Seven Year Ache

January 2015

When Shea arrived at home after their overtime win against the Avs he was exhausted, and frankly annoyed. Riley hadn’t bothered showing up, and while he knew he shouldn’t have been surprised he was. Not even a text to say she wasn’t going. He had to call Kelly to ask if she knew where Riley was after he spent fifteen minutes looking for her only to find out she hadn’t even come to the game.

He locked the front door behind him, shrugged off his suit jacket and slipped out of his shoes before he walked into the kitchen. He was pulling his tie loose when he saw an empty bottle of wine on the counter by the sink but no glass. He practically ripped his tie off, his annoyance turning into anger as he took the stairs two at a time and shoved the bedroom door open. She was asleep in their bed, facing away from him, and her empty wine glass was on the nightstand table.

Instead of waking her up to start a fight Shea walked into the closet and took off his suit, throwing on a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt before he left the bedroom, not even looking back at Riley before he did so. He wasn’t as quiet going down the stairs, half hoping to wake her up, and he walked into the kitchen and grabbed the bottle of wine, throwing it into the recycle bin with a crash as it shattered. He opened the fridge, and closed the door a little loudly upon finding she hadn’t gone grocery shopping like she said she would. He was trying so hard to control his temper, but knowing that there wasn’t a real, legitimate reason for her missing the game and not telling him or going shopping was just infuriating him.

His phone buzzed from the island, and he turned around to look down at it, finding a text from Kelly he swiped the unlock button and read it. Let me know if you found her, please. He rolled his eyes and stared at the text for a few seconds before he hit the call button and brought the phone to his ear, waiting impatiently for her to answer.

She did after three rings pick up, “Found her?”

“Yup.” He muttered, offering no more than his gruff one word response.

Curiously she asked, “And? She’s okay?”

“If you count drinking a bottle of wine and falling asleep okay then yeah she’s perfect.” He stated in annoyance.

Kelly wasn’t sure what to say to him, she was stuck in an awkward position, so all she asked was, “You sure that’s the reason she didn’t come?”

“What the fuck else would it be Kelly?” She could tell by the sound of his voice that he was getting angry, and she didn’t want to make it worse but she was itching to unleash her inner Italian on him, something she knew wouldn’t dissipate as their conversation went on.

Shea could hear Craig in the background ask if it was him, and Kelly replied with a ‘yeah’, there was muffled voices but he could make out Riley’s name, before Kelly came back on the line and told him, “Oh, I don’t know, maybe you?”

“What does that mean?” He asked incuriously.

She sighed, “You really, honestly, cannot say the things you said to her the last time you guys talked, and treat her the way you’ve been treating her for the last, what, six months? And just expect her to be fine, to not feel like absolute shit. You’ve done nothing but make her feel like she’s inadequate for months, and sure maybe she pushes you too and it’s not okay on either of your parts but Shea, get a grip.”

“How the fuck have I made her feel inadequate? If she has an issue with the fact that she doesn’t have a job then she needs to figure that out herself because I don’t give a fuck if she has one or not. It’s always about my job, what do I have to do, quit for her to be happy?” He was fuming, and spitting out words so quickly that he wasn’t sure he was even forming proper sentences that she would understand.

“Would you?” She asked him curiously, her voice soft. When he didn’t respond Kelly stated, “She would never let you even if you wanted to. She would put your career, your job and your happiness before her own, as she frequently does and you don’t even seem to notice that.”

“I never asked her to do that.” He stated gruffly, defending himself against nothing but the truth.

Kelly sighed and told him, “You don’t have to. Shea, I know this life. I might not be the captain’s girlfriend, but I know how things work. You don’t ask, you might not even expect it, but we do it. We sacrifice a lot for you guys, more than we probably should have to. I’m lucky, I can still work, I don’t have to spend my days organizing charity shit I don’t even particularly care about, I don’t have to go all the games and mingle with all the wives, I don’t have to put up false pretenses around them and pretend to be happy all the time. I don’t have to be the buffer or mediator and solve spats in the wives room. Riley does have to do that and then some, and has she ever once complained about it? No, because she doesn’t want to bother you with it, and her biggest priority is making sure you’re happy.”

He didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything. He kept the phone to his ear glanced down at his hand, which was laying flat on the counter top, he tapped his fingers against the material and let out a sigh. Holding his phone between his shoulder and his ear he ran his free hand through his hair before he asked her, “Does she want to fix this?”

“Honestly? She did, now I’m not so sure.” Kelly told him, not bothering to sugar coat it for him. Not like he deserved sugar coating anyway. After a few seconds of silence from Shea Kelly cleared his throat and told him, “I’ll talk to you later. Talk to her.”

