A Ship in Harbor is Safe

“Hello?” Athena bites her lip, this time making eye contact with Sidney while on the phone.

A chuckle escapes on the other side of the line, “about time you picked up my call.”

Before she can stop herself, Athena’s face distorts slightly and her jaw drops. “Um, Jordan. Why are you calling me from Jared’s number?”

“I figured since you’re taking his calls, it’s the only way I could get ahold of you.” Jordan sounds uncharacteristically serious, “you know, just checking in to make sure you’re still alive and everything.”

“Oh, I’m fine,” Athena nearly spits the words out, allowing her jaw to tighten.

Sidney slowly tilts his head to the side, not taking his gaze off of the blonde woman in front of him.

“So, how’s California?”

Athena shrugs, “I love it. I’m actually thinking about staying. I’ve even made friends out here.”

In the split second of silence, Sidney and Athena exchange a smile.

“Wow,” Jordan sighs, “it’s that nice, huh?”

“Yeah, it is.” Athena licks her lips. Shaking her head, she quickly puts the phone on speaker. “My safety should be the least of your concerns.”

Jordan clears his throat, “your safety will always be a concern of mine.”

“I’m safe, Jordan.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you are.”

“You’re being such an asshole right now,” Athena says quietly. “Don’t you have something more important to be doing? And… does Heather even know that you’re talking to me? Because if she—”

Jordan abruptly interrupts her, “don’t bring Heather into this!”

“All I’m saying is that maybe you should focus a little more on her,” Athena grumbles, gently digging the front of her skate blade into the ice, “not me.”

After a moment of silence, Athena looks up to see Sidney standing with his stick in front of the puck pile.

This time, she tilts her head slightly.

With a smirk on his face, Sidney turns and shoots a puck.

“What are you doing?” Jordan asks, rather quickly.

Athena shrugs, “just, uh, hangin’ out?”

“You’re shooting pucks, aren’t you?”

The young woman shakes her head, “I’m not.”

“Then who are you with?”

She shakes her head, “I have to go.”

“Answer my question first!”

Sidney turns around slowly, with furrowed eyebrows.

Athena shakes her head, trying to lower her eyebrows. “Don’t talk to me like that, Jordan.”

“Athena, you’re supposed to be my best friend. You ran off in the middle of the night, without even telling me. You had my brother take you to the airport and now you’re not telling me where you are.”

“I told you where I am!” Athena says after quickly converting the call off speaker.

“You’re not in California, shooting pucks with somebody, okay? I’m not stupid, Athena.”

Shaking her head, Athena runs a hand through her hair. “I have to go, Jordan.”

“Yeah, just keep running from your problems, Athena. That really makes them go away.”

As soon as the words pour into her ear, her jaw drops.

“You left Thunder Bay to live in Vegas because of everything that happened with your parents. You left Vegas after your grandma died, and you came back but couldn’t stay, so you’re… somewhere else now, because you’re running.”

His words drained Athena of whatever fight she did have in her, leaving her standing on the ice with her knees buckled and lips trembling.

“I should probably let you go now,” he grumbles.

She nods, “yeah.”

“Call me when you’re ready to stop running, because I can’t seem to keep up with you.”

“Y-yeah,” she whispers, bowing her head. “Bye.”

Jordan says nothing, just abruptly hanging up.

Athena lets out a sharp breath, unable to care when her phone slips from her hand.

“Hey,” Sidney whispers, gently moving her face to look at his own.

She shakes her head as her vision blurs.

“What happened?”

Athena shrugs, slowly lowering herself to her knees. She collects the pieces of her phone with her shaking hands.

“What’d he say, Athena?”

She looks up slowly, looking directly into Sid’s eyes with her own, glistening orbs. When she speaks, her voice cracks slightly, “can we… talk about this later?”



“You’re really quiet.”

Athena looks up from the peeled up corner of her beer bottle’s label. “Yeah.”

Sidney mutes the television, turning his body toward Athena’s. From across the abnormally large L-shaped couch, all he can see from her propped up knees are her eyes.

“What’s wrong, Sid?” Athena whispers, looking over her knees.

He shakes his head, “I was just about to ask you that.”

She shrugs, looking back down at her beer bottle.

