Strong Enough to Stand

This is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. The leak to finally sink the ship. Nothing could sustain this.

I stare at the plate in front of me. A picture hangs on the wall. You can look at his face with his carefree smile, young and stupid in the Brampton winter, and never know you were looking at a pro hockey player. You can scan the snow filled background and see this is no city of dreams. But somehow, at some point, he had made it.

I don’t look up from my plate. We're stuck in a deadly silence.

I met Tyler on a Friday. Party night.

I don’t want to be there like I never want to be anywhere. Underage teenagers from high schools across the GTA, a giant network of people crowded into Lauren Rosenberg’s spacious home. I remember it because of the way he catches my eye. He is with a bunch of guys, jocks, checking out the girls giggling drunkenly in attempts to be ‘taken advantage’ of.

He is wearing black. It makes him look older.

His eyes are dark and mysterious as he stands quiet with his loud group. The music pulsates through the room as I watch him from the drinks, alone with my cup of crappy beer.

Time moves awkwardly. At some point I take my eyes off him. There’s a guy trying to talk to me but I can’t hear him over the music. The smell of stale beer is on his breath as he towers over me. His lips move with muted words, quickly like time has sped up but like it's going on forever.

I nod absent-mindedly at the one-sided chatter and glance back to the black clad stranger across the room to find his piercing dark eyes looking straight at me.

Beside me the guy repeats something. I nod again, tearing my gaze from the stranger across the room. I try to rid myself of the feeling that shakes me to the bone.

But time keeps going and I down at least 3 cups of beer while listening to the guy beside me. He’s doing all the talking and I don’t even need to pay attention. I get more and more bored of this party with every syllable. I wonder if the guy talking would even notice if I leave. In my hand I stare at another empty cup. The alcohol courses through me. If I don’t do anything more interesting than this I’m going to pass out.

The guy finally stops talking and I don’t process why until I feel a hand on my back. Warm and strong as I inhale the smell of axe. I'm being pulled in by the warmth and the smell and after that there’s no escaping.

“Sorry I’m late,” a voice I can actually hear booms beside me. Above the music, “What are you guys talking about?”

The guy who couldn’t shut up moments before remains speechless, looks at me one final time then turns and walks away.

Immediately I forget him as I finally look up at my saviour. His dark eyes stare back at me from such depths. He’s so different from everyone else in the crowded house. For the first time that night I see him smile and it’s so dorky it’s completely at odds with his mature appearance.

“Thanks.”

As his hand moves from my back, the cold rushes in on its absence. I want to pull him back afraid he’ll leave but he doesn’t.

“No problem. I’m Tyler.”

And for the first time I want to be where I am and nowhere else.

*

By the time a month has passed I’m attached. He’s almost 2 years younger than me. It’s a pairing destined for disaster, built on all the things I hide from him but I can’t give him up. He’s like a drug.

He has an affinity for partying and I follow him around Toronto, Brampton, Mississauga. He’s got connections everywhere. Everybody loves him. He draws people in effortlessy, they never know what hit them.

When it starts to snow in Brampton he’s always on the lake. There’s nothing else to do here. I hate this city. But it doesn’t matter because I’m with him. We’re on top of the world and oh so young. We take a picture in the falling snow. We decide he’s going to be a star and this picture will be a reminder of how far we made it.

A lot of his time is spent playing hockey. He comes and goes, weaving in and out of my life unpredictably. We go out to parties and I always drink too much.

*

As time passes he’s away more and more. When he’s gone I start drink. His absence consumes me. I don’t have very many friends any more but I find parties to go to alone. I only want the escape. His departure is always like someone pressed pause and my life stagnates. Sometimes I watch him play hockey on TV. My eyes only follow him and no one else. I can see the passion in every stride. He might love me, but not like he loves hockey. It makes me hate the sport.

The sport takes up his life. Takes him away from me.

*

2010 is a big year. Tyler gets drafted by the Bruins. He goes second overall. I’ve never seen him so happy.

