A Night to Last a Lifetime

I woke up hours later spooning in Jeff’s bed. Panicking for a moment, I realized I was still fully clothed so I settled back down. “Why do I always sleep so well with him?” I thought to myself.

A few minutes later he started to stir so I untangled myself from him and climbed out of bed.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Home. My parents are going to kill me. You know they’ll assume the worst.”

“Oh, awesome. Because they don’t hate me enough already.”

“It’s fine,” I said with a smile. “We both know nothing happened and I’m pretty proud of that.”

“Me too, actually. It was nice to just sleep for once. I always sleep really well with you.”

“I was thinking the same thing!” I exclaimed. “Weird. Anyway, I’ll text you later.”

“Alright,” he said, rolling back over.

I was so relieved when I got home and found both of the vehicles gone. Both of my parents were already gone to work and probably hadn’t even noticed that I didn’t make it home that night. I walked in to find Sophie looking around the kitchen for food and she turned to me with an eyebrow raised. I made it clear to her that nothing happened – honestly, after all that we had been through did people honestly think we’d just jump back into bed together?

We decided to go out for breakfast/lunch so I texted Jeff to let him know. He met us outside the restaurant and just as we were sitting down we were approached by a reporter. He took a thousand pictures before I could even register what was going on – the other three were used to this kind of attention but I definitely wasn’t. As soon as I made sense of what was going on, he turned to Jeff and I.

“I realize losing a baby is a big deal, but what are your plans for the future? Are you going to try again, or was the last one just an accident?”

My eyes instantly filled and I was speechless. All of our mouths nearly dropped to the floor and Jeff quickly grabbed my hand. I turned and stormed out of the restaurant, inadvertently taking him with me. I was barely outside when the tears started falling. “How the hell does he know?” I asked Jeff angrily.

“I don’t know. There must be someone talking from the hospital. I honestly thought people would have more fucking respect than that.”

We both looked in through the window and saw Sophie and Gabriel tearing into the reporter.

“What do you think they’re saying? Where is he even going to fucking post this stuff?” I asked Jeff. He really had more experience in this department than I had.

“It could be anywhere –a blog, newspaper, some magazine, who knows? Listen, if people are going to start talking about this I’m probably going to have to release a statement. At least then, it’s my words out of my mouth. They can’t fuck that up. You can help me write it. You can even be there when I give it. That would probably look the best.”

“If you think that’s the best decision I’ll go along with it. Honestly, I don’t want you getting any shit for this. You don’t deserve that.”

Sophie and Gabe angrily stormed out of the restaurant. “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Gabe spat out. “Fucking asshole.”

“What’d he have to say?” Jeff asked.

“He wouldn’t tell us how he found out but apparently your implied ‘no comment’ gave him all the answers he wanted,” Sophie said, looking at me. “I’m really sorry guys, but this is going to be all over the internet in no time. We couldn’t talk him out of it.”

“Oh my God,” I whispered. “Why can’t people be more fucking respectful? Dramatic unplanned teen pregnancy? Alright, it’s in the news all the time. We just LOST a fucking CHILD! That’s not something that you want to share with the whole world!”

“I’m sorry,” Jeff said, putting his arm around me. “I wish we didn’t have to deal with this too. Let’s go back to my apartment, okay? I’ve gotta make some calls.” He looked at Sophie and Gabe. “You guys should come too. I’ve got stuff at my place that we can cook for breakfast anyway.”

We all headed back to his place and as soon as we got there I asked him for his laptop. I opened up Google and searched his name. Sure enough, there was one article there regarding our situation. I opened it up and read it. It was accompanied by the pictures taken at the restaurant and also a couple of the ones where Jeff was entering the hospital. There wasn’t much said in the article, but it included my whole name and had all the facts about what had happened – that I was five months pregnant, the date Casey was born, etc. I noticed that it had only been posted about ten minutes before I saw it so nobody had really caught onto it yet. I suggested to Jeff that he call his mother and anyone with regards to his hockey team that he should warn about what was about to blow up.

He made his calls and decided with the PR rep of the Hurricanes that the statement directly from us would be a good idea. She said she’d set everything up and we could do it from the arena in Kitchener. I asked why we had to go to an arena to do it and he explained that she wanted it to remind people that he was still a hockey player and that he needed to make clear that this wouldn’t affect his game.

“Oh. Okay. Does she want me to be there?”

“She said she didn’t care. I want you to be there, though. They need to know that we’re together in this.”

“Alright. I guess we should get writing then?”

Jeff, Gabe and I started writing while Sophie set out to make breakfast. What we ended up with was:

“Hello. I’m Jeff Skinner and this is my good friend, Tori Jones. It has recently become public knowledge that Tori and I have recently lost our baby. As much as I understand that, as a public figure, people wish to know how I am dealing with the pressures in my life but at this time, we would appreciate your respect to our privacy. I’ll be back in September in top shape, I promise you. But, for this off-season I wish to deal with this with my closest friends and family. Thank you.”

