Status: Complete
Islands
Real
December 2, 2010 Capitals 1 @ Stars 2
December 4, 2010 Thrashers 3 @ Capitals 1
December 6, 2010 Leafs 5 @ Capitals 4 (SO)
December 9, 2010 Panthers 3 @ Capitals 0
December 11, 2010 Avalanche 3 @ Capitals 2
December 12, 2010 Capitals 0 @ Rangers 7
December 15, 2010 Ducks 2 @ Capitals 1(OT)
December 18, 2010 Capitals 2 @ Bruins 3
December 19, 2010 Capitals 3 @ Senators 2
December 21, 2010 Devils 1 @ Capitals 5
_____
Nicky assured me that what I said didn’t change the way he felt about me. I wasn’t sure if I really believed him. I pulled him into a hug after our unexpected conversation, and he held me, but he stayed completely silent. The car ride home was awkward and we ended up just talking about the Penguins game. Even when he pulled up to the driveway, he kissed me but it wasn’t the same as the way he kissed me the night before.
We left it at that before we parted ways, uncomfortable and unsure. I felt awful about the whole thing as I walked into Rochelle’s house. I didn’t know if I’d done the right thing. I was worried about the girlfriend conversation and even more worried that I messed up everything between Nicky and me.
“Well look what the cat dragged in, Tanner,” Rochelle spoke to her husband when I showed myself in their kitchen.
Rochelle was sitting at the table, doodling in a sketchpad, and Tanner was at the sink doing dishes. “Hey Erin,” he said.
“Hi.”
“And where did you sleep last night?” My sister had a grin on her face.
I pulled out a chair across from her and sat down, dropping my bag on the table’s surface with a thud. “It’s clear you know that I stayed at Nicky’s.”
“I don’t recall you wearing those clothes when you dropped Jaden off though,” Rochelle answered, still with the smug look on her face.
“It’s…” I looked at Tanner briefly, knowing that with him there it wasn’t just a private conversation with my sister. “It’s a long story.”
“What’s the matter with you?” Rochelle wondered. “Didn’t you get laid? Why do look so sad?”
Tanner was laughing at his wife’s comment as he turned off the water. My sister wasn’t known for having a filter unless her son was around. She was loud, bold, sarcastic, and a tad bit inappropriate at times.
“Yes, I slept with him.”
“So how was it?”
“Okay!” Tanner broke into the conversation, a pained expression on his face. “Hold that thought. I need to leave the room. I’m gonna go wake Jaden up from his nap.”
Rochelle teased him as he dried his hands, asking why he didn’t want to know the finer details of my sex life. We were both mortified and she just got a kick out of it. She returned to her inquisition once Tanner was safely up the stairs out of earshot.
“So, c’mon, I’m boring and married,” she said, putting down her pencil and closing the sketchbook. “Tell me how it was.”
“Tanner didn’t have to leave because I am not going to get into details with you,” I responded. “It was amazing though.”
“I don’t understand,” Rochelle shrugged, “why do you look so sad?”
I concentrated on a spot on the table, my voice meek, “Nicky asked me to be his girlfriend.”
A pause lapsed and then her voice was venom, “No, seriously, you’re gonna have to explain to me why you’re sad about it. Why is that a bad thing?”
“I basically told him that I have to think about it and want him to give it time. I feel like everything is happening so fast,” I answered. “He said that it wasn’t just because we had sex but I don’t know if I believe that. When he asked me if I wanted to be his girlfriend I just felt like the whole thing was brought on by that. And I don’t know if I’m okay with his entire life, and my entire life, changing over one night.”
“I think that you’re overanalyzing.” My sister didn’t take my side. “And I think that you’re giving off mixed signals.”
I asked, “How so?”
“Do you remember when we were at the pro shop at Kettler? When you were complaining that he hadn’t kissed you yet?” she said, and I nodded. “What happened to that girl? You’ve regressed.”
I hadn’t had to think about that in the last few weeks. After the first time I kissed Nicky, we were moving too fast instead of too slow. I was very attached to him and that was my fault. And he was right when he said he knew me. From the first day when we sat in the café in Georgetown, I’d told him too much about myself. He probably knew me too well for someone that he’d only been seeing for a few weeks.
