Kelly Jamieson - Breakaway

At least he’d been wearing underwear.

She wanted to disbelieve that this could have been Jason, but the black letters on the page popped out at her as if they were in big, bold font.

She shook her head. There must be some mistake. This was not possible.

The coffee she’d drank burbled in her stomach and threatened to come back up. She shook her head. What was going on? This was insane.

April fool’s day had passed days ago. This couldn’t be a prank. But he hadn’t said a word of this when they’d talked last night and her sense of unease and dread grew.

She had to go to work.

As if she could concentrate on thirty energetic kids. But she had no choice. In fact, she was going to be late.

She drove to school in a daze, thoughts tumbling around in her head like laundry in a dryer. Nothing made sense. She felt lost, like she was wandering through a maze, not sure which way to turn, smacking up against walls, desperate to get out.

What had she gotten herself into? Had she fallen in love with a nut job? Had he fooled her that well?

No. No. They loved each other. She had no doubt about the depth of their feelings for each other, which only made the situation more bizarre. In her wildest imaginings, she could not come up with something that reasonably explained this.

All day it took monstrous effort to stay focused enough to teach, to keep things under control with a group of pre-teens who looked for any weakness, any small crack that would give them the advantage, because once they started it was even harder to bring them back.

By the time the bell rang at the end of the day, she was exhausted.

And worried sick. She hadn’t been able to eat lunch and certainly wasn’t interested in dinner.

She had to talk to someone, so when she got home she called Delise and told her what had happened. Delise hadn’t seen the newspaper article, but sounded as shocked and confused as Remi felt.

“Don’t even say I told you so,” Remi said fiercely.

“I won’t. Do you want me to come over?”

“Um…maybe. I’m going to watch the game on TV.” Seeing Jason on television would at least reassure her that he was alive and functioning.

“I’ll come over. I’ll bring popcorn and beer.”

She didn’t want popcorn and beer, but didn’t say anything, letting Delise think she was helping.

“Thank you for coming,” she said later, as they sat side by side on the couch, a bowl of popcorn between them. Delise was munching and Remi’d picked up a few kernels, but they tasted like she was eating dog kibble. One beer on an empty stomach had her a little woozy. She kept her eyes glued to the television, watching for Jason.

He was there. She caught sight of number twenty-five in the line as the national anthem played, but the cameraman apparently wasn’t as interested in him as she was and passed right by him.

“He’s there,” she breathed.

“So, that’s good.”

“I guess.” Maybe she would have felt better if he’d still been in jail or if he’d actually been hospitalized with a head injury and amnesia.

Jason did not take the opening face-off. In fact, as the game progressed, he didn’t play a lot, and when he was on the ice he seemed sluggish and slow. Was he sick? Icy fingers squeezed her insides painfully. “Oh, Delise,” she said, her voice coming out shaky. “Something’s wrong.”

Delise glanced at her and patted her leg, but Remi could tell she didn’t know what to say. Had she been rudely dumped? Or was there really something wrong? She nibbled her bottom lip until it was raw. The Wolves were not playing well as a team, and going into the third period, the score was three-one for St. Louis. Not a good start.

Even she could tell the Wolves were frustrated.

Then they got two quick goals and tied it up. They both cheered, but it didn’t make her feel much better. Gut-gnawing anxiety still chewed away inside her.

Another nail-biter, the clock ticking away time. She wasn’t sure if the same thing happened in a playoff game, if they did a shootout or if they kept playing, but she knew it couldn’t end in a tie.

The Wolves got a few more great shots on the net, but the St Louis goalie made some heart-stopping saves. She watched as Dominic smacked his stick into the boards with frustration. Where was Jason? Why weren’t they playing him much? They needed him!

And then, with only a minute forty-three seconds left in the game, there he was, circling on the ice, ready for a face-off. He crouched, alert, poised. The camera zoomed in on him and the St. Louis center, who said something to Jason. Jason said something back.

Remi had a feeling they weren’t making a bet on who’d pay for dinner after.

The ref dropped the puck and Jason smacked at it, but didn’t get control. The camera followed the puck, but then the crowd was screaming, the whistle blew and the television screen filled with an image of two players going at it, gloves off, fists flying, shirts wrenched.

“Oh dear God.” She felt her eyes go wide and her mouth hung open. She covered it with her hands. It was Jason in a fight.

Delise and Remi both sat forward, the popcorn forgotten. Remi couldn’t breathe and her heart accelerated.

The two men continued to hammer at each other and she swore she felt every punch that landed on Jason as if they struck her own body. She flinched and tensed. The refs circled them, the other players drifted over to the boards near their respective benches.

Then Jason dropped the other guy to the ice and fell onto him, punching at his face with fierce, frenzied blows.

“Jesus!” She pressed her hands to her mouth, wanted to cover her eyes, look away. She couldn’t stand it. “What are you doing?” she shouted at the television, as if he could hear her. “Stop, Jason. Stop it!”

The refs finally pulled Jason off the other player and dragged him away, bleeding from his face, chest heaving, hands still in fists.

They went to a commercial.

She shook her head, beside herself. She wanted to teleport herself to St. Louis, find him and scream at him. She just did not get it.

She knew fighting was a part of hockey, a big part. She and Jason had talked about it, how he didn’t condone fighting just for the sake of fighting, but with high adrenaline and intense competition it was going to happen sometimes, and it was okay if it was for some noble purpose like defending another player or protecting the goalie. Although she didn’t exactly get what was noble about beating someone up.

She’d never seen Jason fight, but then she’d only seen a couple of games. He wasn’t known as a fighter. He was known as a smart player, big, but quick-thinking and intuitive, a player who used finesse rather than his fists.

Delise looked at her, her lips rolled in. “Are you okay?”

She shook her head. She didn’t even know what to say. She stood. She walked back and forth in front of the television until the game came back on, arms wrapped around herself.

Jason had, of course, been given a penalty. She didn’t understand it all, apparently he got more than one penalty, but in the end, the Wolves were shorthanded for the rest of the game. And guess what? St. Louis scored.

And won the game, thanks to Jason Heller’s stupid penalty.

“Think, Remi, think.”

She replayed everything over in her head. “He asked me to think about moving in with him,” she told Delise, meeting her eyes. It shouldn’t have been enough to scare him into panic-mode and send him running the opposite direction, but she didn’t rule that out, because she knew why he’d broken up with Brianne.

“For some reason he ended up out with his hockey buddies Saturday night. He must have had a lot to drink for him to drop his pants in a restaurant and create a scene like that.”