“What’d Jordan say to you, to get you like this?”

Athena lifts her beer bottle to her lips, tilting it back and letting the warming liquid pour down her throat until air hit. Blinking, she shakes her head and puts the bottle back in her lap. “A lot of stuff that I didn’t want to hear.”

“Like what?” Sidney asks quietly.

“Apparently,” Athena takes a deep breath, “I’m running from… my parent’s divorce… my grandma dying,” her voice cracks as she covers her face with both of her hands.

Not saying a word, Sidney slowly gets up from his side of the couch and sets his beer bottle on the coffee table.

When the couch next to Athena sinks in, she doesn’t move. Her concentration remains on her composure; don’t cry. Don’t cry. Just stop thinking about it. Stop crying. Dry those tears and breathe.

Sidney jumps back slightly when Athena makes a noise that he’s heard less than five times in his lifetime. He quickly moves her empty beer bottle onto the coffee table and sits back down next to her. “Why are you crying?”

She keeps her hands over her hot, tear-stained face when Sidney’s hand nearly wraps around her left forearm. “He’s right, Sid.”

“Do you really believe that?” He slowly pulls on her arm, making her reveal her face. “Do you?”

She looks away, shrugging her shoulders.

“Hey,” Sidney whispers, trying to be gentle with her. “Look at me.”

Athena slowly looks at Sidney, attempting to keep her composure while tipsy.

“Do you honestly believe what he told you?” Sidney slowly lets go of her arm to begin moving her hair back, over her shoulders.

She nods, turning herself to face Sidney. Her legs are finally down, under her waist. “Yeah, I mean… I did leave Thunder Bay, I did leave Vegas and I did leave Thunder Bay… again.”

Shaking his head, Sidney shrugs, “so? You left. That doesn’t mean you’re running from anything.”

The young woman leans her left shoulder further into the couch’s plush backing. “Yeah, but… I guess, the way he said it.”

“He said it like that,” Sidney’s tone changes, becoming sterner as he digs his right shoulder into the back of the couch, “because he expects you to stay in Thunder Bay forever. That’s obviously not what you want.”

“That’s not what he wants, Sid,” Athena whispers.

Sidney smirks, “you’re really gonna stick up for him?”

“He doesn’t want me to be miserable,” Athena sniffles lightly, looking at Sidney with a straight face.

He keeps the goofy smirk plastered on his face as he reaches out and slowly wipes her cheeks, with his fingertips. “No, he just wants you to sit around and wait until he needs you.”

Athena continues to stare at Sidney, who is no longer smirking. “That was pretty much what I did, up until I went out to Vegas.”

Sidney nods slowly.

“You want another beer? Because I could use another beer.” Athena pulls herself up off of the couch, using both the backrest and Sidney’s thigh. She collects their beer bottles from the coffee table and disappears into the kitchen.

After disposing of the bottles in the trash, she pulls two more bottles from the fridge and walks back out into the living room. She keeps both beer bottles as she sits down next to Sidney again. “You moved.”

“This spot is comfier,” he smirks, holding his hand out.

Athena smirks, handing him his bottle. She sniffles lightly, taking a sip of her own beer. “You look like you wanna say something.”

He nods, “I do.”

“Say it,” Athena whispers, digging her thumbnail at the edge of her bottle’s label.

Sidney moves over in his oversized section of reclined couch, “come here.”

“I have to come over there for you to tell me?” She smiles, licking her lips.

Sidney chuckles, “I feel bad that you’re sitting up. Come lay down and I’ll tell you.”

“Sid, both of our asses will not fit on this thing,” Athena says as she shimmies onto the reclined section of the black leather couch.

When she gets comfortable, Sidney nods. “We don’t fit, do we?”

“Ugh, just tell me what you were gonna tell me,” Athena smiles, holding her beer bottle on Sidney’s rising and falling chest.

“Did you ever think, that maybe, Jordan feels like you’re… running from him?”

Athena lets her heavy head collapse onto Sidney’s arm, “I don’t wanna think about this right now.”

“What do you wanna do then?”

“I just wanna drink right now.” She picks her head up to take a pull of her beer, quickly returning it to her makeshift pillow. “Like, we can talk if you want. Let’s just not talk about Jordan.”