“How is this time different than any relationship you’ve been in before? If he says he wasn’t asking out of obligation, then believe him.” Rochelle was playing devil’s advocate. “He obviously cares about you. He wants to make a commitment to you. What does it matter if the life alteration starts now or three months from now?”
“Well what if he feels differently three months from now? I don’t want to be a mistake,” I admitted. “That would hurt me. I just want him to be sure that he actually wants me as his girlfriend. I feel like he’d know with more time.”
“That’s not how adult relationships work, little sister,” Rochelle advised. “Everything isn’t going to work out according to your expectations.”
“I’m trying to be rational,” I defended.
Up until this point, Nicky seemed too good to be true. I kept trying to put a finger on a flaw but kept coming up empty. Now I knew that everything about him wasn’t too perfect. Because asking me to be his girlfriend…it was a mistake. It was all too soon. If I was going to be in a relationship with Nicky, I wanted it to last. I wanted it to be for the right reasons. If I was going to be his girlfriend, I wanted to be worth the trouble. That was it: I didn’t want to waste his time. I wanted to be the right girl for him but after only a few weeks I didn’t know if I was.
“Answer me this,” Rochelle raised another point, “you’ve told me what you think he wants from you. But what do you want from him?”
“I just want to know that it’s real.”
_____
The puck dropped between the Capitals and Penguins before I spoke to Nicky again. I’d gotten used to speaking to him at least every few hours throughout the day. To not speak to him for more than 24 hours was unusual. It was also yet another reminder of why I thought we were moving too fast. I didn’t just hope that I was going to hear from him on a daily basis—I expected it.
When I didn’t hear from him for the rest of the day after he dropped me off, I felt worse than I did at the time we had our conversation. My sister telling me that I was being silly and over analytical didn’t help either. But I was adamant about not just abruptly changing my mind. Everything I said to my sister was accurate: I didn’t want to be a mistake. I didn’t want to be hurt. I didn’t want what I had with Nicky to end as quickly as it began.
Once lunchtime rolled around on game day and I still hadn’t heard from Nicky, the self-loathing began. I chalked our non-communication up to a bunch of factors: he was too busy once his parents were in town, he had to get ready for the game, he was waiting me out. But mostly I was worried that he was ignoring me and maybe the day before was the last time I was even going to see him again. Maybe I ruined something that hadn’t even begun because of what I believed in. Maybe I was right and he didn’t even want me to be his girlfriend anymore.
I could have called him to find out the truth. But I didn’t want to apologize because I wasn’t sorry, and I didn’t want to talk to him awkwardly. It was way easier to torture myself with the silence all day long.
So when the puck dropped, I was sitting on the couch beside Jaden. It was an important game for both the Penguins and the Capitals. It was the prequel to their Winter Classic matchup at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh. I relaxed a bit once Joe Beninati’s caustic voice reminded me just how big of a deal the game happening at the Verizon Center was.
It was the hottest ticket in town. Everyone wanted to know who would come out on top this time in the battle between Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby. Everyone in the hockey world was paying attention to it, including the players for both clubs. It was a possibility, then, that Nicky was so zoned in and focused on the game that he wasn’t paying attention to how long it had been since we last talked. That thought sounded selfish of me even in my head.
The game was frustrating. Jaden’s bedtime was at 8:30, so it was even more frustrating when I had to watch most of it by myself. Crosby scored first. The Caps were down 0-1 for the whole first part of the game. It wasn’t until the second half of the second period that Alex Semin and Nicky assisted on a power play goal by Mike. For someone who wasn’t a very big Caps fan, I had a stupid grin on my face when I saw the guys in red raise their hands and gather around Mike for the goal celebration. I even giggled when I saw Mike and Nicky smiling at each other, hitting each other’s helmets, remembering what Rachel told me about their bromance.
Chris Kunitz scored for the Penguins less than a minute into the third period and even on TV I heard the life get sucked out of the building. I knew Caps fans were nervous and still on edge about the fact that their team lost eight games in a row in December before winning the last two. Winning a third game in a row, especially against the Penguins, was a priority. The building erupted when Mike Knuble shanked one into the net on a shorthanded bid with Brooks Laich. Regulation ended with the score tied.
