“I didn’t know baby Sullivan has a boyfriend.” Nico’s voice reminds me I’m not alone in this bar, and simultaneously makes me want to smash my fist through a wall. I want to swallow battery acid.
Valor’s body is being held by a douche nozzle who is wearing a pink suit. Fucking pink. That color that men try to say is salmon, but really it’s fucking pink. I bet his name is Anston or something that sounds like it came out of a Hallmark movie. His manicured hands are resting on Valor’s face while he presses a soft kiss on her lips. The gloss from her lipstick transfers to his mouth, and she wipes it off, laughing with him.
She’s mine. That’s my girl he’s touching in his goddamn flamingo suit. I want to physically jump through the TV and rip his face off. I decide that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’m thinking irrationally right now but I don’t fucking care.
I can make this right. I’ll leave right now and go to her. I’ll tell her father everything. I’ll scream it to the fucking world until I’m blue. I know that if I can get to her right now we will be okay. I can fix it all. It’s Vallie, my Vallie. She’s loved me her entire life. I’d told myself this same thing so many times over the years, but this was the first time I felt like I had to or I’d lose my fucking mind.
With those thoughts running through my mind, I press my hands on the table and scoot the chair out from its place. I go to stand up when a large hand grips my wrist.
“Don’t.” Kai warns, “Don’t Bishop. Look at that screen.” I fuse my eyebrows together. I have been looking at the fucking TV that’s why I’m so mad. He should know that. He of all people should know that. “Look,” he says again motioning his head toward the TV, his eyes holding so much emotion. It’s the first time I recognized a feeling in Kai’s eyes.
It was empathy.
I shift, glancing at the screen to see my girl glide across the stage. Her smile lights up the stage as she walks toward the podium. She is addicting to watch and impossible to ignore. From the inside out, she glows of happiness surrounding her.
She laughs as she gives her speech and thanks her dad for everything he’s ever done for her. They give her a jersey, and she makes her way off the stage straight for her dad. He catches her in his arms, spinning her around with glee. I can feel the joy. Two peas in a pod, those two. There are unshed tears resting in JR’s eyes.
Once she lets go of him, she falls into the arms of another man. Pink suit cradles her head as he hugs her to his chest, a smile on his sharp face. He looks at her like she’s gold, like treasure he earned. She isn’t just a prize you can claim. She isn’t some monetary thing you can show to the world. She deserves to be looked at like she is…
Like she’s fucking magic because she is. Valor is the softness of a hug, the first day of spring, the sound of laughter, she’s love. What she is isn’t tangible. You can’t contain all she encompasses.
Valor is my kind of magic.
My eyes burn, and I grind my teeth together. I want to leave this place. I don’t want to be here anymore. I shake my head, ready to leave when something catches my eye. Valor turns to face the camera, answering questions for an interview, and that’s when I notice it.
The piece of me she always carries with her. I’d never seen her not wear that necklace. The gold chain rests over the green material of her top catching the light, mocking me. Her fingers grip the pendant, and she toys with it. I don’t think she even realizes that she does it anymore, that’s how long she has had it. Hope builds in my chest, but it soon falls away with Kai’s voice.
“She’s happy, B. She’s happy…”
Naively, I thought that if I couldn’t move on, she must have felt the same way. I foolishly believed she would love me for the rest of her life, but that isn’t the case. I’d convinced myself she’d never be with anyone else, and that we would both be miserable without each other.
But I was wrong because she was happy, without me. Pink suit held her future, and I held a small area of her past. That necklace proved it.
Right here, in the middle of this bar, on a Friday night, my entire life changed because I realized something that I’d never been able to understand before.
Letting go doesn’t mean loving any less.
I had to let her go so she could live. So she could laugh, smile, enjoy her youth. I needed to let her go so that she could be happy because that’s all I ever wanted for her. I want her to be happy, even if it’s not with me. That’s love, isn’t it? When someone else’s happiness becomes more important than your own.
It’s why her mom left her.
It’s why my mom left me.
When I was a kid I dreamed of playing for the city of Chicago. It was all I wanted to do when I grew up. Some little girls wanted to be a princess, others wanted to be a doctor, me? I just wanted to play professional hockey. It’s all I ever wanted to do.
I thought that if I worked hard, practiced, sacrificed for my dream, that I would be happy once I achieved it.
What they do not tell you as a child is dreams become messy. They get hazy, bumps get in the way, curves take you in different directions. Life happens. Then when you finally accomplish your dream, you realize just how much more work you have to put in to make that dream enjoyable.
I loved everything about the city I grew up in. I loved how the “L” Train weaved through the roofs of houses, going to Lincoln Zoo as a kid, the endless deep-dish pizza, the culture, the atmosphere, the overlooks of the city. Chicago raised me into the person I am and I was thankful I got to represent them.
But there were parts of me that wanted to leave my corner of the world. Because with all of the beautiful things to love about this city came memories attached to it. Memories of him, and like Riggs said…
“Thinking about him gives him power.”
So how do I tell her that merely looking at the sky makes me think of him? When someone tells a joke I look around to see if he is there to laugh about it. If someone puts ketchup on a hotdog, I think of him. Any time I can’t sleep? I selfishly wear his T-shirt to bed. When I miss him? I gripped onto my necklace for dear life.
I wanted away from him, but fate or God had a different plan. They wanted me to stay right here in Chicago. To fight off his memory every day of my life. My mind wants to forget, but my heart? She holds onto him.
“Killer job out there, Sully.” I feel someone slap my back as I tie my Converse. My shoulders are aching, and there are blisters the size of quarters on my feet, but I’ll be damned if they know that. I’ll just take an ice bath and hope the soreness goes away.
I had a decent practice today, I could have done better. My accuracy was not where I wanted it to be, but I was still getting in the grove with a new team. I also had to deal with my own teammate chirping the fuck out of me. There was a major difference in giving someone a hard time and being a bitch.
“Thanks, D!” I accept the comment graciously. The goalie had been one of the only players who’d said anything positive to me since I got here.
“She does okay for a rookie.”
Another thing I didn’t like about playing for Chicago? Jane West. Five-year veteran, left-wing, and total bitch. Being the rookie meant all eyes were on me, and that was not okay with her. I honestly think she would rather die than let me be on the line above her, or God forbid, start.