You I Was Thinking Of

Summer used to be exciting. The warm weather used to mean get-togethers and staying up late and playing outside until it was dark and then catching lightning bugs. Summer used to mean freedom and going to the pool, drinking Mom’s homemade iced tea and having barbecues with the neighbors. Summer used to mean the annual block party my parents forced me to attend every year. It didn’t mean those things anymore.

Now, I was lucky if it reached seventy degrees. Exhausted from working full-time and taking online classes, I was in bed and asleep by midnight. I’d only kept in touch with two of my childhood friends, and most of the time they were too busy to hang out. No one went to the pool anymore—not after Eric Crozier peed in it—and the neighbors we used to barbecue with moved three years ago. My mother still forced me to attend the block party, and the only thing that hadn’t changed is that I still hated it.

“Did you take the potato salad to Noelle’s?”

I groaned at my mother for the fourteenth time that afternoon. The block party was finally upon us and it always turned her into a lunatic. “Yeah, like, two hours ago.”

She grinned and forced another large bowl into my hands—macaroni salad. My mother was kind of a salad nut. Anything she could throw together and call a salad, she did. “How much salad are you going to make?”

“I have one in the fridge I think Gina’s going to love. I tried this new recipe—it has salmon and cranberries in it. It looks delicious.”

I ignored her. There was no use arguing with her during the week before and the week of the block party. She refused to listen to reason, probably because my dad ran off with Jimmy Trebino’s wife during the block party following my seventh birthday and no one’s heard from him since. I guess the whole ordeal kind of stressed her out.

Growing up in Burnaby was painfully average. Aside from my father’s disappearance and the occasional NHL star moving in or coming through the ranks, not much happened to tip the excitement scale. Living in Canada’s “best-run city” does that, I guess, which is why I assumed everyone got so bent out of shape about the block party.

I climbed into my car, Mom’s bowl of macaroni salad safe in the back seat, and started the drive to Noelle’s. After my dad ran off with a married woman, no one really wanted to be my friend. They all thought I was weird, probably because their parents told them about my mother being a loon, which she was for a while but was getting better. (Her new boyfriend definitely helped.) Mom thought Noelle was a gift from god, saving me from a lifetime of having no friends and not getting invited to parties. She was a great friend, but definitely not a gift from the lord and savior.

Noelle lived in the flashier part of town. Her neighbors were professional hockey players and the like, and driving down her street in my screeching, piece-of-shit Toyota always gave me anxiety. A child basically raised by a single mother who worked overnight shifts at a diner had no business being in this neighborhood. I knew that. I knew a lot of things, especially what people thought about me and my mother. I was a charity case, she was a whack job. I had daddy issues and she’d be lucky if any member of the male species ever looked twice in her direction.

I swear I felt a billion sets of eyes on me as I stepped out of the car and made my way to Noelle’s front door, all of them wondering what I was up to. I’d been parking in my best friend’s driveway since the day I got my license—you’d think they’d know my car by now. After all, it stuck out like a sore thumb.

“I was wondering when your mother would send you over here with more salad,” Noelle’s mother said as she answered the door. Bridget was like my second mom—the one that didn’t need to be institutionalized—and I loved her like one. “Here, I’ll put it in the fridge. Ellie’s in her room.”

I thanked her before ascending the large staircase. After a failed hockey career, Noelle’s father became some sort of sports agent. Once it started taking off, he purchased a large office building in Vancouver (fully equipped with a studio apartment on the top floor, which he stayed in most of the time) and rarely came home except for birthdays and national holidays. Noelle used to tell me she’d hate her father for his absence if he hadn’t made sure his family was completely taken care of. She stopped talking about him altogether after he bought her a Lexus for her sixteenth birthday.

“Knock knock,” I said as I pushed her door open. I was completely unsurprised to find her rifling through a mess of clothes. “What’re you doing?”

“What?” She appeared in the frame of her massive walk-in closet in just a towel, her hair clipped to the top of her head to keep it from getting wet. “Oh, hey Ken. More salad?” I nodded and she laughed. My mother’s penchant for salad did not go unnoticed by anyone.

“I have no idea what to wear,” she huffed, disappearing back inside her closet. I’d been in there once and swore I’d never go in again. There were shelves of shoes and handbags in every color, racks of clothing assorted by color and if you went deep enough there was a vanity.

“It’s just the block party,” I offered.

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but you-know-who is gonna be there.”