In overtime, a video review was called on one of Mike’s—Green, not Knuble—shots but the war room declared it no goal for lack of conclusive evidence. Overtime ended and I had a sinking feeling about the shootout before it even began. Nicky was the last of the three designated shooters for his team before extra shooters and I held my breath as he started skating toward the net. Marc-Andre Fleury made the save and I hit a couch cushion, swearing under my breath. I breathed a sigh of relief when the Penguins’ last shooter, Evgeni Malkin, didn’t score either. But from there it was open hockey.
The shootout went through seven rounds and ended with Pascal Dupuis getting the shootout winner for the Penguins. I was livid when the camera went to the team of white jerseys gathering around their goaltender. Joe Beninati announced on the broadcast just how many points Crosby had on the season and I immediately turned the TV off with the remote.
I was thinking about Nicky long after I brushed my teeth and was lying in bed in the guest room. He would be disappointed and take the loss hard. I imagined that he shouldered a lot of the blame on himself, for not thinking of a better move to fool Fleury and ending the game in the third round. The HBO cameras had made it very clear what the Capitals locker room was like after a loss: frowns on all of the players’ faces, all of them somber as they stripped off their gear.
And I was just a mere observer. I knew that it was business for them, and losing was a reality of the game, but I probably didn’t even feel half of what they felt after a big loss.
After a long time in bed, wide awake, I finally did the only thing I knew I could do. I had to say something to Nicky. My eyes strained against the bright white light emitting from the screen of my cellphone before I started typing a text message with my thumbs.
Sorry about your game.
I hit ‘Send’ quickly before I could chicken out. It was short and to the point. It was something I’d said to Nicky before, after all eight of the losses earlier in the month once I checked the box scores. I hoped he would see it as something familiar, something that was normal between us.
I didn’t have to wait long for a response. Less than five minutes after I sent it, I was out of bed and searching for the light switch on the wall beside the door so I could get dressed, my phone in my hand with his response displayed on the screen:
Can I come see you?
December 4, 2010 Thrashers 3 @ Capitals 1
December 6, 2010 Leafs 5 @ Capitals 4 (SO)
December 9, 2010 Panthers 3 @ Capitals 0
December 11, 2010 Avalanche 3 @ Capitals 2
December 12, 2010 Capitals 0 @ Rangers 7
December 15, 2010 Ducks 2 @ Capitals 1(OT)
December 18, 2010 Capitals 2 @ Bruins 3
December 19, 2010 Capitals 3 @ Senators 2
December 21, 2010 Devils 1 @ Capitals 5
_____
Nicky assured me that what I said didn’t change the way he felt about me. I wasn’t sure if I really believed him. I pulled him into a hug after our unexpected conversation, and he held me, but he stayed completely silent. The car ride home was awkward and we ended up just talking about the Penguins game. Even when he pulled up to the driveway, he kissed me but it wasn’t the same as the way he kissed me the night before.
We left it at that before we parted ways, uncomfortable and unsure. I felt awful about the whole thing as I walked into Rochelle’s house. I didn’t know if I’d done the right thing. I was worried about the girlfriend conversation and even more worried that I messed up everything between Nicky and me.
“Well look what the cat dragged in, Tanner,” Rochelle spoke to her husband when I showed myself in their kitchen.
Rochelle was sitting at the table, doodling in a sketchpad, and Tanner was at the sink doing dishes. “Hey Erin,” he said.
“Hi.”
“And where did you sleep last night?” My sister had a grin on her face.
I pulled out a chair across from her and sat down, dropping my bag on the table’s surface with a thud. “It’s clear you know that I stayed at Nicky’s.”
“I don’t recall you wearing those clothes when you dropped Jaden off though,” Rochelle answered, still with the smug look on her face.
“It’s…” I looked at Tanner briefly, knowing that with him there it wasn’t just a private conversation with my sister. “It’s a long story.”
“What’s the matter with you?” Rochelle wondered. “Didn’t you get laid? Why do look so sad?”