“Good friend? Oh man, the media’s going to have fun with that one,” said Sophie.

“It’s the best we can do, Soph,” said Gabe. “We don’t want to lie. That’ll just make it worse. Besides, no matter how we put it the media will spin it some way to make it more of a scandal.”

Jeff got a call a couple of hours later saying that the press release was all set to go in two hours. “God, that’s fast,” Jeff replied. “I was expecting it to be tomorrow.”

“It’s really a good idea to get ahead of this thing,” said the person on the other end of the phone. “This is going to blow up very quickly. It’ll sound better coming from you.”

“Alright,” he said. “We’ll be there.”

We quickly ate the breakfast that Sophie had prepared and then Sophie and I headed home to get ready. “You really don’t have to come, sis,” I told her.

“It’s fine,” she replied. “We said we’d stand by you guys and we’re going to be there for it all.”

“I’m so sorry that this is overshadowing your moment. You just got engaged! That’s what people should be talking about!”

“Oh, they’ll talk about it. It’s your time now. I think it’s ridiculous that people even think this is their business,” Sophie said with disgust.

“Tell me about it,” I replied.

We got all prepared then went back to Jeff’s apartment. We figured that it would be easier to arrive together so we hung out there for a bit then went to the arena. The whole thing was pretty simple – everything was all set up and Jeff simply had to say his part. Sophie, Gabe and I stood a little behind him and the moment it was recorded we went back to his apartment.

Again, I went straight to Jeff’s laptop and did the same process. There were many more articles posted now, all saying the same thing because there were really no more details to be given. I scrolled to the bottom of the first one and started reading the comments.

“Baby faced Jeff Skinner gone wild? I call one night stand gone wrong.”

“Wow. Stupid puck slut – not hard to use a condom…”

“Why is he with her? No baby, no relationship. He’s off the hook isn’t he?”

“Wow. These people are really mean!” I said, starting to cry. I felt so immature – I’d been called worse before – but I knew this was only the beginning and it was only going to get bigger and worse before it got better.

“Don’t worry about that,” Jeff said, taking the computer. “They don’t understand what we’re going through. Just ignore it. It’ll eventually blow over…” He didn’t sound convincing.

We settled down and turned on TSN, waiting for them to air the statement. It came on a few minutes later and as soon as it was over, Jeff’s phone started going crazy. He turned it off without answering even one call. “Honestly, I asked for privacy. Does NOBODY understand that word?”

We hung around his apartment for most of the day and eventually Sophie and I left to go home. Gabriel and Jeff had decided that they wanted to go out to a bar that night – the last little while had been really stressful and they wanted to spend some time together and blow off some steam. Sophie and I thought that sounded like a great idea because we could spend some much needed time together as well and I was already super excited to start planning her wedding.

As soon as we sat down on my bed I asked, “Have you guys thought of a date yet?!”

“Well, we haven’t really talked about it. Obviously it’s going to be during an off-season but I mean, there isn’t really any rush. We’re practically married already. This is more a formality.”

“No way! I want you to get married this summer! I know it’s quick but we need something good to happen in this family, Soph! You’ve been waiting for this for years!”

“That’s true… Tori I’m SO EXCITED! I’ve been trying to stay calm and stuff out of respect for you but holy fuck! I’m GETTING MARRIED! Ah!!”

“Yay! That’s more of what I’m looking for! Let’s get planning! We can make it the end of August! That gives us like, almost 4 months to plan! It isn’t like money is a huge issue. We can totally pull it off!”

“I’ll have to talk to Gabe but I think he’d get married tomorrow if I wanted to! Where will we do it? Here or Colorado? Here makes more sense right?”

“Here is probably your best bet. I mean, this is where you met anyway! And your whole family is here. Gabe’s family will have to fly in but we can figure that out! Do you want small or big?”

“Oh, small. Family and close friends. This isn’t turning into a circus,” Sophie responded. We booted up my laptop and started looking up locations and dresses. Hours later Sophie’s cell phone started ringing.

“It’s Gabe,” she said, looking confused. She put it on speakerphone. “What’s up babe?”

“Is Tori there?”

“I’m here!” I responded.

“Oh thank God. Can you come to Jeff’s apartment? I don’t know what happened! We were fine and he was fine and he’s just freaking out now! He won’t stop crying and he keeps asking for you.”

“Oh. Um, I’ll be right there!” I told him, standing up and grabbing my bag.

“What are you doing?” asked Sophie.

“Packing some stuff,” I responded. “I’ve gotta feeling I’m going to be there for a while…”