Right Kind of Mistake

by Rebecca Thomas

  “I’m going to sleep,” Maya said from beneath her covers.

  “Good night,” I said. My phone chimed, indicating that I had a text message. I picked it up in the hopes that it was Cam. Despite my misgivings, it was so freeing to finally let myself like him. To give myself permission to go on a date with him – even if he was a hockey player.

  But the text wasn’t from Cam. It was from Tyler.

  I’ve got good news. I got called up. I’m going to play for the Bruins this week.

  Like I cared? Actually, I did care. My initial reaction to anything having to do with Tyler was instantaneous anger, but of course I cared. I’d been supporting Tyler for a long time. His dream was coming true. I had to respond. I had to be polite.

  I’m happy for you. Congratulations.

  There. That wasn’t so bad. I could be the gracious ex-girlfriend. Even if initially I slept with his friend in the hopes that he’d find out about it. Apparently word hadn’t reached Tyler or I’m sure he would have said something, or made some smart-ass comment.

  I’d love to send you an airline ticket to Boston and to the game. Can we talk?

  This is when the graciousness ended. I wasn’t interested in being a gracious ex. I was more interested in hurting him the way he’d hurt me.

  No and no.

  He responded with a simple K.

  He knew I didn’t want to talk. I’d made myself perfectly clear. We’d done all the talking we were going to do. He knew better than to push me on this. My phone didn’t chime again. I undressed, put on my nightgown, and crawled under my covers. I thought about the last time Tyler and I had talked in person, back to that dreaded day.

  The second I had opened the door to his dorm room, the stench of stale beer and puke assaulted my senses. I’d flipped on the light. Tyler was lying on his side on his twin bed with a trash bin strategically placed at the pillow end near his head.

  I closed the door behind me, and tried my hardest not to breathe in through my nose. “Are you all right?”

  “Never been better,” he responded in his trademark sarcastic voice. “Just drank too much.”

  Drinking too much wasn’t like him. He was usually all about taking care of his body for hockey. This was why I never worried too much about him going out with the guys. He never went crazy, especially during hockey season. But if he really was in an extreme state of inebriation, he shouldn’t be alone. “Where’s Cam?”

  “Still at the party.” He propped himself up on the back of his elbows.

  “How drunk are you?” I walked closer to him, but the smell was enough to knock me over.

  “We should talk.”

  “Yeah, I know. I read your text. But maybe tomorrow would be better.” I took a wide berth around his bed and around his makeshift garbage-can-turned-puke-bucket and opened the window. “Some fresh air would help.”

  “Come here,” he said, extending his arm in my direction.

  “I’m going to empty your trash can first, okay?” I picked up the puke-laden trash bin, carefully holding it at arm’s length, and propped open his door. Was I really going to do this? All I knew was I couldn’t concentrate on whatever we were going to talk to about until the god-awful smell wasn’t bowling me over. “I’ll be right back.”

  I debated on where and how to get rid of the offending odor and finally decided to run upstairs to the girls’ bathroom to empty the puke rather than get caught in the boys’ bathroom. On my way back to Tyler’s room I debated whether I deserved a medal for being the world’s best girlfriend or if I’d reached a new low as a girlfriend door mat.

  We’d been together since the middle of our senior year in high school. We were a few months away from our three-year anniversary. We’d been through a lot, but cleaning up his party vomit was too much.

  December’s fresh winter air had filtered into the room and I couldn’t breathe without feeling like I was going to gag. Tyler had dozed off, but he clutched a piece of paper in his hand. Curious to see what it said, I sat on the edge of his bed beside him.

  The shift of the mattress brought him to life. “We should talk.”

  “So you’ve said.” I put my hand on his forehead. His skin was cool to the touch.

  He blinked. “Why didn’t you come to the party?”

  “I didn’t think I was invited. I thought it was a guy’s night. Or a team night. Besides, I had an essay to write.” I didn’t like the feeling I had settling in between my lungs. My rib cage pressed around my torso, alerting me to something. Whatever he had to say, it had to do with that sheet of paper and I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like it. My immediate tendency was to avoid conflict.

