Unsportsmanlike Conduct

by Sophia Henry

  She’d texted me the night before to tell me she was back in town and would be working at the store while home on winter break from Grand Valley State University, where she was working on her master’s degree.

  “You can come back here, you know,” she said, waving me to join her behind the cash register.

  “Nah. Then Uncle George will make me start working here again, and I’ll smell like olive oil all day,” I teased.

  “Do I smell like olive oil?” Lena grabbed a piece of hair and brought it to her nose.

  The answer was yes. Yes, she smelled like olive oil after working in the shop all day. I shrugged. “It’s not a bad smell, per se. Just a bit funky.”

  The doorbell chimed, alerting us to a new customer. Lena leaned to the side to see around my head. “Oh, shit,” she said under her breath.

  Amused, I turned around to check out the customers who’d made her curse on her first day back at work in three months.

  The amusement faded immediately when Pavel and his blond girlfriend walked in talking and laughing.

  No matter what I do, I can’t get away. I’m destined to be haunted by the ghost of my fake boyfriend for the rest of my life.

  My heart sank and my jaw tightened with each tender display of affection. Their easy smiles. When she placed a hand on his forearm and laughed after something he’d said. The way his eyes lit up when he looked at her.

  He used to light up for me. He used to smile easily for me.

  Nausea rolled through me, and I staggered away from the counter. Slowly I shuffled backward toward the far wall in an attempt to slip away unnoticed. The last thing I wanted to do was make a scene. I didn’t want him to know my stomach twisted at their vomit-inducing displays of affection.

  Except, instead of the stealth getaway I’d imagined, my elbow hit a display of empty oil bottles and sent one crashing to the floor. Splinters of glass flew across the painted concrete, and my mind immediately flashed back to the cellphone I’d dropped at Auden’s reception. Though I squeezed my eyes shut, I knew Pavel and his girlfriend had seen me. Everyone looks when there’s a commotion.

  After a deep breath to regain my composure, I opened my eyes and rushed through the EMPLOYEES ONLY door to retrieve a broom. It wasn’t Lena’s job to clean up my mess.

  On my way to the utility closet, I saw the girl catch Pavel’s eye and nod toward me. He shook his head, grabbed her hand, and pulled her toward the door. She resisted, standing firm and not budging.

  At least she had something of a backbone. Though I couldn’t really give her high self-esteem points since she was sticking with a guy who’d cheated on her for a week. Her choice, not mine.

  A stormy look passed over Pavel’s face, which I recognized as the childish pout he put on when he didn’t get his way. But he didn’t stay. He left his girl behind to watch me sweep up the mess.

  I was the one left with the mess again. The mess he’d made.

  Stubborn. Childish. Completely Pavel.

  As I stretched for a piece of glass out of my reach, I lifted my eyes.

  The beautiful blonde spoke, her voice soft. “Is not what you think. He is not mine.” She shook her head and closed her eyes.

  She took the aviator sunglasses off the top of her head and slid them into place. Then she walked out.

  “That wasn’t uncomfortable at all,” Lena said. She bent over, holding a dustpan as I swept debris into it.

  “What do you think she meant by that?” I asked, glancing toward the door. “Why wouldn’t she say more?”

  “She was probably deterred by the multiple weapons you have at your disposal,” Lena answered.

  “Weapons?” I asked.

  Lena eyed a particularly large, jagged chunk of glass among the tiny shards on the floor and in the dustpan.

  “You’re sick, you know that?” I asked. “Arming myself with a broken olive oil bottle never crossed my mind.”

  Lena shrugged.

  “But I’m not against slapping a bitch,” I added.

  The lame joke made my cousin burst out laughing. “That’s my girl.” She took the broom from my grip and swept up the rest of the glass.

  “Would you think I was stupid if I said I still had feelings for him?” I asked my cousin, hoping she’d give me her honest opinion, not just what she thought I wanted to hear.

  “You can’t help who you fall in love with, Kristen.” Lena paused, chewing her lip as if contemplating her next statement. “But you guys only knew each other for a week. Can it really be that hard to get over him?”

