“How was London?”
His question is simple, but I hear the unspoken words—Was it worth giving us up for?
We had talked about going together once upon a time, but the timing was always off. He was either busy training or doing something else for the team. A lot of people believe the work stops once hockey players leave the ice, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. There’s always something going on. Practices, meetings, appointments, charity events, content to create, things to sign. It’s a never-ending task, and our lives were often controlled by obligations to whichever team Callum was playing for at the time.
“It was amazing.”
Though he tries hard to act like my words don’t bother him, I still see how his shoulders drop.
“What was your favorite part?” he asks.
“Probably the weather. You know I’ve always been a sucker for gray skies.”
His jaw tightens as he nods, and I wonder if he’s thinking the same thing I am—I would have loved it in Seattle, too. “And your internship? How did that go?”
“I learned a lot, especially in those first few months. I didn’t even know how to use their layout program, and they gave me a ton of grief about it. But once I got the hang of things, it felt almost…” I try to find the right words to explain it. “I don’t know. It felt right. Ilovedwriting for an actual paper. I mean, not that I got to do a lot of it, but what little I did, it felt like it was right.”
He smiles softly, sliding his hands into his pockets. “I remember watching you write in college. It was the funniest thing sometimes. You’d get this crease between your brows whenever you were really into whatever piece you were working on.”
“And you’d try to smooth it down, which almost always led to…”
I don’t have to finish the sentence for Callum to know exactly what I’m talking about. Any time we’d get together to study or do homework, it always ended in one way—us horizontal. Sometimes we’d simply kiss or cuddle, and other times we would bring each other to the most mind-blowing places. Everything felt so much simpler back then.
“That feels like such a long time ago,” Callum says quietly, and I agree.
Sometimes when I’m struggling to fall asleep at night, I lie awake in bed and think back to those days when we felt so easy and free with each other. Back before we were married andbefore we were faced with real-world problems. Before I felt restless. Before I ruined everything.
“You know,” he starts, “sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had never gotten that contract with New York.”
After he signed his two-year deal, he put his business degree on the back burner to go all in on hockey and make it to the NHL. All it did was prove to my parents how unserious Callum was, which didn’t make it any easier to drop the news of our engagement.
“We’re disappointed in you, Chloe. Giving up your education to follow some boy around is just absurd and irresponsible. You’ll regret it one day. Mark my words.”
My mother was wrong, though. I wasn’t following some boy around. It was Callum. He was my whole world.
I eventually went back to school, and even though I wanted to change my major, I had already pissed my parents off enough, so I stuck with it and got my bachelor’s in biology. If only that had been enough, but no. She still felt like I could be doing better. My father was just glad he didn’t waste all that money.
Me? I was overwhelmed. We were in New York City, and it was officially the biggest city I’d ever been in. I felt it every time I left the house. I was exhausted by the constant hustle, and it didn’t help that Callum was hardly around thanks to the demanding training schedule his agent had him on. I understood it because if he could prove to New York he was worth it, he wouldn’t have to spend much time in the AHL at all.
And it worked. After just one season and a very intense summer of training, he was called up and put on the roster for opening night. It was thrilling to see him skate out on the blue line as they called out his name, hearing the crowd roar as he was introduced. Finally, he was where he had been trying to get to all along, and I was so damn happy for him.
But me? I was still struggling. I was missing Talia, who was busy with Ian and navigating single motherhood. I was missing a quieter, slower life. I was missing my husband.
I couldn’t show it, though. I couldn’t let Callum know how badly I was doing. What right did I have to complain anyway? We were living in a nice apartment, and we weren’t eating cheap ramen every night. In our eyes, we had gotten everything we had ever wanted.Hehad gotten it. I couldn’t ruin that for him.
“Do you?” he asks when I don’t say anything. “Think about how our lives would have turned out if I had never made it to the NHL?”
“Honestly? No.” I shake my head. “There was never a doubt in my mind you’d make it, so it didn’t make sense to imagine anything else.”
“You always did have more confidence in me than anyone else.”
I prided myself on that, too. If only I could have had the same confidence in myself. Maybe then I would have spoken up about my desires and dreams earlier. About my unhappiness. Maybe we wouldn’t have gotten to the point that we did.
But I didn’t. I kept it in, and I buried it, and I tried to be okay. I wasn’t then, and I’m not so sure I am now.
“You would have made it just fine without me.”
He stops so abruptly it takes me a moment to realize he’s not walking next to me anymore. I turn back to look at him, and I’m surprised by the anger stamped over his features.
