Northern Wind

I felt… defeated.

I felt like someone had just taken the ground from beneath me, the air from my lungs, the blood from my veins… the love from my heart.

I felt empty.

I felt worthless.

I felt betrayed.

He had known. He had known for years and never told me. He knew, he knew for so long and never mentioned it to me. He just bottled it up and tossed it to the side. He was going to let me marry him. He was going to let me marry a cheater.

Just the thought of how careless he was set my body on fire.

The overbearing hatred for the brunette frightened me. I had never felt anything but love for him in my twenty-six years of living. He was my best friend, he was my crutch for so long.

For so fucking long.

I trusted him. I trusted him with every inch of my body, every ounce of my sanity, every cosmic swirl that made up the soul that pitted it self inside of me.

And he shattered it.

I had no one.

Blinking took more energy from me that it had ever done so before. I thought my body had felt weighed down and numb when Jake had died… This, this feeling was hundreds of times worse. Everything was going in slow motion; every noise I heard took five times as long to process.

Words were hard to make sense of.

It would take me at least three minutes to respond to a simple question. I let the words sink into my head, roll around, find meaning, and then after mustering up some energy, I would spit out my feeble response which was never more than three words.

I knew this was scaring them.

I knew John was worried about me. The few times I had let him in my room, it was the only thing I could see on his features. His big blue eyes were dull, his normal smirk was a thin line, and his strong posture was soft.

The depression I had been sulking in was spreading.

I wanted it to spread.

I wanted him to feel horrible about what he had done.

No, no, no, not John, never John.

He didn’t know, he had no right to show such pain on his face on my account.

It was the other brunette I had aimed my bad vibes toward.

“Christa?” The orbs sunk in my skull slowly moved over to the door I had been hiding behind for five straight days. I had only left the room for use of the bathroom, showers, and maybe once a day to grab a slice of bread or a vanilla protein shake.

After a few minutes of my silence, the doorknob jiggled. “Christa, just let me know you’re okay, please?” His voice cracked. It sounded like he had been crying, worrying, maybe even screaming.

Looking down at the bed, I carefully picked up the plug for my phone charger and held it tightly in my hand. After another set of knocks sounded, I threw the small white cube as hard as I could against the door, and listened as the small clunk filled the room and silenced the man on the other side of the door.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t as long as I had hoped.

“Christa please just let me talk to you.”

Shaking my head, I ran a hand through my knotted hair and then pressed my heels into the sheets I had originally been sleeping on. I had refused to put the new sheets on the bed and I managed to toss the sweater he had bought for me into the garbage.

If he had pulled it back out, then I had no intelligence of it.

Either way, it sent my message across well.

“This is ridiculous, do you know that? What happened to the girl that never ran away from her problems? That used to face them? Why do you-“ I threw the remote to the television at the back of the door.

My blood was ice cold.

“Why can’t you just hear me out?”

Something in the way he spoke gave me the adrenaline rush that sparked my movements. With heavy limbs and ice-cold organs I walked across the bedroom and paused at the door, staring at the doorknob like it would unlock itself.

“I love you, Chris. This is killing me.”

The small click sounded like a shrill scream through the silent air as I flipped the knob and then slowly twisted it open. Once the large block of wood was pushed aside, I looked up right into his eyes.

His face drained color as he took my sad excuse of an appearance in.

I was pale. My face was shallow. Heavy bags had formed under my eyes. My lips were chapped, my eyes were pink, and my knuckles were cracked from the cold air and lack of moisture. I had not eaten more that four hundred calories per day for the last five days, and I had not been outside since we had spent the day together getting coffee.

“Are… Chris.” Derick shook his head as his large hand slowly made it’s way to my face, trembling the whole way from his side. Once his cold skin was against mine, he parted his lips to speak, but after running his eyes over me again, he just shook his head.

We stood like this for what felt like centuries.

I wanted to break the silence. I wanted to press my fist into his face. I wanted to watch his eyes lose their sparkle. I wanted him to feel the way I did. I wanted him to know what it felt like to have absolutely nothing.