  “That’s what I keep asking myself,” I moaned. “Why?”

  “Well, it doesn’t help that he’s in town, ya know? I mean, you thought he lived in Charlotte. That would have been a clean break. But he’s right here. In your face. On the TV. In the newspaper—”

  “In my uncle’s store.”

  “Yep.” Lena walked over to the garbage can behind the register and dumped the glass. “When do you want me to say I told you so?”

  “I’m surprised I didn’t get the text months ago, when everything went down at Auden’s reception.”

  Lena looked up with a sad smile. “I’m a jerk, but not that much of a jerk.”

  —

  “You are such a jerk!” Svetlana yelled. Her heels clicked against the pavement as she ran to catch up to me.

  Instead of acknowledging her, I turned my key in the lock and let myself into the house—her house. I’d thought about getting my own place, but doing that might jinx me and I’d never get back to Charlotte. Signing a lease would be too permanent, like pounding the last nail into my career’s coffin.

  She grabbed my arm and pulled me back. “You have to work things out with that girl!”

  I shook my head. “I can’t.”

  “Why are you so afraid?”

  “I don’t want to hurt her anymore, Sveta! I’m done.”

  “So everything is done, yes? Your career, too? Because you suck right now. Sorry, but someone had to tell you this. You’re losing everything because of her.” She shook her head. “No, not because of her. Because of you. Because you are too stubborn and thickheaded.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s my life.”

  “No! It’s not just your life. You are ruining hers, too.”

  I shrugged because I didn’t know what to say or do. “She doesn’t want me anymore. It’s been too long. I’ve had opportunities to apologize. To tell her how I feel. To tell her the truth about everything. And I haven’t.”

  “Every time that girl sees you, her wounds open back up.” Svetlana lowered her voice. “You say that you are staying out of her life because you care about her. If that’s true, then you need to stay out of her life completely. Don’t go to places you know she will be. Don’t hang out with her friends. You must stop it all and leave her alone.”

  She was right. I wouldn’t let Kristen go.

  I knew Kristen lived in the apartment above the olive oil store. The only reason I’d gone in there with Sveta today was on the off chance Kristen might be there and I might catch a glimpse of her.

  I knew the routes she took for her morning runs. I’d even taken the same routes just to see if we would pass each other, thinking that maybe one of those times I’d have the guts to talk to her.

  But it wasn’t fair that I never gave her closure. I didn’t want to give her closure—because I was a selfish bastard.

  Svetlana reached out and brushed my hair to the side. Her touch was soft, like my mother’s. “Can you stop thinking the worst of yourself for one minute? Try to see yourself how Kristen sees you. How Katia and I see you. How your mama saw you.”

  “How’s that?” I asked, so overcome with emotion that my voice cracked on the words.

  “You are an amazing man, Pasha. A man that we are all proud of. Are you perfect? No.” Svetlana smiled. “But no one is.”

  Chapter 38

  DAY 127

  ROYAL OAK, MI

  “I love your place, KK!” Auden
said when she walked in the door of my humble one-bedroom, one-bath apartment.

  Auden had stopped in the Detroit area to visit me before heading to Bridgeland, where her grandparents lived.

  “I know. It’s awesome, right? Thank Uncle George’s wonderful soul for only charging me three hundred a month.”

  “What?” Auden set her purse on the kitchen table. “That’s a steal for this area.”

  “I know. The family discount is amazing.” I opened my fridge, checking out what I had to offer. Not much, but there were three bottles of wine and a bottle of Tito’s on the counter. I grabbed a lime from the bottom drawer. “I have wine or vodka to offer.”

  “Vodka club, please,” she answered. She moved my laptop bag off the couch and set it on the ground, which cleared enough space for both of us to sit.

  “With three wedges of lime. Why did I even ask?” I winked at my friend, then started cutting the lime I’d already pulled out of the fridge.

  “Have you talked to Pasha?” Though Auden’s tone sounded casual, the question held the tension of walking on hot coals.