“Have you talked to him since…y’know?”

Noelle shook her head as she ripped a sundress from a hanger and held it against her body. “No, and I don’t plan on talking to him either. Have you?” I, too, shook my head. I could barely keep up with who she dated, let alone keep in contact with them. “Does this look okay?”

“Looks great.”

“I’m wearing it then,” she decided, and pulled it over her head. Noelle had the body to pull off anything, so the fact that she looked absolutely stunning in a simple blue sundress did little for my self-esteem. “Is Ryan going to be there?”

I groaned. I don’t know when or how it happened, but somehow I wound up falling in love with my other best friend and Noelle constantly pestered me about it. While there are the obvious drawbacks, most of the time I was able to ignore the feeling in my gut every time he texted me and told me he missed me or asked when I’d make the trip to Edmonton to attend a game. Sometimes I selfishly wished Ryan wasn’t as good a hockey player as he was. If he’d played a smidgen worse in juniors, maybe the Oilers wouldn’t have used their first overall pick on him and he would’ve gone to a team that actually made the playoffs. More hockey meant a shorter summer; less time he’d spend in Burnaby.

“I don’t know,” I shrugged. My attempt at nonchalance failed as Noelle smirked at me. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“I wouldn’t have to if you didn’t lie to me. He is, isn’t he?”

“He might’ve mentioned it.”

Her smirk expanded into a full-on cheshire grin. “So Burnaby’s prodigal son is going to be at the block party and that’s what you’re wearing?” I frowned, looking down at my jean shorts and white v-neck.

“What’s wrong with this?”

“It’s hideous.”

I rolled my eyes. “How can it be hideous?”

“Boring is hideous,” she said, as if Jackie Onassis was now giving me fashion advice instead of Noelle Fielding. “We’re the same size, right?”

I almost laughed out loud at that one.

“Here, try this.” An oversized, black silk shirt was thrust in my direction. I pulled it over my head and fiddled with the bottom, adjusting the way it fell over my hips. “Definitely an improvement.”

I decided not to argue. Noelle was the one with money, and having money meant having a better fashion sense than someone like me who only purchased clothing that their cashier’s salary could afford. “Thanks.”

“No problem. If we don’t come up with a plan to make Ryan fall in love with you soon, you’re going to be like a cat in heat.”

A quiet eww fell from my lips as she moved into the bathroom attached to her room. “Did you even want to go to this stupid thing?”

“What d’you mean?”

“You-know-who invited me to a party,” she said, trying to play it off like it was no big deal and it’d cause her immense pain to show up, “but if you don’t want to go…”

“You want to go.”

“I mean…like, it’s not a big deal or anything, I just thought…”

Noelle had figured out a way to guilt-trip me over the years. She could get me to do just about anything—it was amazing, really, so I couldn’t even be mad at her for it—so convincing me to go to her ex-boyfriend’s party was a walk in the park.

“Text me the address and I’ll meet you there,” I resigned. “You know my mother. If I don’t show up and eat her salad she’ll freak.”


Summer in British Columbia probably shouldn’t be called summer. The air wasn’t humid and muggy, you weren’t coated in a layer of sweat as soon as you step outside, and most of the time you were better off wearing long sleeves or a sweatshirt because it typically got really cool at night. Unfortunately, this was perfect for the preservation of my mother’s salads, which were displayed proudly next to Bridget’s pie assortment.

Every time Mom served an attendee a plateful of their salad of choice, her eyes lit up like fireworks. Working in a diner for so long, she picked up a few tricks along the way and always insisted on trying them out at home. She was funny that way—confident enough to force-feed it to me but still too nervous to make it publicly available. I think she just wanted everyone to pay attention to her for something other than The Scandal.

“How is it?” she asked, her eyes twinkling with anticipation. I was trying to decide how I felt about the wad of cucumber salad in my mouth when everyone started making a scene. That meant one thing: Ryan. It was amazing how one thought about him could turn my legs to jelly and my insides to mush.

The block party was always ridiculously crowded. It was as if the entire population of Burnaby showed up and congregated in the same place, all vying for the last slice of Bridget’s apple pie or to observe my mother’s mental state. But when Ryan showed up, all eyes were instantly on him. He was our newest prized possession, Burnaby’s shining star. Half the city wore 93 jerseys and had Oilers flags waving proudly from their porches, all the while trying to ignore that our loyalties were supposed to lie with the Canucks.