He signs a contract and he’s off to Boston. He says he wants me to come with him so I do. I drop my scraps of an outside life to be with him in Boston. There’s nothing I care about or even like that could keep me in Brampton.

Boston’s so much better than Brampton. There is more life, more pride. But I barely notice it because I’m so focussed on him. We share an apartment that is always empty. I drink when he’s not around. I don’t have a job here.

*
It’s half way through September when he first finds out about my habits. The demons escape their hiding place. My body feels a slight shake and when I open my drowsy eyes he crouches beside the couch.

“I’m home.” He smiles. It’s the smile from that first night.

I try to smile back but it falters in the haze of alcohol. A part of me knows I should pull him close, I should kiss him, clasp my arms around him but a larger part is confused. The alcohol makes it hard to think clearly and I just drift back into my sleep.

He’s not very happy about that the next day. I hate that I did this. He’s cold towards me for days.

I try to stop but soon he’s on the road again.

*
Sometimes he wants to go out with the team but I’m in no state and I don’t want to. At first he tries to stay home with me and make it better. His teammates notice his absence. They are concerned but eventually he just starts going out with them without me. It makes me want to stop.

By February he’s used to it. A few times a month he comes home to a similar scene. I know it’s affecting his game but that doesn’t stop me. He can’t understand what it’s like for me. I don’t have some dream career, I just have him and he’s slipping through my fingers like grains of sand, one bit of him leaving at a time. The first particle to go is his adoration. The adoration that lingered in the depths of his dark eyes.

He tries to help me but most of the time he just gets frustrated. He’ll fight with me about it but he never leaves me. More horrible than him always being away is that I know I’m just weighing him down. Selfishness is my curse. All I care about is how much I want him around all the time. I’m not strong but he is unbreakable. All I do is weigh him down.

*

It’s a Sunday. The 17th of April. Boston lost to Montréal last night in their second game of the first round. I stare at the plate in front of me. The only sound is the clock ticking and it sounds hundreds of times before I look up at him. A weak and I know fake smile tugs at his lips. Could any crime be worse than faking it?

I know Tyler isn’t happy. He’s been a healthy scratch two nights in a row.

Last night I tried not to drink but sitting in front of the TV alone makes it that much harder. The day before marked 2 years since his hand first touched the small of my back. He forgot, or doesn’t even care. Everything has changed since then. There had been 4 days where I didn't see him at all. The playoffs have him working overtime. I sleep alone in a queen size bed every night waiting for his warmth but he always comes home too late.

Watching that game 2, red wine is all I can find in the apartment. I forget he’s too young to buy alcohol here. It’s easy to forget he’s younger than me. An old soul perhaps, or I’m just a young one.

I drink a glass of wine for every Montréal goal and I don’t stop drinking once the game is over. When he walks into the apartment his head is down. The stress is written on his features. Pain I want to wipe away. His large hand rubs the stubble on his cheek as his eyes wander over the scene in front of him.

He hates me I know it.

This is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. The leak to finally sink the ship. Nothing could sustain this.

*

Tyler’s Point of View

My breakfast is almost finished on my plate. She is too hung over to cook. I watch her stare blankly at her breakfast. She’s obviously thinking. Her long blond hair dangling from her scalp. She eats like a bird. Most of what I cook for her will go to waste but I don’t care. I want to see her smile.

Finding her passed out from drinking is never fun. The familiar sight of her peaceful expression and her brilliant blond hair strewn over her face.

She looks tired as her fork hits the plate.

Sometimes I think she drinks because she hates me. I think, either she is trying to drive me away or block me out. The silence between us jabs at me. Wearing me down.

It’s been two years since I first saw her. Brampton seems so far away.

Her hazel eyes glance up at me. They easily pull a smile from my lips.

Inside I feel like sighing. My lifestyle is hard on her and I know it’s my fault. It’s my fault she’s this shadow of what she used to be.

I only weigh her down.