“I don’t like the way it ended,” I argued. “I want to try and…I just need to see her.”
I could see the war going on in Maddie’s head from the flicker in her eyes. She wanted to let me in. She wanted to be loyal to Stephanie. She didn’t know which urge to give in to. I leaned on the door frame and begged. “Please. Please just let me see her.”
And just like that, Maddie’s hand fell away from the door, letting it swing open. I stepped over the threshold and squeezed her shoulder in thanks. “She’s upstairs,” Maddie explained quietly. “Packing.”
I stopped dead, my foot on the first step, my head flying back toward Maddie. “Packing?”
My heart is suddenly racing. I hear something at the top of the stairs and look up to see Stephanie standing there with a suitcase beside her. She looks down at me with shock.
“Where are you going?” I ask her. My voice sounds thick.
“Somewhere else,” she responds, and starts down the stairs, awkwardly lugging the big bag behind her. I climb a few stairs, so we meet in the middle, and I take the luggage from her. She struggles to stop me, refusing to remove her hand from the handle, but as soon as I put mine over hers she yanks it away. The rejection stings.
I lift the bag and carry it down to the main floor easily, placing it on the floor near the door, but I position myself between her and the bag. Maddie is slowly creeping down the hall toward the kitchen. “I’ll just head out the back door and meet you in the car.”
Neither one of us acknowledges her. Stephanie doesn’t look sad like she did the other day. Now she just looks angry and distant. So distant. She’s looking at me like she did back in Seattle before everything happened, which feels like a million years ago. When she found out just how much of a bitch to my image I had become. It was that look that pulled my head out of my ass before, and it’s got the same effect now. I realize that all I want more than anything is her back in my life.
“Are you going on vacation?”
She doesn’t speak. She just shakes her head.
“I don’t understand,” I say.
“I’m being transferred for a while,” she explains, and runs a hand through her hair, absently pushing it back over her shoulder. She looks tired but still so fucking beautiful. “For work.”
“You’re moving?” My voice rises with every word. “Where are you moving?”
“It’s not permanent,” she replies, and tries to slip past me to get her bag. I don’t let her. She glares at me. “I need to go. I have a flight.”
“A flight?” I sound like a drunk parrot just repeating her words back to her. “It’s far enough away for a plane? Where?”
“Avery, I don’t want to tell you,” she admits, and her pretty blue eyes start to water. “You need time and I need time.”
“How much time?”
“I’ll be gone a month or so.”
“A MONTH?!”
Without even thinking, I grab her by the waist and pull her into me. Her body is warm but rigid. Before she can push me away, which I know is exactly what she’s going to do, I kiss her. Kiss, actually, is an understatement. My lips are trying to speak the words my brain can’t find:Don’t go, I’m sorry, I don’t want this to be over.
She decides to give in. Her hands fist in my shirt and when my tongue leaves her mouth, her tongue follows it, but only for a second. And then those fists in my shirt are pushing me back, and suddenly she’s an arm’s length away, her palm up in my face as a warning. “Don’t. Just don’t. That’s not our problem—sex. And it’s not our solution.”
“Leaving’s not a solution,” I say, but I let her move past me and take her bag.
“It is for me,” she replies, and opens the front door. “For now.”
I follow her onto the porch, running a hand through my hair and clutching it so tightly, I’m surprised I don’t yank it out. “Just tell me where.”
She ignores me and continues down the porch steps to the curb where Maddie is standing behind her car with the trunk open. Together they put the suitcase in the trunk.
“Stephanie.”
She gets in the car without another word, without another glance, and then she’s just gone.
Now, four weeks later, I’m still “injured.” That ache hasn’t subsided, not for one fucking minute. I feel it even when I’m on the ice. Playing well doesn’t help; playing shitty doesn’t either—I’ve done both. Drinking too much doesn’t help; being sober doesn’t either. Working out more doesn’t help; eating everything on the trainer’s veto list doesn’t help either. Nothing. Fucking. Helps.
I still have no idea where she’s gone. No one would tell me, so I finally stopped pestering Maddie and Ty.
