realize how important it was. When her school ended, I hoped that I would be able to get her to come to more games.

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A few days later, I was in the locker room in Dallas waiting for game four. It was only round one, but we had been in this position before; we had been up 3 games to none and finished it off. That was last year against the Sharks in the Conference Finals. Although it wasn’t the exact same team, we were there and ready to do it all over again. Before warm ups started, I tried calling Audrey because I wanted to hear her voice. It was before six and I knew that she didn’t have class until 6:30 and she had to be at school, Chicago traffic couldn’t be that bad. I started to worry about why she wasn’t answering the phone.

I didn’t have much time to worry because it was time for warm ups. When the first period started, I lost the first face off and could feel the team’s disappointment in me. My game was just off because I couldn’t stop thinking about Audrey. At one point, my former teammate, Adam Burish was on me. He was always the best with heckling, “what’s wrong Tazer, you’re not playing so well…starting to choke?” Normally I could block guys like that out, especially Bur, but I just couldn’t handle it that day.

After the first period, we were down 1-0. I was supposed to talk in the locker room to pump of the team and get ready for the second period…after Coach Q finished yelling of course. I choked on my words, I couldn’t figure out what to say. Luckily, Sharpy noticed and immediately took over, proving he wore the “A” on his sweater for a reason. He got everyone pumped for the second period. I still wasn’t playing my best though, Sharpy scored once, tying the game and it was all coming down to the third period.

When I looked at my cell phone after the second, I saw a text message. “Sorry babe, was talking to my professor. Good luck tonight. Love you.” I knew that I was being ridiculous thinking that something was wrong, but that girl did things to me that I couldn’t explain. I felt like a new man on the ice for the third period. I scored my first goal only two minutes in and a second one about halfway through the period. Suddenly, I felt like the guy that the team counted on, once again, everything was right. By the end of that game, we had our first sweep of the playoffs. I couldn’t wait to get home and share it with my girl. One of the best parts of a sweep was that we had more time off before the next round would begin because more likely than not, at least one of the series would go to game 7.

After the game, Bur and some of the other guys on the Stars told us they were going to a local bar. Our flight wasn’t until seven the next morning, so we decided to go along. Kaner drank too much as usual, but I was close behind him. It was all in good fun and all we had the next day was an afternoon practice when the plane landed. I had plenty of time to sleep off anything I drank. I realized afterward that all of the shots weren’t the best thing, especially when I drunk dialed Audrey around midnight.

“Jon?” she answered.

“Hey babe.”

“Are you drunk?”

“Yeah, Kaner and I were doing shots.”

“It’s after midnight, I have a lot of school work to do before you get home tomorrow.”

“Don’t be maaaaddd at me Audrey,” I realized I was sounding like a drunk child.

“Go have fun, Jon, I have to get back to sleep.”

“I wish I was sleeping next to you.”

“Good night, Jon,” she was sounding frustrated at this point.

“Good night, Audrey. I love you and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Love you too,” she said hanging up the phone.

The guys started teasing me because I was acting like Kaner, except I wasn’t hitting on anyone in the bar. I was just talking constantly and dancing like an idiot. It probably wasn’t a good idea to do this when people were watching us; that happened sometimes when you were the defending Stanley Cup Champions and just swept the first round of the playoffs.

The plane ride the next day was not fun at all; my head was spinning, I felt nauseous, and I wanted to hide in a dark corner until it went away. I took a few Advil and tried to sleep, but the guys thought it would be funny to mess with me. Sharpy and Seabs couldn’t stop talking and babbling, Nik started to tap my head, and Brouwer was singing something loud and off key. It was a short flight, but it seemed so much longer. When we got home, I was able to go to sleep for a few years before heading back to the rink for practice. It was the hardest practice I could remember and I wondered how Kaner did this all the time. He seemed to be immune from hangovers; though after the Stanley Cup win, when he finally stopped drinking, he didn’t get out of bed for almost a week.