  “Shouldn’t we wait till tomorrow to talk, when you’re feeling better?” As soon as I said the words, I knew I wouldn’t get any sleep for wondering what he wanted to talk about, so why did I even suggest waiting? Oh yeah, I knew why: because avoidance of anything unpleasant was what I was best at. Clean up the mess and pretend it never existed in the first place.

  Just like the puke.

  Tyler sat up and leaned his broad shoulders against the hockey poster on wall behind him. “No, this can’t wait.”

  Admittedly, part of me was glad to get this over with. Whatever this was. Rip the Band-Aid off fast. A quick sharp pain was better than a slow steady one. I glanced at the posters of Alexander Ovechkin, Patrick Kane, and Zach Parise. My life was all about hockey. I could tell you hockey statistics that would blow your mind. I’d put some Sportscenter newscasters to shame.

  Tyler’s bloodshot eyes looked at me intently. “I got called up to be on the Bruins farm team.”

  My heart lurched. I had known this day was coming. I just didn’t think it would be today. My job as the perfect girlfriend was to congratulate him. “This is what you’ve been waiting for. This is fantastic news. I’m so happy for you.”

  My voice didn’t sound as convincing as I had intended. I’d known this was a possibility and if he took it, he’d quit college and lose his NCAA eligibility.

  He swiped at his short, spiky dark brown hair, raking his long fingers over the crown of his head and back. “They want me right away.”

  “You don’t want to wait till the end of the semester to join them? You only have a couple of weeks until finals.”

  “I don’t want to wait.” He still clutched the paper in one hand and gripped my forearm with the other. “I’m leaving.”

  The pinching sensation in my ribcage tightened. If Tyler was leaving before the semester was over, that was okay. I’d be okay. True, it wasn’t the ideal scenario, but I’d survive. I’d followed him to Alaska because of his scholarship, but I’d be fine on my own until we could meet up again, wherever that was…Boston, I guess. That’s where the Bruins were. “Okay.”

  “But there’s more.” He set aside the paper and gripped both my forearms. Then his big warm hands slid to grasp mine.

  “More than you moving away before the end of the semester?” I felt like I was sliding down a sledding hill at a high rate of speed, bracing for impact. The snowbank was coming. I knew this for sure, but how hard would I hit? “Quitting school isn’t the smartest move in my opinion, but I know being on an NHL team is your dream.”

  “I got carried away at the party.”

  What? We weren’t talking about hockey now. It really wasn’t like Tyler to party so hard that he threw up. He was very dedicated to his health and taking care of his body – all because of hockey of course, but still, he didn’t usually consume that much alcohol. “Oh, really, like I can’t see that? I just cleaned up your puke. I think I got the carried away part. Does the team know you’re leaving?”

  “Yeah, they know.” His gaze bored into me. Surely, he must know how hurt I felt that he didn’t tell me first. The guys – the team – they always came before me. I didn’t want to admit that Tyler and I hadn’t felt like a team in a while. I knew this and yet I’d stayed with him. Had he told his parents before me, too? “When do you leave?”

/>   He gripped my hands tighter. “Sunday.”

  I braced for impact and hit the snowbank. “The day after tomorrow?” I took a calming breath. “Okay, so we’ll do this long distance. After the semester I’ll join you. We’ll go home for Christmas and then I’ll go to Boston with you.” Bubbles of panic laced through my limbs. He held on to my hands but I wanted to rip them away. “There must be lots of good schools in Boston. Lots. In fact, how will I decide?”

  “Haylie, listen to me.” He looked at me like I was a puppy in the animal shelter.

  He was drunk, I reminded myself. Why couldn’t this “talk” have waited for morning? He didn’t feel the need to tell me he was moving to Boston before he had told his team. I pulled my hands out of his grip. Sure, I was hurt, but I’d get over it. I always did.

  “Please, Haylie, just listen. The farm team is based in Providence, Rhode Island, not Boston, but there’s more.”

