I'm Addicted to the Thrill

I watched from home without much hope of the boys beating the Rangers. It just didn’t seem like it would happen to me. My mother laughed at me as I became so engrossed in the game. She and my brothers knew that I needed this to keep my mind off of speaking at my father’s funeral two days later. The words had been written, but this was what I was in need of. The two goal win broke the streak, and I waited patiently for the call from Patrick.

The phone never rang, and I ignored that fact. He was probably tired. I would hear from him eventually. He had to call me. I just figured the team was so excited about their win that I was going to be pushed to the background until they were over it.

-x-

“Dani, I’m so sorry about everything,” said Niki as she picked me up from the airport. I shrugged trying to just push forward. I knew that the boys would be getting home soon, but I also knew Niki told Jonathan he was on his own and that Patrick would have to find someone other than me to take him back to his apartment.

“At least, I’m home,” I told her. “I don’t want to go back for a long time.”

“Apartment or Patrick’s?” she asked. I shrugged. Whichever she wanted would work for me, I wanted to just head home. “I’m sorry he didn’t call you after beating the Rangers. I told him not to. I figured you and your family needed some space.”

I looked at her and shook my head. At this point, I didn’t care. She had already heard my rant, and at least hearing that she did it as a sign of respect for the grieving process my family was going through was enough to make me forgive her right there. Plus, I couldn’t bring myself to hold a grudge against her for it. Shit happens.

-x-

I curled up for a nap under the blankets of his bed. I still hadn’t heard from him, but I knew that the boys would be home soon. A plane ride followed by hanging out with Niki had tired me out more than I had actually thought it would.

“Please don’t be asleep,” I heard him say. Patrick had finally gotten home as I was preparing to take my nap. I weighed my options: act like I’m sleeping or tell him I was awake. Something about staying in my state of being “asleep” appealed to me.

He lay down next to me, and as he wrapped his arm around me, I figured it should have been better for me to tell him I was awake. I rolled over and looked at him. Patrick smiled, and I was glad that he was home. No one else was there for me to really talk to. My brothers all knew that I was uncomfortable being at the house for so long or really talking to them about anything important. My mother wouldn’t speak about anything but the funeral. I was just needed him to talk to or Niki, but he worked better.

“Do I get a prize for being awake?” I asked him. He smirked and acted like he was thinking about it. I kissed him on the cheek and waited for his answer.

“Does dinner and maybe a movie sound like a good prize?” he asked.

I shrugged the best I could in the position we were in. All of our dinner dates had gone south. There were none that I could really think of as being a good experience for either of us. I knew that our dates that were double or triple or whatever else had always gone fine, but Patrick and I seemed to like clawing each other’s throats out while out and about at dinner.

“Do you have a better plan?” he asked. I smiled and nodded. “Spit it out.”

“Let’s order pizza, watch a movie that you have here, and spend the evening in? Or let’s make a Target run. You pick the movie, and I’ll pick a board game for us to play? I don’t want to go out to dinner,” I told him.

“Let’s go then. We should get our stuff before we get food,” he grinned. I kissed him and crawled out of bed. I looked down at my sweats and sweater. “That’s fine. It’s only Target.”

-x-

I grabbed an icee from the snack stand at Target and walked around with Patrick. I forgot how much I loved coming to the store. He watched me as I pushed the cart always staying a few feet behind me. Making him follow me down the makeup aisles probably was the best part of the trip.

“Pick a color,” I told him. He stared at the rows of nail polish in front of us. I felt bad making him pick for me, but I needed it and hated choosing my color. As he handed me a teal color, I smiled and kept moving forward through the store.

“I know what movie I want, but I think we should get two,” Patrick said as we started walking towards the electronics and movies.

I rolled my eyes. I didn’t want to know what he wanted to buy. This had been my choice. I told him I would buy the movie, or as it now was going to be, movies. As long as I wasn’t getting sucked into watching some ridiculous horror movie and a terrible sequel, I was fine.

“Meet me at the board games,” I told him as I parted ways with him. Was leaving him alone in the store a good idea? Who knew. I was sure that he couldn’t get himself into any more trouble than he had in the past. Plus, what could go wrong? Nothing.

The choice weren’t great, and I didn’t know what he would have the patience to play. I figured that playing Life with him could end up being more of a challenge since I didn’t know how he would choose to go through playing it unlike everyone else I had ever played with. I knew what game would probably be perfect for the night if he had two movie choices.

My eyes scanned the shelves, and I found the game I wanted. Monopoly was so hated by everyone else in my family, but I figured that this was the way I could play and have some fun with it. I threw it in the cart and waited for Patrick to return.

“Hangover and Hangover Part II,” he announced proudly. He smirked.

“Monopoly,” I said. His smirk faltered, and a new smile appeared on my face. I had won the battle. Maybe the war was still going to fall to his side, but this victory made me happier than anything. A stressful week ended by a night in with him was going to right everything.

Then it hit me everything that had happened. The tears had barely appeared before they started to spill. Patrick stared at me like I was a broken toy. He threw his stuff in the cart and wrapped his arms around me pulling me into his chest.

“What’s wrong?” he asked softly. People passed us slowly as though they were observing a car crash or watching some emergency on the news.

“I just miss him so much,” I finally admitted.

“It’s alright, Dani. You have me here to comfort you,” he cooed softly. I buried my face in his chest and just sobbed. “Do you still want to do this?”

He stroked my hair and let me cry. I had never actually grieved the death of my father until now. Something as simple as this planning of our night in and realizing all that I had had to deal with in the past five days made me collapse emotionally.

“I do. Can we just go?” I asked him.