With that he heard a click and then the dial tone so he let out another sigh, brought the phone away from his ear and hit end before he gently tossed it onto the counter again. He covered his face with his large hands, letting out another loud sigh before he rubbed his skin and pulled his hands away when he heard footsteps on the hardwood. Riley walked into the kitchen, but stopped at the pantry and they stared at each other. She looked exhausted, and Shea knew it wasn’t just from the alcohol. Her hair was up in a big bun, and she was wearing a pair of flannel pyjama bottoms and a Rockets t-shirt he was sure once belonged to him. She shifted from foot to foot before finally looking away from him and walking past him. He grabbed her wrist as she did so, and she stopped in her tracks but didn’t turn to face him, and after a few silent seconds she pulled her arm from his grasp and walked over to the sink.

He watched her pull down a bottle of Advil, and fill a glass with water, he kept his eyes on her as she took the pills and put the bottle back, and he watched her as she watched the faucet, afraid to even look in his direction. Shea was the first to speak, “Ry…”

She put her hands in her hair, and leaned her elbows against the counter, letting out a sigh before warning him, “Shea I don’t want to do this right now.”

“Well I do!” He exclaimed, a little louder than he intended to, but it got her to lift her head from her hands and turn to face him. She was a little shocked by his outburst so Shea lowered his voice and asked her, “How much of that did you hear?”

He was talking about his call to Kelly, but Riley knew that. She crossed her arms over her chest and told him, “Almost all of it. At least your side of it.”

He sighed and pushed his fingers through his hair, before he informed her, “I was just calling to let her know I found you. She was worried.”

She nodded and told him, not quite looking him in the eye, “I’m sorry I missed your game.”

“Are you?” When she looked up at him with hard eyes Shea sighed and rephrased his initial question, “Are you okay?”

She let out a short laugh and asked, “Do I look I’m okay?”

Shea didn’t say anything, he wasn’t sure what he could say anyway. Instead he just looked at her, really looked at her, and wondered how he had never noticed all the tiny changes that were now so glaring. She looked like she hadn’t slept in weeks, and she had lost weight, not much but she was already so little that it stood out to him now that he was taking the time to really look at her. How had he never noticed this? He briefly wondered when the last time she ate was, he couldn’t even remember, it wasn’t like they had been in the habit of having meals together lately.

“What?” She asked roughly, wanting to know why he was staring at her the way he was.

“I’m worried about you.” He told her honestly, and he was surprised when she scoffed. So surprised that he told her, “I am Riley, and I think I’m allowed to be.”

She looked up at him in surprise, before her eyes darkened and her arms crossed over her chest again and she asked, her voice bitter, “Oh really? You think you’re allowed to be worried about me? Now? Really Shea?”

“Yeah I am! Damnit, Riley I’m tired of this! I don’t want to fight with you anymore.” He told her, exhausted already and they had only been talking for fifteen minutes.

She rolled her eyes and muttered, “Could have fooled me.”

“You want to get mad at me for the last few months? That’s fine, get mad at me. Yell at me, hit me whatever but we’re fixing this tonight Riley.” His anger was starting to peak through, it was evident in the way certain words got a little louder, and a lot more forceful. Riley had been around him enough when he was angry to know, she wanted to look at his hands to see if he was clenching them but she couldn’t bring herself to do so.

Instead she asked, “Or what?”

“What?” He asked, confused by her question.

She took in a deep breath before she clarified, “What are you gonna do if I don’t want to fight or fix this tonight Shea? What?”

He stared at her in silence for a few seconds, and Riley watched his eyes soften before he told her quietly, keeping eye contact with her, “Or I’m done.”

It hit her that this might really be it, that this could really be that final fight for them. The proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, and it was right in front of her. Yet it did the exact opposite of what Shea hoped his words would do, it didn’t calm her down or make her want to talk to him. Her eyes hardened again and her voice was venomous as she asked, “Oh, okay so when I want to have this fight and conversation and you don’t it’s me trying to be dramatic or keep you from doing super important NHL captain duties but when you want to have this fight and I don’t you’re just gonna throw in the towel? Is that how this is now Shea?”

“I can’t do this anymore.” He mumbled quietly, not even realizing Riley could hear him.

Instead of sticking around to fight some more Shea grabbed his phone and started up the stairs but he didn’t get far when Riley followed him and told him, “You wanted a fight, you got one.”

He took the three steps down the stairs, they were only inches away from each other and he watched her anger bubble up inside her. He could tell she was fuming, but he didn’t care anymore as he exclaimed, “I didn’t want a damn fight Riley, I wanted to have a real fucking conversation with you.”

She narrowed her eyes and asked, “You really thought this conversation wouldn’t turn into a fucking fight? If you really thought that then why are we even bothering? We’re obviously on completely different pages right now.”

“Yeah, obviously.” Part of him was purposely trying to anger her, he thought that maybe if she got pissed off enough she would completely lose it. Riley was incredibly difficult to really anger, she wasn’t an angry person, she hated to fight, so he was trying to put her into a position where she had to because he thought maybe, just maybe, that would be enough to make her get it all off her chest. That seemed like the only option left for him to try to fix things between them, and if this didn’t work he wasn’t sure what else to try.

“You have spent months skirting around me, not talking to me, making me feel like you couldn’t give a single fuck about me and now you want to play the genuine boyfriend who wants to fix things?” She asked him, her voice raising an octave or two. That was his first clue that her anger was growing.