“I hate you.” I breathed once the silence between us had gotten utterly unbearable. “I trusted you, Derick.” My breathing became heavy as Derick dropped his hand from my cheek and placed it on my shoulder. “I trusted you with every fiber of my being and you lied to me.”

“No, no, Christa I never lied to you, I-“

“You knew.” I was shaking at this point; shaking so bad that the room around me was vibrating. Everything was vibrating but him, everything but Derick. “You knew what he did and you kept it from me.”

“You were so happy Chris, so happy. I couldn’t do that to you.” He begged, his large brown eyes glazing over with a shield of water. “I couldn’t bare to see you-“

“See me what Derick?” The loudness of my voice was rising to points higher than I wanted to. I could feel my throat start to burn from the extensive use. “See me so fucking depressed, se me so lost and broken? Is that what you didn’t want to see, Derick?”

I was screaming at this point. My mind was reeling, my throat felt like it was on fire, and my veins were swelling from the seething hatred and disappointment rushing through me.

“Well how does it look now?”

The shield covering his big brown eyes shattered.

“Was it everything you expected? Are you still happy you decided to wait to tell me I was going to dedicate the rest of my life to a fucking cheater? Are you happy that I can’t trust anyone, Derick? Are you happy I have absolutely no one left.”

Shaking his head, he clenched his fists and played it off like the beads of water weren’t rolling down his cheeks.

“I… I’m still here for you, Christa.” He said through gritted teeth.

“Your words mean shit to me.”

“Chris…” I slapped Derick’s hand away from me and took a step back into my room, letting the view of the brunette, utterly broken, standing in the doorway burn into the back of my head. Once the haunting image was flashing behind my eyelids every time I blinked, I slammed the bedroom door shut, hit the lock, and then collapsed to the floor behind it, letting out the horrid sobs that had collected in the pit of my stomach.

John Moore’s Point of View

It took absolutely every ounce of control I had in my body not to run down the hall when I started to hear Christa’s broken screams. I had been the only person she allowed into her room for the past five days, and although I felt honored in a way, it also gave me the view of her slowly deteriorating in front of me.

And it killed me.

We were leaving in two days.

In forty-eight hours we would be heading to California for a week. A fucking week she would be here alone.

That scared me more than anything in the world.

As soon as the bedroom door slammed shut, the light hum of her sobs tore through the already thick air causing my whole entire body to stiffen. My eyes crisscrossed through my bedroom, trying to find something to occupy my mind with.

There was nothing.

All I could do was listen to her faint cries. Listen to the way she spilled her distress through the air. I wanted to run down the hall and hold her. I wanted to hold her until she stopped crying, until she realized that she had more in her life than Jake and Derick. She had more to life than people who fucked her over.

Pangs of anger and jealousy spiked in my spine causing the emotions in my head to stomach to swirl until I was about to throw up.

“John can I just talk to you?”

I wanted to say no. I wanted to tell him to fuck off. I was angry. I was shocked. I was over everything that was going on between Derick and Christa, but as I looked up and saw my best friend standing in my doorway, I couldn’t help but sigh and nod a little.

“I feel like I’m going to lose her, John.” He was visibly shaking as he sat down on the edge of my bed and hung his head down, letting the vertebrate in his back press against his skin. Noticing the sudden view of bones, I moved over to him and noticed the shallow cheeks and dark eyes.

He looked just as bad as Christa.

“I really don’t think you’re well enough to go on this road trip.” I blurted out as I looked down at my feet and tried to defend against the hard glare I was receiving. “You look like shit, Brass. I’m not saying it to be an asshole, I’m saying it as your friend that has been your roommate for the last four years.”

The brunette swallowed hard as he nodded a little and ran his trembling fingers through his hair. “I don’t know what to do.”

“There’s really nothing you can do.”

“How are we going to go on this road trip? How am I going to be able to sleep without-“

In that moment, the phone ran cutting the boys words off. As the loud ring pierced through the eerie silence, our eyes connected and then after a small nod, I reached over to my pillow and pulled the phone over to my line of vision.

