Melissa:
Just got a text from Ryan. I have the address. Everyone's heading there now. It's closer to Deerfoot. You'll have to drive past our house anyway to get there. Might as well save the gas money?
Jenna started to sweat. Why hadn't she put the phone down? Why hadn't she pulled out of the lot and started home?
Because she didn't want to be left out of the group.
Because she couldn't stop spiralling closer, caught in his gravity.
Because she wanted to be strong.
Because she wanted to be convinced.
Because she'd never told him the truth, and it was eating at her like bile on an empty stomach.
Because she didn’t want this truth.
She didn’t want it. She didn’t want to be the girl who couldn’t give the only man she’d ever loved what he needed. If she didn’t say it out loud, it wouldn’t be permanent. Like when she was a little girl hiding under the covers when her closet door had been left open an inch. If she couldn’t see it, it wasn’t real.
For the last decade, she’d worked to convince herself that she’d simply replaced her dream of settling down with Gentry on their own land, of playing hockey on the pond with little kids racing between their feet with something else. She wanted a sportscasting job, and when that didn’t work out, she’d altered course and driven toward the executive producer position.
It was too heartbreaking to accept that her dream—her real one—was off the table.
“But Mom, why can’t I have a strawberry!” Jenna’s ponytail bounced as she stomped her bare feet on the patio.
Her mother put her hands on her shoulders. “Sweetie, we’ve been over this. Strawberries make you sick.”
“But Travis just ate one! They’re not bad!”
Her mother laughed. “No, they’re not bad for Travis. They’re bad for you.”
Tears welled in Jenna’s eyes as she stared at the container of ruby-red berries. “But I want a strawberry.”
Her mother pulled her against her chest. “I know, I’m so sorry. Can I get you some apple slices? And then?—”
Jenna pushed back. “No. I don’t want anything. I’m not hungry.”
Jenna remembered popping a strawberry into her mouth that night when her mother wasn’t looking. She remembered the way her tongue itched and her throat constricted. The way her mother stroked her hair on the way to the emergency room. The second she’d been released from the hospital, she’d told everyone she hated strawberries.
Here she was a grown-ass woman, and she was still throwing a fit about not being able to have what she wanted. Yes, it was unfair. Yes, it hurt. But she couldn’t make her reproductive organs magically work any more than she could convince her immune system that strawberry proteins were safe.
That conversation with Gentry was the equivalent of announcing to her mother that she hated strawberries, but she didn’t. She loved them. In fact, she’d thought about strawberries every second of every day for months after she’d told him not to drive up to Windsor.
Jenna wasn’t ready to close the door then, but Gentry didn’t deserve to stare at an open closet.
Be there in 20 minutes
_____
Country pushed through the double doors of the rink, locked in his own thoughts. He didn't hear his teammate Brett calling after him until he had his hands on the handle of his truck door. Country threw his bag in the back and turned.
“Do you have headphones in?” Brett asked.
Country shook his head. “Sorry, just thinking.”
Brett nodded. “You left before Curtis could tell us about his plan for our celebration tonight.”
Country looked skeptical. “For his birthday?”