  “You call him Pasha now? I thought you hated him.”

  “That was the past. There’s a lot I didn’t know.”

  “Yeah, well…” I grabbed two glasses out of the cupboard and set them on the counter. “You knew enough. He is a sadistic liar who gets off on making people miserable.”

  “That’s just his stupid defenses at work. He’s got so much going on inside that he needs to work out.”

  I know! I wanted to scream. Instead I filled our glasses with ice. “I really can’t handle you being on his side.”

  “I’m not on his side,” Auden assured me. “I promise. He’s an immature prick. And the shit he pulled on you was majorly fucked up.”

  As she spoke, I filled our glasses with club soda and vodka and topped the rims with lime wedges.

  “But? I know there’s a ‘but,’ because the Auden I know would be helping me key his car,” I said, handing her a drink and sitting next to her on the couch.

  “There’s no ‘but.’ I can’t make excuses for him. I don’t know what would possess him to lie like that. Especially since he obviously loves you.”

  “Loves me?” I glared at her. “Did you just say loves me? He used a fake name, a fake job, a fake—”

  “He didn’t use a fake name or a fake job. He is Pasha and he is a Pilot.”

  “Have you been talking to my dad?” I asked before taking a sip.

  “No, why?”

  I shook my head. “Look, I led the charge with pitchforks when he tried to break you and Aleksandr up. But he royally fucks with my head and you just sit there, ‘Oh, he’s immature, but he’s got a lot going on.’ Well, I have a lot going on, too, Auden!” Tears sprang to my eyes. “We understood each other. I fell for him, really fell for him. He’s the first person who made me think that I might be able to have a future with someone. He was okay being with me even knowing I was going to die someday, sooner than any of you.”

  “Stop, KK!” Auden set her drink down and put her hands on my shoulders. “He’s not okay with that! No one is okay with that. Stop saying those things.” She wrapped her arms around me and gave me a savage squeeze.

  Auden used to have a melancholy outlook on life before she met Aleksandr. She’d lost her mother at a very young age and had never had her father in her life. She’d never thought she’d find love. Never thought she’d trust someone enough to drop her walls. And I’d always told her that she had to let people in and stop being so defensive before she could ever enjoy life.

  Enjoy life. Live in the moment. Allow yourself to love. To care. All that bullshit I used to spew because I didn’t realize how much it hurt to love someone.

  “I can’t handle it when you talk that way.” Auden ran her hand over my hair, which brought another wave of tears to my eyes. “I’m on your side, KK. I want you to be in love. I want you to have your happily-ever-after.”

  Seeing Auden, my repressed best friend, showing emotion sent me into a tailspin. For the first time in years I let myself cry on a friend’s shoulder. Literally. Auden’s bony shoulder dug into my cheek, but I didn’t care. Tears flowed onto her worn gray Pilots T-shirt, creating two wet spots.

  Auden pulled down the pink fleece blanket draped over the back of the couch and covered our legs. “He’s miserable, if that makes you feel any better.”

  “It doesn’t make me feel better,” I admitted. “I don’t want him to be miserable. I’m not a horrible person. I just want to get over it.”

  “Did you love him?”

  “I could have loved the person he created. From everything you’ve told me, he’s a complete douche in real life. And he reinforced that with his deception on the cruise.”

  “We all have our own defenses.”

  “I don’t!”

  “Haha. Haha. Hahahahahahaha.” Auden mocked me with a ridiculous fake laugh.

  “I’m a completely open book.”

  “Bullshit, KK!”

  “What are my defenses, then?” I asked, knowing that Auden wouldn’t hold back. She’d hit me with the brutal honesty we’d come to expect from each other.

  Auden took a deep breath. “Evan screwed with your head so much you’re afraid other guys don’t want to be with you after they find you have CF.”

  “CF is my life. I don’t keep secrets.”

  “Not true. You don’t date anyone long enough for it to come up. And you do that on purpose.”

  “Why complicate short-term matters?”