Tanner was laughing at his wife’s comment as he turned off the water. My sister wasn’t known for having a filter unless her son was around. She was loud, bold, sarcastic, and a tad bit inappropriate at times.
“Yes, I slept with him.”
“So how was it?”
“Okay!” Tanner broke into the conversation, a pained expression on his face. “Hold that thought. I need to leave the room. I’m gonna go wake Jaden up from his nap.”
Rochelle teased him as he dried his hands, asking why he didn’t want to know the finer details of my sex life. We were both mortified and she just got a kick out of it. She returned to her inquisition once Tanner was safely up the stairs out of earshot.
“So, c’mon, I’m boring and married,” she said, putting down her pencil and closing the sketchbook. “Tell me how it was.”
“Tanner didn’t have to leave because I am not going to get into details with you,” I responded. “It was amazing though.”
“I don’t understand,” Rochelle shrugged, “why do you look so sad?”
I concentrated on a spot on the table, my voice meek, “Nicky asked me to be his girlfriend.”
A pause lapsed and then her voice was venom, “No, seriously, you’re gonna have to explain to me why you’re sad about it. Why is that a bad thing?”
“I basically told him that I have to think about it and want him to give it time. I feel like everything is happening so fast,” I answered. “He said that it wasn’t just because we had sex but I don’t know if I believe that. When he asked me if I wanted to be his girlfriend I just felt like the whole thing was brought on by that. And I don’t know if I’m okay with his entire life, and my entire life, changing over one night.”
“I think that you’re overanalyzing.” My sister didn’t take my side. “And I think that you’re giving off mixed signals.”
I asked, “How so?”
“Do you remember when we were at the pro shop at Kettler? When you were complaining that he hadn’t kissed you yet?” she said, and I nodded. “What happened to that girl? You’ve regressed.”
I hadn’t had to think about that in the last few weeks. After the first time I kissed Nicky, we were moving too fast instead of too slow. I was very attached to him and that was my fault. And he was right when he said he knew me. From the first day when we sat in the café in Georgetown, I’d told him too much about myself. He probably knew me too well for someone that he’d only been seeing for a few weeks.
“How is this time different than any relationship you’ve been in before? If he says he wasn’t asking out of obligation, then believe him.” Rochelle was playing devil’s advocate. “He obviously cares about you. He wants to make a commitment to you. What does it matter if the life alteration starts now or three months from now?”
“Well what if he feels differently three months from now? I don’t want to be a mistake,” I admitted. “That would hurt me. I just want him to be sure that he actually wants me as his girlfriend. I feel like he’d know with more time.”
“That’s not how adult relationships work, little sister,” Rochelle advised. “Everything isn’t going to work out according to your expectations.”
“I’m trying to be rational,” I defended.
Up until this point, Nicky seemed too good to be true. I kept trying to put a finger on a flaw but kept coming up empty. Now I knew that everything about him wasn’t too perfect. Because asking me to be his girlfriend…it was a mistake. It was all too soon. If I was going to be in a relationship with Nicky, I wanted it to last. I wanted it to be for the right reasons. If I was going to be his girlfriend, I wanted to be worth the trouble. That was it: I didn’t want to waste his time. I wanted to be the right girl for him but after only a few weeks I didn’t know if I was.
“Answer me this,” Rochelle raised another point, “you’ve told me what you think he wants from you. But what do you want from him?”
“I just want to know that it’s real.”
_____
The puck dropped between the Capitals and Penguins before I spoke to Nicky again. I’d gotten used to speaking to him at least every few hours throughout the day. To not speak to him for more than 24 hours was unusual. It was also yet another reminder of why I thought we were moving too fast. I didn’t just hope that I was going to hear from him on a daily basis—I expected it.
When I didn’t hear from him for the rest of the day after he dropped me off, I felt worse than I did at the time we had our conversation. My sister telling me that I was being silly and over analytical didn’t help either. But I was adamant about not just abruptly changing my mind. Everything I said to my sister was accurate: I didn’t want to be a mistake. I didn’t want to be hurt. I didn’t want what I had with Nicky to end as quickly as it began.