“Hey, it’s Marty.” I huffed and then shrugged a little and answered it. “Hey man, what’s-“

“How is she?”

I blinked hard for a moment until I realized that pretty much everyone we were generally close to has heard about the whole situation that we were dealing with. They knew Christa was withering away and although they had never met her, they were worried. More so because they knew if she vanished, Derick would follow behind suit. He may not completely realize it, but everyone else knew he was head over heels for her in the cruelest and deepest of ways.

“Bad.”

“I know this is bizarre, like really weird, but Steps is staying back in NY for the next week because, well, he’s still banged up, and I was talking to him, and we thought it would be a good idea if maybe he stayed with Christa.” Marty suggested, his voice confident and stern about his idea. I felt like even if I said no, that Christa would probably hide away from anyone at this point, he would do it anyway.

Looking over at Derick, I thought about everything that could happen. I thought about losing Christa, I thought about losing Derick, I thought about getting the coaches involved and other players.

I couldn’t do it.

Not because I didn’t want to deal with the drama. No, it wasn’t that at all. It was because I knew if the deal got this big, if Christa knew that this many people were worrying about her, she would implode.

And that wasn’t an option.

“He’s okay with it?” I heard my voice echo through the apartment.

“Yeah he is, it was his idea. I mean he's still recovering from the leg anyway.”

“Done… It’s done. That’s great. Please.”



The last two days had been the same as the previous five. I stayed in my room, I ate a few sliced of bread, I cried over how pathetic I was, and then I went to sleep. I ignored Derick’s words behind my door. I didn’t even give him the satisfaction of throwing something to let him know I was there. I just let him talk, and talk, and talk.

Yes, I heard every word he said.

I heard that he was leaving, that they got someone from the team to stay with me because they were worried. I knew he meant more than him and John. I knew maybe half of the team knew about me, knew about how lost I had become, how confused and lost I was.

It was nice someone volunteered to babysit me.

But I hated it at the same time.

When John and Derick bid their goodbyes to me through the door, the informed me that the other boy, Derek was here. The foreign voice croaked a ‘hello’ through the door and I couldn’t help but let out an amused puff of air at the utter difference in tones between Derick and Derek.

The apartment fell silent besides the low hum of the TV. It comforted me in a way to hear something going on. Usually the guys were out or talking in a room far away from mine, so it was always quiet, like my room was a vacuum.

Around eleven at night, the pains in my stomach got too much and I found myself leaving my room in search for some kind of food. As I tiptoed down the hall and over to the kitchen, I went to open the fridge when I watched the lights flick on and then heard a loud scream and a clatter.

Turning on my heels, I looked out at the man standing in the doorway. I examined his shocked features and utterly horror filled eyes. I took in the way he stood, his arms in front of him ready to defend against the monster in the dark that just turned out to be a tortured, tired, weak, twenty-five year old woman.

Once he realized I was whom he was here for, he plastered a goofy smile on his lips, lowered his limbs and nodded toward me. “Wow, you sure as shit can scare the hell out of someone, huh?”

“I’m sorry.” I felt the end of my lips twist up.

“Hi Sorry, I’m Derek. R, E, K, not R, I, C, K.” As he finished speaking, I furrowed my eyebrows and in a moment of utter calmness, I started to laugh.

And I laughed and laughed. It got to the point where the man standing across from me started to chuckle too. I wasn’t sure what lead me to the hysteria, it may have been how stupid his words were or how nice he treated me, but something about him made me feel normal.

The way he spoke to me made me feel like I was just Christa, the latte loving, cat hugging, and nature freak that I was before everything. I didn’t feel like the creature that had been lying in bed for a week.

“I’m Christa.”

“The little creature I’m babysitting? I’m glad to hear I’m not dealing with some disturbed entity.” With a smile from the boy, I started to laugh again.

And I kept laughing, and laughing, and laughing to the point where I found myself feeling normal.

I felt okay for the first time in two months and it was all thanks to someone I had never met before in my life.

Maybe they were right.

Maybe I did need to branch out.

Derek was a nice start.