Baby Remind Me

The next week passed by like torture; days seemed to last eternities, and I only left my apartment to go to practice or to a game, which hadn’t helped. I wasn’t playing worth shit, so why I’d even bothered to go was a mystery to me. It wasn’t the same, it wasn’t the invigorating release and freedom it had always been for me. Now it was a weight, pulling me further down into the funk I was in since Ashley had walked out the door.

“God damnit man, get yourself together and go talk to her!” Dan burst out after a god-awful loss to Toronto.

“I’m trying!” I insisted.

“Not damn hard enough! You haven’t even tried to talk to her, have you?” my silence answered his question. “You fucking idiot. Everything the two of you have ever had together you’re throwing away right now, and you’re too stubborn to see that.” He yelled before leaving. That shocked me, and while I tried to shake it off as I walked to my car I couldn’t. Ever memory we had seemed to assault me on the way home; when I’d first asked her out, our first date that had been ruined by my youngest brother showing up and then deciding he wanted to go to the movie with us.

When I asked her to be my girlfriend and nearly barfed because I was so nervous.

When I was drafted and the first thing I did was call her to find out she’d convinced her entire family to watch the draft on TV so she could see me.

How proud of me she’d been when we’d flown home, tears in her eyes as she kissed me and told me she knew I’d be an amazing hockey player.

The night before she left for University when she’d missed her flight and we got to spend it in each other’s arms.

The night I came home from a hard loss to Peterborough and found her sitting on the front porch of the tiny house me and two of my teammates had rented, her bag sitting beside her as she told me she’d quit. She’d dropped out of her dream school and her dream job – even given up her scholarship – because she loved me and she needed me and couldn’t do it without me.
How I’d cried into her hair because I’d known exactly what she meant – I was struggling with my play, my head wasn’t in the game, it was a couple time zones away wondering what she was doing, how she was, if she missed me too.

When she moved in with me and we took full advantage of finally being alone together. Waking up and seeing her next to me, getting to watch her come to bed in one of my old t-shirts. Being late for practice three consecutive weeks because we couldn’t get enough of each other.

When we won the cup last year, and as all of us filed out onto the ice I looked up to see her cheering louder than anybody else, happy tears in her eyes before she made her way down to the ice to congratulate me. How all she could talk about for weeks was how she’d known all along that 2012 was my year to win the cup, how proud she was of me.

The night I had proposed, when I told my brother that I was going to do it; that I loved her more than anything and then almost chickened out because I still wasn’t sure what a girl like her was doing wasting her time with a guy like me.

When she said yes, and while we both tried to hide the happy tears from my family cried because we knew we had forever.

I hit the brakes then, that last memory making Dan’s words make sense. I was throwing away that forever, I was throwing away all of that, and everything we’d had since. I was making all those years mean nothing, all of our plans meaningless and pointless, and I couldn’t do that. I loved her. We obviously needed to talk about some things but that didn’t change the fact that I loved her and I needed her.

I pulled a U-turn in the middle of an intersection, calling Jenn on my phone hands-free. She sounded surprised, but just as I’d suspected knew where Ashley was. She sounded sad, letting out a sigh as soon as the question left my lips.

“She might be gone Marc. She was going to pack up her stuff while you guys were at the game and catch a flight out,” she replied, making my heart stop. She couldn’t, she couldn’t leave, not when I’d finally got myself together.

I rushed back home, finding most of her things missing, and cursed myself for being as stupid as Dan and Henrik said. I had to catch her before that flight, so I raced to the airport, probably speeding badly enough to catch one hell of a fine, but I didn’t care. The receptionist told me which gate she was at, and I began running through the airport, cursing New York for being so goddamn big and full of people. I knew I’d shoved a few people out of the way, and the apologies never stopped coming out of my mouth as I continued on.

“Ashley!” I called, seeing a group of people standing in line to board. I couldn’t be too late, I just couldn’t.

“Ashley! Ashley it’s me! Please don’t go!” I yelled, the guys working customs coming over to me.

“Excuse me sir, do you have a ticket?”

“No, but I just need to go talk to my wife,” I told them, making to push past them.

“Sorry, no ticket, no going past here,”

“Please? I’m making the biggest mistake of my life by letting her go, I’ll do anything – free tickets to games, whatever you want, I need to talk to her,” I begged, and recognition dawned in their eyes.

“Just go – and hurry up because that plane takes off right away,” the older of the two said, and I managed a thankful smile before bolting through the rest of the people towards the group.

“Ashley please!” I begged, seeing her blonde hair. She was next in line to have her ticket checked.

“Ashley please don’t go, please just hear me out,” I insisted, and saw her freeze. Everyone was staring, but I didn’t care, I couldn’t let her go. She slowly turned toward me, and there was such a mix of emotions on her face I couldn’t read them. I didn’t even know if she was happy or angry to see me.

“Why Marc?”

“Ashley I was an idiot. No, I was an asshole, but please God don’t leave me. I’ll fix it, I’ll do whatever the hell I have to as long as I can fix this. You know I’ve never cheated on you, and that I never will, you have to understand that babe,” I knew my voice was desperate, but I didn’t bother to try and save my dignity. I’d get down on the floor and beg and cry if it meant she’d come back.

“That’s not the whole problem Marc,” she whispered, and I saw tears in her eyes.

“Then what is? Just tell me babe, I want to fix this,”

“You don’t have time for me Marc, and I don’t want to take away from your hockey. Why the hell you ever settled for me I’ll never know, not when there are so many girls who are so much prettier and smarter than me who’d be so much better for you,”

“Better for me? Babe the only girl for me is the one who’s about to get on a plane and walk out of my life forever because I’m an idiot. Do you know when I asked you out I almost chickened out? I almost barfed when I asked you to be my girlfriend because I was so nervous and I knew you could do so much better. Ashley you’re the only girl I’ve ever wanted, and the only one I’ve ever loved, I’d do anything for you,” I told her, wanting to hold her, wanting her to know with every bone in her body that it was the truth.

“Marc,” she shook her head, tears streaming down her cheeks as she turned back to the lady to get on the plane.

“I’ll quit.” The words were out of my mouth before I even knew it, and to be honest I think it shocked me as much as anybody else.