A Night to Last a Lifetime

“I’m not trying to belittle your pain, you know…” I whispered. A few hours of silence had passed, with me drifting in and out of sleep and Jeff simply sitting by the side of the bed staring out the window. “I know you were excited too.”

“I really was Tori,” he said, turning towards me. “Obviously, it wasn’t the ideal situation. I mean, yeah, years down the road, married then kids was my plan but it happened. And I was going to be a dad. And I was going to have a little girl who I had to make proud and I was really looking forward to it.” He began to cry again and turned away.

“It’s okay to cry, Jeff. It doesn’t change anything about the way I look at you.”

“I know. We just, we barely know each other and now we’re going through ALL of this! We were preparing ourselves to be parents! We weren’t prepared for this…”

“Nobody can be prepared for this. I just don’t know where to go from here. It would be so easy to just go back. Move back to Florida and pretend like nothing happened but I just can’t do that. I feel like these changes had to happen, for whatever reason. I can’t go back to who I was,” I said.

“Me neither,” he replied. “I can’t even think about hockey right now. Thank God the season’s over. I need to deal with this. WE need to deal with this. What do we do now? Where do we even stand?”

“I have no idea,” I said, shaking my head towards him. “Even without the baby, we’ll never be able to just be nothing to each other. On my end, anyway. I can’t picture myself ever looking at you and not thinking of her.”

“I feel the same way but it’s like, I can’t just walk away either. I don’t know if I can get through this without you,” he said. “You’re really the only one who understands everything I’m feeling right now.”

“That’s true…” I replied. “I think I’d feel better knowing I can talk to you about this, too.”

“I’ve already signed the lease for the apartment here for the summer, anyway. I’ve got nowhere else to be. Why don’t I just stay here and we’ll try and figure all of this out?”

“Okay,” I said, starting to get emotional again. “Now I have a stupid question…”

“Uh, okay? What?”

“Well, I feel really lonely. Like, I’ve been used to having a baby for the last few months and now she’s gone and I’m just, well, empty. Can you like, um,” I started to cry and found it hard to find the words. “Could you sleep here? Like, with me? I just really want to feel someone close to me right now and Sophie’s not here…”

“Oh, yeah! Yeah, that’s okay. Honestly, I kind of wanted the same thing. It’s probably normal to want to be close to someone right now…”

I moved over to make room for him to climb in next to me. We laid shoulder to shoulder for a while, both staring at the ceiling.

“You still haven’t seen her,” Jeff broke the silence.

“I know… I’m just not ready for that yet. Jeff, she doesn’t even have a name. We didn’t talk about that.”

“I’ve thought about it. I really like the name Casey. I couldn’t even tell you why. How weird is it that I’m a guy and I’ve actually put thought into this…”

By this time I was crying steadily. “Th-that name was on my list…” I started sobbing. “How could we pick the same name?”

All Jeff did was shake his head.

“I want her to have your last name, though. I know you might not like that because people might question then, but…”

“I want that too, Tori. I’m not going to hide her anymore. I shouldn’t have in the first place. I was never ashamed of her – I need you to know that. I was just so much more focused on my play and didn’t want to be distracted from that for any reason. That’s so stupid – she should have been more important to me!”

“It wouldn’t have changed anything,” I said quietly. “We would still be right here. There would just be way more people asking a lot of painful questions right now.”

He took my hand and that was all I needed. I rolled over and curled into his side. I don’t know how long I cried but I eventually fell asleep. I awoke to Sophie shaking me awake. Of all the years we had had together – which was literally our forever – I had never been so happy to see her. She was already crying so I knew that Mom had told her. I felt the need to explain for myself, though, knowing I was eventually going to have to explain to my friends. I couldn’t seem to get it out though and Sophie was good about letting me off the hook. It was nice to simply sit with her and Gabe for a while. I had never doubted that I had their support but having them there, in the room was so reassuring.

Jeff broke the silence, needing to explain again how excited he had become. I could see even Gabriel was getting emotional so I understood when they wanted to leave the room for a bit. In all honesty, I wanted to leave the room too. I just wanted to be home and in my own bed.

The next few days passed excruciatingly slowly. I met Jeff’s mom throughout it all and couldn’t help but wish I had met her under better circumstances. I had to stay in the hospital for a while because of my surgery and subsequent bleeding but Jeff was there with me every day. I was surprised at how much he was opening up to me and I was happy that I had him to confide in. On the afternoon of my third day in the hospital I turned and said to him, “I think I’m ready. I want to see her.”