  “More than you taking off in the middle of the semester to leave me up here by myself? Okay, please go on, I’m listening.”

  “I got carried away at the party.”

  “Yeah, it’s obvious you drank more than usual, but you were celebrating your big news. Right?”

  “There was a puck there, several of them.”

  I felt frozen in place. The cool air blowing in from the open window had nothing to do with it. There were always hockey pucks at parties, but this didn’t usually concern me. Dread crept around my spine, stabbing little daggers of fear into my heart.

  I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. My voice had left me.

  He stared at me through those intense bluish-green eyes of his and I knew, I just knew. The weight of his betrayal crushed me. The sound of pounding blood coursed through my ears, rendering me momentarily deaf, but still, I waited for the words of confirmation.

  I waited and yet I knew.

  “It didn’t mean anything.” Tyler scooted up against the wall higher, effectively covering Alexander Ovechkin’s face and putting just a tiny bit more distance between us. “I don’t even know her name.”

  I was rendered deaf, dumb, and speechless. Shouldn’t I be screaming? Shouldn’t I show some kind of reaction? But that wasn’t my style. I was the loyal, true-blue, always there, girlfriend, who’d been there supporting Tyler’s dreams, moving all the way to bum-fuck frozen-ass Alaska following him like the pound puppy I apparently was.

  I stood up and backed away from the twin bed. The back of my calves hit his roommate’s bed. My heartbeat still sounded in my ears at a thundering pace, and I turned to escape the hockey player poster-covered walls.

  Tyler scooted forward to the edge of the bed and reached his arms toward me. “I’m sorry. I screwed up. But I had to tell you. I couldn’t let you find out from someone else.”

  Some sense of composure miraculously pressed into my core. My lungs took a breath in and out. “So let me get this straight. You’re moving to Boston – or Providence – on Sunday, you fucked a hockey puck, and other people know about it? Other people who were at the party, I assume.”

  “Just the guys.”

  I felt my head involuntarily nod, but it didn’t feel like part of my body, but more of an appendage separate from me. “Just the entire hockey team?” I slid the last two steps to the door, wondering how I hadn’t collapsed. “Got it.”

  My quivering hand blindly reached for the door knob. “And the puck you fucked? What about her? She knows, and of course the team.”

  “Haylie,” he stood up. “I told you, I don’t know her.”

  “Ah, but she knows you.” I shook my finger at him, waving it back and forth in the air. Another appendage that didn’t feel connected to my body. “And you can be sure all her friends know you now too.”

  Opening the door, I realized I should stop. I should let him have every ounce of my anger. He might feel guilty, he might not, but I wasn’t even bothering to give him a reaction. What was wrong with me? The least I could do was slap him. But in his drunken state, he probably wouldn’t even feel it.

  Heck, he might even like it. His favorite part about hockey was the hitting, so maybe he’d enjoy being slapped by a girl.

  “Haylie,” he said.

  I needed to leave. I needed to get away from this room where the walls were closing in around me, but when he said my name, I still stopped and turned around. Old habit I supposed.

  The sad thing was, he actually looked remorseful. The sharp angles of his jaw that I had found so attractive when we met were covered in beard stubble. He ground his teeth together, but he held my gaze. “I’m sorry. I have no explanation. It was a stupid thing to do.”

  I pinned my lips together, willing myself not to say a word. What could I possibly say, but somehow words escaped anyway. “So after three years, this is what it comes down to. You get your dream and I get cheated on. You’re an asshole, you know that?” Desperate, choking laughter sprang up from my chest. “You are a fucking asshole.”

  I still had Tyler’s door open. A guy, a floor resident probably, walked by staring at me wide-eyed. I shrugged at him. Should I keep going and really let Tyler have it, naming all the ways I had been the perfect girlfriend and how he’d let me down over and over again. Or did that kind of reaction just make me look desperate and pathetic?

  My temporary attempt at bravado and the walls I’d quickly erected around my heart were crumbling. I felt sick, like I might throw up at any moment. That would serve him right. Puke all over the floor of his room. Forget using the trash can.

