What Goes Around Comes Around

Her teams practice got over within an hour. I was surprised to see that she was on a boys team. She kept up with them and all, but I read a flyer in the lobby that this program had girls teams.

I always played select hockey, for as long as I could remember. It was of higher skill, better coaching and would get you farther. She played defense and was probably one of, if not, the best on the team. There was no checking yet, but she was ridiculously aggressive, unlike myself. Even with her normal height and weight for a 9 year old girl, she was the smallest but tossed around some kids.

I missed the rink, I thought as I sat out front, staring at the door and waiting for her to come out. I felt more at ease here then I had anywhere since I came to Boston.

More parents and kids flooded out of the rink, all dressed in expensive work clothes and proceeded to their Beamers or some other car worth more than most people's houses. Another thought popped into my head: Select teams weren't cheap. Close to $3000 a year, excluding tournaments and such.

I didn't have much time to dwell on the realization because Peyton walked out the doors then, her bag weighing down her little shoulders. I jumped up off the bench and jogged over to her.

She stopped and just stared at me. "I can take the bag for you, if you'd like." I gestured towards the bag and she pursed her lips, shaking her head. She reminded me so much of Aurora already.

I smiled slightly. "How about I get the bag and you grab the stick? That's a fair deal, right?" She rolled her eyes, but handed over the bag. My smile grew a little; I hadn't realized until now how much I wanted her to open up to me. I wasn't stupid though, I knew she had years and years of confusion and anger built up in her. I just had to take this one day at a time.

***•***•***•***•***•***•***•***•***•***•***•***

"So where are we going? Your apartment?" I questioned as we sat in the rental car, pulling out of the parking lot of the rink. She fiddled with the radio.

"No, no one will be home. I usually take the bus to my grandfathers house." She responded coolly, finding a station that she liked. She began humming softly and I quickly began to get nervous.

I had met Arthur Lanza once before in my whole life; and I had only spoken to him once. Well, he spoke to me. I never got to say anything, not that I would have anyway.

"If you knock up my baby girl," He warned me, looking at me like I was the scum of the earth. "I will kill you." I remember it like it was yesterday. That was the day I promised myself, I would never hurt her, to prove him wrong and because I never imagined I could. To prove I wasn't some teenage punk, even though I was the worst of them.

He visited her for Christmas that year. I didn't know at the time, but Aurora's parents went through a nasty divorce, her adoring father to Boston without custody and her awful mother to Nova Scotia with custody. Her mother didn't want Aurora to have anything to do with her father, whom she loved with everything in her.

Aurora knew he was coming, but hid it from her mother for obvious reasons. We had been dating for 3 months then, and I remembered the brightness in her big blue eyes when she told me she couldn't wait for us to meet. I was nervous as all hell.

I went out to dinner with she and her father, and he looked like a drill sergeant. I was obviously extremely intimidated but was polite, like my mother taught me to be. He hated me anyway; I guess he could read people really well. He threatened me and warned his daughter, but it was all just wasted breath.

Aurora called me that night and I met her out by the lake, I still remember the raw pain on her face, similar to last night. She told me that her mother had found out and practically threw her father out of the country. He didn't put up a fight though; not wanting his baby girl to see her parents slug it out and ruin her Christmas. His leaving was only the preview of thing to come.

"It's okay to cry; you don't have to hide what you feel from me." I told her as she stared blankly at me, as if I was speaking a foreign language.

She smiled sadly. "Crying won't change what happened, will it?" It was my turn to stare at her. "It won't. What's the use then?"

Peyton put the address in the GPS on my phone, and I drove there. It only took about 5 minutes and I wished it took longer, not looking forward to this confrontation. She continued to hum and I squeezed the steering wheel harder and harder as we got closer.

Peyton popped out of the SUV as soon as I parked in the lot out back. It was a nice but small house, probably only a one family. She bounded up the steps, ringing the doorbell. I stood behind her, tapping my foot on the cement steps.

The door opened and there stood a slightly older, still military-looking, Artie Lanza. He didn't even notice me as a smile lit up his face, leaning down and crushing Peyton in a hug. She squealed but wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging him right back. I smiled gently at the sight.

That smile instantly faded when he looked up and noticed me, standing there, looking completely out of place. A storm brewed behind his dark brown eyes.

I gulped and looked down, noticing Peyton's smirk. She was her mothers daughter, all right.