He nodded his head and went to find a nurse. She came in with a wheelchair and he helped me get out of bed and into it. The nurse pushed me to where the baby was being held while Jeff walked next to me. We finally arrived outside the door and had a moment of awkwardness.
The nurse wasn’t sure if I wanted her to come in as well and finally Jeff simply stepping into her place and pushed me in through the door way. The hardest part of it all was seeing how tiny she was. I spent hours simply holding her and crying while Jeff patiently sat with me.
Eventually I felt like I was ready to let go and we went back to my room.

Days passed and I was finally allowed out of the hospital. We had a small service for Casey at my house with just my family and Jeff’s. It was a little over a week after we lost the baby that Sophie came into my room and wanted to talk. “Hey sis,” she began, giving me a little smile.

“Hey. What’s up?”

“Well, I’ve got some news actually! I know there’s a lot going on but I really just want you to know about this. Gabe proposed to me.”

“OH MY GOD SOPH! LET ME SEE THE RING!” I exclaimed. “Wait, why didn’t you tell me? When did this happen?”

“He did it while we were in Sweden. There was just too much happening when we got back here. I wasn’t hiding it from anyone. It was just your time.”

“Sophie, I’m so sorry I ruined that for you! That’s supposed to be such a happy time. Oh, my God. I’m so sorry! I’m so happy for you though! This is a really good thing!”

She leaned over and pulled me into a big hug. “Thank you, sis. You don’t know how much that means to me! I’m just so sorry for everything you’re going through right now.”

“We’ll be fine,” I said, giving her a small smile. “At least planning a wedding will give me something to distract myself with!”

She smiled and hugged me again, “Good, because you’re the maid of honour.” As soon as she left the room I turned on my laptop. I hadn’t been online since before I went into the hospital so I had a lot of catching up to do but the first thing I did was go on Tumblr. As I was scrolling down I was noticing more and more pictures of Jeff. “What the hell is all this about?” I thought to myself as I made one picture bigger. “Oh, shit…” I whispered. I scrolled down to the caption.

“Skinner back in Kitchener?” Was all it said but looking back at the picture, it was clearly taken as he walked through the doors of the hospital. I switched to Google and searched his name. “Jeff Skinner in Kitchener and Spending Lots of Time at the Local Hospital,” was the first headline that popped up. “Oh for fuck sakes,” I thought to myself as I clicked on it. The whole article was speculating why he was back and who he was spending so much time visiting. I picked up my phone and dialed his number. “Have you been on the internet? How stupid is this!”

“Yeah, I saw that a couple of days ago.”

“It’s so dumb! Who cares why you’re here? My God, it’s the off-season! You can go wherever you want!”

“I don’t think they care about the fact that I’m in Kitchener. It probably has more to do with the fact that I was at the hospital a lot. In a few days they’ll probably be saying I’m hurt or something and consulting about an injury. Anyway, what are you doing tonight?”

“Um, I don’t know. I don’t have any plans.”

“Okay, well. I was wondering if you wanted to go out. Like, dinner and movie type thing? Except the movie will be at my apartment because I’m not setting foot in a theatre.”

“Oh. Uh, yeah. Sure.” I said, surprised. I hadn’t been out of the house since I had come back from the hospital. I didn’t want to chance running into anybody that I knew because I didn’t want to answer any questions.

“Okay. I’ll come pick you up at 6.”

I hung up the phone and stared at it for a minute. “Did he just ask me out on a date,” I thought out loud.

I got ready and was waiting by the door when Jeff pulled up. I climbed into his truck and turned to him. Before I could even open my mouth he put his hand up. “I don’t know. I have no idea why I asked you out. It just felt right. I have no ulterior motives. I just really wanted to hang out with you.”

I turned back and faced forward, starting out of the windshield. “Okay, then,” I said. “Let’s go.”

Dinner went smoothly. We clearly avoided any talk of Casey and instead, focused on talking about our lives growing up. He told me all about his family and growing up with 5 siblings. I told him dumb stories about Sophie and I and how cool it was sometimes to have a twin. I honestly felt a little less sad for a while, spending time just getting to know him. Eventually we made our way back to his apartment and settled down to watch a movie. I was getting nervous at this point because I didn’t know what he expected. We had never been together without having sex and that definitely was not going to happen again for an extremely long time – if at all, so I sat down in a chair and avoided the couch. Jeff put the movie in and pressed play then sat down on the couch. After we watched for a while, I could feel him looking at me. I glanced over and said, “What?”

“Why are you sitting all the way over there?”

“Jeff, I don’t know… I don’t want to do anyth –“

“Oh my God, Tori, no! I don’t want to do any of that either. I just got used to cuddling with you in the last little while and well, I kind of liked it… I just like feeling you close to me…”

“Oh,” I replied. “Okay then. No moves though. Seriously. I can’t handle that…”

“Understood. I’m really not looking for that anyway,” he promised.

I moved over and curled into his side. Within minutes, I was sound asleep.