  I took a step backward, letting the door slam shut, then I ran. I ran down the dorm’s hallway, to the stairs, then outside. The darkness and the cold swirled around me. Floodlights illuminated the sidewalk between our dorms.

  My breathing became more erratic and I knew it wasn’t from running, but from the sobs I’d been holding inside my body. The urge to scream overwhelmed me, but I didn’t want to give Tyler that much satisfaction. I couldn’t let him know how much this hurt. He wasn’t worth it.

  He didn’t deserve me. That was the stance I took on this.

  But if he didn’t deserve me, then who did? Had I set my standard so high? Surely not. Having a loyal boyfriend who didn’t sleep around wasn’t asking much. I felt empty and raw inside. I welcomed the cold air filling my lungs. I took off my coat, hoping the chilly air would freeze some of the sadness and regret from my heart.

  The tears I desperately clutched at, willing to stay inside, refused to listen and spilled down my cheeks. A sob erupted from my chest. I threw myself against the wall of my dorm and pulled my coat back around my shoulders. I wanted to hit something. I wanted the pain to go away.

  I’d let myself trust Tyler. I’d considered the odds when I started dating him. True, athletes weren’t the safest bet, look at Tiger Woods, but I thought Tyler was it. I had thought he was the one. I had thought we’d be together forever.

  I had been completely wrong.

  I picked up my phone again to re-read the text from Tyler.

  I’d love to send you an airline ticket to Boston and to the game. Can we talk?

  No. Never. I would never go back to him. We were completely done. Forever.

  I put Tyler’s text out of my head. He wasn’t a stalker type. Too big of an ego for that. Besides, I had my date with Cam to look forward to. At least, that was the attitude I was determined to take. I would open my mind, if only for one night. Especially after that swoony song. I owed him that.

  I was usually pretty stubborn when I made my mind up about things, but even I couldn’t resist a man who sang a love song in a crowded room. I wanted to say the guy didn’t play fair in his efforts to pursue a date with me, but I couldn’t quite believe he was that devious. I knew Cam was genuine. I knew he was the real deal and yet, I’d continued to fight his efforts.

  Well, technically I was the one who’d changed our relationship every bit as much as he had. Maybe I was to blame even more than him. I was the one who’d asked him to take me home. But I wasn’
t in my right state of mind that night, and surely he had known that. Why couldn’t our night together be a hook-up and nothing more? Tyler would find out. He’d feel the betrayal I felt, then my mission would be accomplished.

  I’d gone over this in my head a million times, but no matter how hard I tried to justify my intentions that night, I knew deep down I could never look at sex with Cam as only a hook-up.

  During the week we had texted and decided we’d go out Saturday night. It was an off-weekend for the team and they didn’t have practice on Sunday.

  I had classes and work, so my schedule was crazy busy. My instructor in my advanced painting class complimented me on my skating on ice print. My classmates liked it too. They lovingly named it Blade.

  My instructor, Mr. Merritt, said, “The attention to detail you put into your work is incredible. You have talent in both oils and watercolors. I’d like to help you develop your portfolio in any way I can.”

  “I hadn’t planned on putting together a portfolio,” I told him. “I’m only an art minor. My major is creative writing.”

  He stood before my Blade painting with a critical eye. One of his arms crossed beneath his torso and the other tucked under his chin. Wisps of thinning gray hair went all directions on his mostly bald head. “What kind of writing do you do?” he asked, with his gaze never leaving my painting.

  “Fiction. Short stories. Anything, really.” I shrugged, embarrassed that I was in my junior year of college and still didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I’d toyed with the idea of graduate school and pursuing my MFA. My reasoning for that was to give myself more time to fine my niche, to find what I was meant to do.

  I had to admit I was jealous of the way Cam knew exactly what he wanted to do. He planned to play hockey in Europe and keep doing what he loved. Although I had to wonder: if I looked into a crystal ball, would I see a career in music in his future?

  Mr. Merritt rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “This painting reminds me of a favorite children’s book I used to love as a kid. It was about the changing seasons.”