  “Why did you tell Pasha? You told him everything. And a weeklong vacation is just about the shortest term you can get.”

  “Because he walked in on a treatment. I couldn’t lie at that point,” I said, defending myself.

  That was only a half-truth, because when he’d walked in on me, he hadn’t batted an eyelash at the treatment, nor asked me about it. We’d discussed everything in detail later.

  “Then why are you so mad at him?”

  “I’m pissed that he led me on with lies. He should have told the truth up front. So I didn’t get involved.”

  “You are absolutely correct that he was a douchebag for being deceitful. I’m not taking that away. But look at what you had with him. Look at what kind of relationship you found when you both opened up. I mean, he’s such a different person since you two met.”

  “What we had was amazing. It was like nothing else I’ve ever felt. But it was a lie. And I never want to feel that way about someone and have it blow up in my face again.”

  Annoyance spilled from Auden’s dramatic exhale. “You’ve gotta get over this bullshit. You don’t want guys to fall in love with you because you’re scared for them to lose you.”

  It’s impossible to have secrets when you have a friendship like Auden and I have. It’s like she lives in my head, waiting to pluck my unspoken thoughts out just when it will make the most impact. The fears a confident, carefree Kristen would never speak out loud.

  Maybe it wasn’t as hard as I’d thought for someone close to me to connect the train tracks from the moment my high school boyfriend broke up with me to this point in time. It sounded stupid, since we’d been so young, but when Evan told me he couldn’t stay with me because he knew my life had an expiration date and he couldn’t handle it, he’d devastated my world.

  So I’d built a wall. Because he was my first and only boyfriend at the time, he was the baseline for my experience of how guys would handle finding out the details about what goes into dating someone with cystic fibrosis. He couldn’t handle it, so I automatically assumed no guys would want to handle it.

  News flash: We all have an expiration date.

  “What about your happiness, KK?”

  “I’m happy,” I said, wiping away a tear.

  “You’re too busy trying to protect others. Do you tell your parents not to love you? Did you tell me not to get too attached?”

  “I did, but you followed me around Central
State like a tail I couldn’t cut off.”

  “Well, you’re hot, confident, and smart. And you walk slow.”

  I laughed out loud.

  “Let people make their own decisions. Not everyone is Evan.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Mother-effing dickweed.”

  “I love you.” I wrapped Auden in a bear hug.

  She spoke softly. “You could be happy with Pasha. He loves you. And I know you love him.”

  “It’s not love. We didn’t know each other long enough to fall in love.”

  “Well, it was almost love. You wouldn’t be this upset if you didn’t have super-intense, almost love-like feelings for him.”

  “Yeah, except it was one-sided. He had that beautiful blond girlfriend the entire time he played me.”

  Auden wiggled out of my arms and gave me a what-the-hell squint. “Do you really think I’d be telling you to get with a guy who’s had a girlfriend the entire time? I mean, seriously, would we even be having this conversation?”

  “Who is she, then? I’ve seen him with her multiple times since your wedding. Once was when they were locked out of his house.”

  “The beautiful blonde you’re talking about is not his girlfriend, like I told you before. It’s Svetlana Kruzova, his sister’s best friend. And that was her house, not his.” Auden leaned back on the couch. “Stupid fucker got sent back to the Pilots during the first month of the season. He’d already given up his apartment because he thought he’d be in Charlotte for good. He didn’t have a place to live, so he moved in with Svetlana. Temporary solution.”

  “Moves in with a gorgeous blonde with a body of a Victoria’s Secret model. How convenient.”

  “Check your jealousy at the door, chica. Number one: Svetlana is like a sister to him. They’ve known each other since they were children. Number two: She’s the daughter of Igor Kruzov, one of the most famous Russian hockey players of all time, who died just after she was born. You’d know that if you followed the greatest sport on earth.”

  I stuck out my tongue.

  Before I met Auden, I could barely tell you the name of a hockey player other than Henrik Zetterberg, the captain of the Red Wings. I wasn’t much better now, but I remembered a few things she’d pounded into my head.