She ushered me into the tiny office.
“You’re all white, are you feeling okay?” Paige asked with eyes full of worry. “Here, sit down, I’m getting ice…” her words trailed off. “It’s swelling really bad, Grey… what happened?”
I still couldn’t answer her. She was looking down frowning like I was a little kid in trouble. My eyes burned and I used my good hand to shut them for a minute. I willed myself not to fucking cry. It wasn’t the pain vibrating through my hand and up my arm, it was how she sliced my heart open. She needed me and I wasn’t there. I had somehow let it all slip away. The most important thing I ever did in life was love her… and I failed.
I felt Paige’s presence step closer to me and she hugged my head. I accepted it as an allowance to break down. I couldn’t take it. Seeing her today and finding out that she didn’t even remember what happened to us. She thought I’d broken up with her for all these years. It was too much. All the anger and hate I had built up and harbored for her over the past decade I now redirected to myself. I couldn’t stop my thoughts. She thought I didn’t care about her and then ended up pregnant. That was supposed to be my baby. Canyon was supposed to be my son.
I tried to calm myself down after I left her place. I really tried. But I couldn’t take it. All of the anger and panic of what she had thought of me over the past decade slammed into me and I slammed my fist against my house. My brick house.
Served me right. I needed to be punished. I needed to feel pain. I should’ve tried harder back then. I should’ve ditched Texas and searched to face her. I had been so convinced that she was done with me, and I was a little pussy who wallowed in my self-pity instead of making sure she was okay.
“Uh.. am I interrupting?” I heard Max ask from the doorway.
Great. Now he’d see my cry too. I couldn’t look up. Paige was one thing; Max was a different story.
“Babe, go take care of the front for a minute,” Paige told him softly and she moved to close the door behind him.
Paige pulled up a chair across from mine. She pulled my hand into her lap and started cleaning it up and bandaging it silently. She poured a water bottle over it and then some hydrogen peroxide, making it sting like a motherfucker, but I deserved it. I willed myself not to flinch, but my whole body jerked as she tried to stretch my hand open.
“Well, that’s not good,” She paused for a beat. “This have anything to do with a tiny brunette and her little son?”
I took a deep breath and nodded.
“She doesn’t remember it. Doesn’t even think I was in it with her. She’s telling the truth about it. She looked at my scar the other day and asked me about it. She had no idea.”
Paige looked at me thoughtfully with confusion on her face.
“She thought I broke up with her. Like I would ever do that!”
She let my words absorb in.
“That does make sense,” she finally said. “What happened to you guys was so sad. But…”
“But what?”
“That means she didn’t dump you,” Paige pointed out. “This whole time you thought she traded you in for that Kevin a-hole… she really didn’t… isn’t that kind of a good thing? He was like a rebound that went wrong.”
“There’s nothing good about this!” I boomed.
“Woah there, take it easy,” Paige said soothingly. “I’m just trying to help you see the good.”
I waved my mangled hand in front of her, “the good?!”
Paige rolled her eyes, “Calm down, Romeo. Pause for a second and think about it. You boys never seem to be able to do that. Obviously you guys aired some things out today and that is definitely a good thing. There is like a decade of bad feelings that have festered between the two of you and they are just now all coming to the surface, it’s probably going to be painful... but at least both of you are finding out truths that you need.”
She blew out a breath, “But just because I’m feeling sorry for you does not mean I’m going to let you get away with not going to the hospital today. This is not cosmetic… your hand is not okay. It’ll remain a blob or like fall off. You need a doctor. I’m going to get Max to take you now, okay?”
I nodded without looking at her and she stood to move and started shuffling out the door.
“Thanks, Mom,” I told her.
She smirked at me and shook her head.
Chapter Twenty-seven: Grey- 13 years ago
I sped toward the corner, racing the defenseman. The puck was mine.
It was one of my last games with the Griffins and I needed to make it count.