Once lunchtime rolled around on game day and I still hadn’t heard from Nicky, the self-loathing began. I chalked our non-communication up to a bunch of factors: he was too busy once his parents were in town, he had to get ready for the game, he was waiting me out. But mostly I was worried that he was ignoring me and maybe the day before was the last time I was even going to see him again. Maybe I ruined something that hadn’t even begun because of what I believed in. Maybe I was right and he didn’t even want me to be his girlfriend anymore.
I could have called him to find out the truth. But I didn’t want to apologize because I wasn’t sorry, and I didn’t want to talk to him awkwardly. It was way easier to torture myself with the silence all day long.
So when the puck dropped, I was sitting on the couch beside Jaden. It was an important game for both the Penguins and the Capitals. It was the prequel to their Winter Classic matchup at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh. I relaxed a bit once Joe Beninati’s caustic voice reminded me just how big of a deal the game happening at the Verizon Center was.
It was the hottest ticket in town. Everyone wanted to know who would come out on top this time in the battle between Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby. Everyone in the hockey world was paying attention to it, including the players for both clubs. It was a possibility, then, that Nicky was so zoned in and focused on the game that he wasn’t paying attention to how long it had been since we last talked. That thought sounded selfish of me even in my head.
The game was frustrating. Jaden’s bedtime was at 8:30, so it was even more frustrating when I had to watch most of it by myself. Crosby scored first. The Caps were down 0-1 for the whole first part of the game. It wasn’t until the second half of the second period that Alex Semin and Nicky assisted on a power play goal by Mike. For someone who wasn’t a very big Caps fan, I had a stupid grin on my face when I saw the guys in red raise their hands and gather around Mike for the goal celebration. I even giggled when I saw Mike and Nicky smiling at each other, hitting each other’s helmets, remembering what Rachel told me about their bromance.
Chris Kunitz scored for the Penguins less than a minute into the third period and even on TV I heard the life get sucked out of the building. I knew Caps fans were nervous and still on edge about the fact that their team lost eight games in a row in December before winning the last two. Winning a third game in a row, especially against the Penguins, was a priority. The building erupted when Mike Knuble shanked one into the net on a shorthanded bid with Brooks Laich. Regulation ended with the score tied.
In overtime, a video review was called on one of Mike’s—Green, not Knuble—shots but the war room declared it no goal for lack of conclusive evidence. Overtime ended and I had a sinking feeling about the shootout before it even began. Nicky was the last of the three designated shooters for his team before extra shooters and I held my breath as he started skating toward the net. Marc-Andre Fleury made the save and I hit a couch cushion, swearing under my breath. I breathed a sigh of relief when the Penguins’ last shooter, Evgeni Malkin, didn’t score either. But from there it was open hockey.
The shootout went through seven rounds and ended with Pascal Dupuis getting the shootout winner for the Penguins. I was livid when the camera went to the team of white jerseys gathering around their goaltender. Joe Beninati announced on the broadcast just how many points Crosby had on the season and I immediately turned the TV off with the remote.
I was thinking about Nicky long after I brushed my teeth and was lying in bed in the guest room. He would be disappointed and take the loss hard. I imagined that he shouldered a lot of the blame on himself, for not thinking of a better move to fool Fleury and ending the game in the third round. The HBO cameras had made it very clear what the Capitals locker room was like after a loss: frowns on all of the players’ faces, all of them somber as they stripped off their gear.
And I was just a mere observer. I knew that it was business for them, and losing was a reality of the game, but I probably didn’t even feel half of what they felt after a big loss.
After a long time in bed, wide awake, I finally did the only thing I knew I could do. I had to say something to Nicky. My eyes strained against the bright white light emitting from the screen of my cellphone before I started typing a text message with my thumbs.
Sorry about your game.
I hit ‘Send’ quickly before I could chicken out. It was short and to the point. It was something I’d said to Nicky before, after all eight of the losses earlier in the month once I checked the box scores. I hoped he would see it as something familiar, something that was normal between us.
I didn’t have to wait long for a response. Less than five minutes after I sent it, I was out of bed and searching for the light switch on the wall beside the door so I could get dressed, my phone in my hand with his response displayed on the screen:
Can I come see you?