“And what? You were just an innocent bystander in all this? Bullshit Riley you’re just as much to blame for this shit as I am.” He told her harshly, not sure he was really trying to anger her anymore, his words were as honest as they came.

“What do you expect? Do you expect me to just take it? To be a stepping stone in your life? Am I supposed to let you treat me like shit and just keep coming back for more like a good little Stepford wife?” She asked him, her voice raising even higher as she spoke. She didn’t let him even have the chance to respond, instead she just kept going, completely fuming, “How much more do I have to give up for you before you’re happy?”

“Before I’m happy? Are you fucking kidding me? I’m not happy, I haven’t been for months!” Shea interrupted her, unable to keep himself quiet anymore.

“Yeah and that’s my fault right? Everything’s my fault. You have a bad game and it’s my fault, I did or said something to make you play bad. You can’t concentrate at practice and it’s my fault because I haven’t fixed things between us. You can’t stop worrying about me when you’re on the road because god for-fucking-bid I’m upset when you’re on the road, and again…my fault right?” She wasn’t angry, like Shea expected. In fact what surprised him the most was that her voice was shaking and her eyes were filling with tears. Yet, even as they spilled over and started running down her cheeks she continued, “Everything falls back on me. You don’t think I know that? You don’t think I hear the comments that get made when you have a bad game? Do you think I don’t know what people say about me on the internet?”

“Riley-”

She was quick to interrupt his soft voice, “Do you think I like feeling like I’m responsible for that? I spend hours trying to think if I said or did something that could have made you play bad because I’m terrified of doing anything that could fuck up your career. I’ve spent the last six months worrying about what kind of effect our relationship has had on your game, and how it’s my fault if it did anything because I haven’t fixed it yet. I’ve spent the last six months lying to the people I consider family, because I’m afraid of what might happen if I tell the truth. I have spent countless hours in the wives room having to filter myself, and present myself properly because I don’t want this to get dragged around for your sake.

Do you know what it’s like to live like that? With that nagging little voice that tells you to watch what you say every time you open your mouth so that it doesn’t have a negative effect on the person you love? The person you love, who by the way, hasn’t touched you in months? Hasn’t talked to you like you’re an actual person since August? And you know what the worst part about it all is? I’d do it all again if you asked me to. I guess I’m just a sucker for punishment, right?”

Shea didn’t know what to say, he wanted her to get it all off his chest but never, not in a million years, did he expect any of that to come out of her mouth. He didn’t know how to even process all of what she had said, and he hated that. He hated how far they got from each other, he hated that he made her feel the way she had been feeling, but mostly he hated the fact that he didn’t even know how to comfort her. He just stared at her, watching her cry when she was standing half a foot away from him and he did absolutely nothing about it.

They stood across from each other for so long Shea could have forgotten what they were even fighting about in the first place. The only noise in the entire house was Riley sniffling, and Shea shifting from foot to foot as if he was nervous. Finally Riley wrapped her arms around herself and stepped around him, heading up the stairs and Shea turned to watch her.

Once she got halfway up he said, “Don’t walk away from me right now Riley.”

She continued up the stairs and Shea barely heard her say back to him, “You do it all the time.”

He stood at the bottom of the stairs in complete and utter confusion. Their bedroom door closed, and he heard it, but he still didn’t move from his spot. He wanted to, but it was like he was super glued to the floor and couldn’t move his feet. This was all wrong. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. His plan had backfired, it only made things worse between them and he hadn’t been counting on that so he didn’t know how to fix it now. If someone had told him even three years ago that this would be the position they were in he wouldn’t have even listened, because back then there was no way in his mind that he and Riley were ever going to be anything but perfectly fine.

He hung his head slightly, ran his hands through his hair, pulling hard on the ends of it, before his hands dropped back down to his sides and he looked up at the top of the stairs. He took a deep breath, told himself to get over whatever it was that was keeping him rooted to his spot and he slowly climbed the stairs. He walked down the hall, and stood outside the bedroom door for a few seconds, he could hear Riley inside, she was still crying. He closed his eyes, hand on the doorknob but made no motion to move. Taking in another big breath of air, as shaky as it was, Shea turned the knob and pushed the door open, stepping inside their bedroom.

She was sitting on the end of the bed, one foot on the ground while the other was on the bed, knee to her chest. She had one arm around her shin, the other pressed against her mouth as if she was afraid to make any noise to let him know she was crying, but he could tell. She was shaking, he wondered if she was even breathing, her face was red and though the tears were slow they were still falling.

He didn’t say a word to her, he just walked over to the bed, took the spot beside her, so close that they were touching and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. The moment his arm touched her she leaned to her side and collapsed into him, letting out a sob. He wrapped his other arm around her as well, one hand pressed flat against her back while the other held the back of her head as she wound an arm between his own arm and side, gripping the back of his t-shirt as she cried.

This just felt like a bad dream, the kind you just couldn’t wake up through.