“Go bring this to him.” I turned my attention back to my mother, who had two plates full of food in her hands. I wanted to ask her how she knew, but it was pointless. Everyone in town had a built-in Nugent-Hopkins radar.

I felt so lame trying to push my way through the mob with a giant slab of pie in one hand and an assortment of salads in the other. No one was happy to move an inch and they let me know it. I’d been called a bitch seven times by the time I finally reached him.

And then I dropped the plates.

Ryan’s eyes widened as he stared at the ground. They shrunk significantly once they landed on me, and I couldn’t help the sheepish grin I now sported. Instantly, Ryan’s arms were around me and I was crushed against his chest. I breathed in his scent, thankful to discover he still smelled like Ryan, and wrapped my arms around his waist.

“I hope Bridget has more pie,” he said as he released me, taking his abundance of body heat with him. My hands twitched as I yearned to reach out to touch him again.

Instead, I smiled wider. “You know she does.”

“Just give me a second and I’ll be over there.”

I nodded, letting him have his moment, before retreating back to the table my mother and Bridget had set up. They shared a look as I returned and plopped into the empty chair between them. I didn’t have to ask what they’d been discussing for my cheeks to turn bright red. To anyone else I would’ve seemed like a victim of circumstance: I’d like to meet the person who didn’t blush like mad after sharing a bone-crushing embrace with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. But they knew better. One look and they knew exactly how I felt about him. I hated it.

“Don’t give me that look, Mom.”

She stifled a laugh as she watched Ryan. “He looks at you the same way, you know.”

I rolled my eyes. “He’s probably looking at Bridget’s pie.”

The two women shared another look as he finally escaped the crowd and came wandering over. It always amazed me how he put zero effort into looking as good as he did. It was like he just rolled out of bed looking beautiful, and that wasn’t fair. Noelle had yelled at me for my approach to simplicity, but it looked natural on Ryan, like doing anything else would subtract from the impact he made just by being within a ten-mile radius of you.

“Ryan!” Mom cheered, standing up to wrap him in a hug. I tried not to laugh at the height difference. “It’s so good to see you, honey.”

“You too, Dana.” He moved onto Bridget next, sweeping her off her feet with a simple kiss on the cheek. “Kenny dropped the pie so I was hoping I could steal another piece.”

“Here, take the whole thing.” Bridget handed him a peaches and cream she hadn’t put on display. “It’s your mother’s favorite, if I recall correctly.”

“She’s around here somewhere. I’ll let her know it’s waiting for her,” he said. Then he turned to me and I nearly passed out. “Come with me?”

My heart skipped a beat when he grabbed my hand. He navigated us through the crowd, stopping occasionally to chat with someone, before we reached the last booth and he kept going. I didn’t bother asking where we were going, nor did I protest when we got in his car and wound up at Central Park. As happy as I was for Ryan, I was thankful to be away from the swarm that seemed to follow him everywhere he went.

I should’ve been used to the scenery, living a stone’s throw away from Vancouver and all, but the sight of the North Shore always managed to take my breath away. Even more so now that the sun was setting, the pinks and oranges reflecting off the water. But it was more than just picturesque landscapes—Central Park was our spot. It was the first place we went together after I got my license. We spent the night talking and drinking liquor I’d stolen from my mom, and I had to rush Ryan to practice once daybreak hit because he’d forgotten all about it. He puked five minutes in and had to sit the next game.

“I missed this,” he said as he twisted the key out of the ignition. As per tradition, we climbed out and sat on the hood of his car, just staring at the nature that surrounded us.

“No fancy parks in Edmonton?”

Ryan smiled. “That’s not what I meant.”

He looks at you the same way, you know. I shook my head. There was no way Ryan felt anything toward me besides friendship. We’d grown up together, lived through one another’s awkward phases—he even saw me when I had braces and zits all over my face when I hit puberty. Now that he was an NHL-caliber player, I had little to offer him. Besides, there were surely more attractive women hanging around him and his teammates. I wasn’t Noelle. I wasn’t even close.

“You like it there?” I asked, playing with a frayed piece of denim from my shorts. Ryan and I were sat so close together I could feel him shrug. “You’re not missing much here.”

He bumped me with his shoulder. I had a few inches on my mother, but Ryan still towered over me. Pair that with the fact that he threw body checks for a living, I nearly toppled off the hood. “Here has you.”

“You have Eberle and Hall.”