After practice, I went straight over to Audrey’s. When she answered the door, I was surprised at what she looked like. Her hair was tied back in a messy ponytail, she was wearing sweats and a tank top, and there were bags under her eyes. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days. I greeted her with a hug and kiss and she felt dead in my arms. I knew that school had her stressed, but I didn’t expect these effects.

She seemed to drag her feet when she walked as I followed her into the living room. Her computer was sitting on the coffee table, which a huge cup of coffee next to it and papers absolutely everywhere. She sat down on the floor and went right back to whatever she had been working on. I hated seeing her like that and I finally understood why she seemed to not care about what I was doing; it wasn’t at all that she didn’t support me, she was busier than I even expected. The only thing I could think of doing was to sit down behind her and massage her shoulders. She seemed to fall backwards into me as I worked all of the knots out of her back. I wanted to do anything I could to make her feel better.

We sat mostly in silence for the majority of the day; I watched her frantically go through papers and type things that made no sense to me. When I was at UND, my classes didn’t matter as much as my hockey, and I left for Chicago before I even finished my degree. I convinced Audrey to let me take her out to dinner, just to get away for a little bit, she resisted at first but eventually agreed. We went to a small diner that was near our houses and she ate slowly and not very much. I was worried about her because it was obvious that school and work were stressing her out; I hoped that I wasn’t an additional stressor in her life.

She went back to work after dinner and I sat in her living room watching the Red Wings play the Kings. Most likely, we would be playing the winners of that round in the semi finals, so I wanted to scope out the competition. I kept looking at Audrey and I hated what I saw, I wanted to just hold her and kiss her and tell her that everything would be okay. Around midnight, I knew that she needed some rest, so I took her hand and led her to bed. When she got into bed, I climbed on top of her and kissed her; I used everything I had and could tell that she was relaxing under my kiss. We stayed that way for a while and then we made love; I missed her and I could tell that being together made her feel a little better. I kissed her cheek and we both fell asleep in each other’s arms.

In the morning, Audrey got up earlier than I was used to. Usually when I woke up to go to practice on the weekends, she remained in bed a little longer. It couldn’t have been much past 8 when she got up and jumped in the shower. I heard her phone buzz on the nightstand and was feeling nosy, so I looked at it. I was shocked and appalled by what I saw, Laurie was still texting her. “So how’s your week been? I hear Andree told you exactly how she felt. You deserve it slut.” Aud had never told me what the texts said, but I assumed they stopped. All along, Laurie had been brainwashing my mother and messing with my girlfriend. I had to put an end to it. I knew that Audrey would still be a little bit, so I decided to call Laurie.

“Jon, is that you?”

“Why are you texting my girlfriend?”

“What are you talking about, Jon? I don’t even have Audrey’s number.”

“I saw it, Laurie,” I was almost yelling, I was so angry.

“Jon, I…”

“Don’t…just don’t, I don’t want to ever hear from you again, understand? I thought we could be friends, but you are trying to fuck everything up. Look, I’m sorry we didn’t work out, but even when we decided for you to move here, things weren’t perfect between us. We tried to make it better and it never was. So do me a favor, Laurie, don’t talk to me, don’t talk to Audrey, and stop talking to my mother.”

I hung up the phone and sat down on the bed; I was so angry. I looked up and saw Audrey standing in the bathroom doorway, she looked upset. She heard everything.

“What was that about?”

“Laurie texted you, I didn’t mean to read it, but it popped up. How often does she do it?”

“Almost every day,” she responded softly, “Jon, you didn’t have to call her. I just ignore them.”

“It’s her fault everything happened with my mom last week.”

“I know, I just never wanted you to know how bad it was.”

“Why not? I’m your boyfriend, Aud, you’re supposed to tell me things.”

“You and Laurie have history, I don’t want you to dislike her. I never wanted to ruin anything for anyone,” she was almost crying at this point.

“Aud, come here,” I said and she sat down next to me. I put my arms around her and kissed her forehead, “you’re all that matters.”