His nose scrunched up in mock-disgust. “You’re much easier on the eyes.”

I smiled, thankful the lights and buzz of the NHL hadn’t gone to his head. He was still my best friend, still the goofy, lanky kid I’d grown up with that happened to make it big.

Around us, nighttime was settling. The sky was growing dark and the sound of insects chirping became background noise. Fireflies started lighting up around us and in a moment of childish nostalgia, Ryan and I both jumped off the hood of the car and began chasing them. We’d spent countless summer nights doing it until Adam, his brother, would show up to walk him home.

It was hard to see in the dark, which I found out as soon as I trained my attention on a particular bug and knocked into Ryan, sending us both toppling to the ground. Ryan landed on his back, scarily close to a jagged twig, and cushioned my landing as I fell on top of him. We shared one look before bursting into laughter, the sound drowning out the crickets.

“You smooshed my lightning bug,” he whined, holding out his hand to show me the decimated remains. I planted my hands, moving to stand up, but a hand on the small of my back stopped me.

“You’re gonna get dirty.”

Ryan shrugged. “I don’t care,” he said, his voice a notch above a whisper. “Can I ask you something?” I nodded. It was all I could do when my breath had hitched in my throat and I didn’t trust myself to articulate real words.

“Do you ever…” He paused to inhale. It came out through his nose, calculated and trained. “Do you ever think a-about me?”

My forehead wrinkled in confusion. “All the time.”

His hands ran up and down my arms. I felt like I was suffocating. Every nerve in my body felt like it was on fire and I was due to spontaneously combust at any second. “I mean, have you ever thought about me like…like that.”

Say something, idiot. Tell him you love him. Tell him you’ve been in love with him since you stopped believing boys had cooties. “Ryan…”

The boy beneath me sighed, dropping his arms. They now rested on the ground, seemingly miles away from the burning hot tracks he’d created on my skin, and I could’ve slapped myself. Why couldn’t I just say what I felt, what I meant?

“It’s fine, Kensey. It…it was a stupid question anyway. I’m sorry.”

I shuffled to the side, to the left of Ryan instead of on top of him, and pulled my knees to my chest. I cursed Noelle in that moment, wishing she’d suggested a large sweatshirt so I could hide in it. Even in the dark I could tell Ryan was upset. I felt it. I felt his rejection all the way down to my toes, and it hurt.

Ryan stood, seeming ten feet tall from where I sat on the grass, and wiped the dirt from his clothes. Somewhere in Burnaby, fireworks started going off. Every romantic comedy instantly flashed in my mind. Visions of perfect-for-each-other best friends sharing their first kiss almost tempted me to do something I knew I’d regret.

Finally, after sitting in silence for too long, I spoke: “It wasn’t stupid.”

My best friend looked down at me. His face would light up every time a firework went off, highlighting his perfect bone structure, and it felt like I was being stabbed in the heart all over again. “Don’t lie just to make me feel better.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “I’ve never lied to you, Ry. Ever.”

“Yes you have. In the fourth grade, when I asked if it was you that glued all my crayons together and put them back in the box. You said it wasn’t, but I knew it was you.”

“Whoa. That definitely wasn’t me,” I lied. Ryan smiled, still staring at the fireworks in the sky.

I stood, joining Ryan’s side. Like clockwork, he wrapped an arm around my shoulder and pulled me against his side. One of my arms went around his waist and the other, surprising even myself, moved upward to entwine with Ryan’s. He looked down at me; my eyes remained on the sky. His hand squeezed my own.

“The answer is yes,” I said, finally daring to look at him.

“What?”

“To your question. The answer is yes.”

“Kens…”

I sucked in a breath. “I’ve never lied to you, Ryan. I meant that. But let’s not make this weird, all right? Let’s just go to that party Noelle invited us to and—”

With fireworks still being set off in the background, Ryan kissed me. He kissed me so hard my head was spinning and my knees gave out. He kissed all the secrets out of my soul and sent all my insecurities into space. He kissed me so hard I forgot all about meeting Noelle at the party and that Ryan spent most of the year playing professional hockey 1,200 kilometers away—because none of that mattered. My best friend was kissing me and that feeling I got in my gut whenever I thought about him turned into butterflies.

“You’re good at that,” I said once he finally pulled away. He cupped my cheek as he smiled. “Should I tell Noelle we’re not coming?”

Ryan nodded before dipping to kiss me again.