Page 17 of Don't Cross the Blue Line
“The proud-dad voice. Yes.”
I can practically see her rolling her eyes at me. I brace myself for a talk about personal boundaries, but apparently, she’s letting it go tonight. “So…you went to the gala, and…?”
“And I got stuck in an elevator.” The rest of the story simply flows from my brain, churning out words faster than I can process them. I tell her about the elevator. The dark. The stranger, his confession, and the very life-changing realization that the man in the dark was none other than B.B.
“Hold on.” Julia’s voice drops. “B.B.—the guy from the letters?”
“Yes.”
“The guy with the long, heartfelt letters?”
“That’s the one.”
“The guy?—”
“Julia. Yes. Him.”
“Oofda.”
“Oh, it gets worse.”
“How does it get worse?”
“Because then the power flickered on for just a second, and the lights flashed, and—you are not going to believe who it was.”
A long pause, and then, “So tell me!”
“It was Beckett Benson.”
Silence. I can hear when Julia’s spoon stops stirring.
“I’m going to need you to say that again,” she says slowly.
“Beckett. Benson. Blue Ox defenseman. Number forty-seven. The pride of Minnesota hockey.” I swallow. “My father’s star player.”
“Your father’s—the kid your dad?—”
“The kid my dad coached instead of coming home to save his marriage. Yes.”
“The one who—whatever happened between you two?” Julia asks, then quickly adds, “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it.”
The question catches me off guard. In all the years we’ve been friends, in all the times I’ve spoken about my father or my parents’ divorce, I suppose I never told her about what happened with Beckett, other than that he’s the one my father chose when push came to shove. I shift the mug in my hands, soaking in the warmth and fighting off the icy memories that come with Beckett Benson. “No, it’s okay.”
I take a sip of my tea and let my memory surface.
“You know about my parents’ divorce, how my dad was working long hours, staying late at practice, going in early, how it drove a wedge between him and my mom. And you know that Beckett was the kid he was spending all that extra time with, giving him that hands-on teaching.”
My thumb runs the rim of my mug. “Anyway…it was like that for a few years before my mom had had enough. When I was in sixth grade, I came home from school to find our bags packed on the front porch, and I knew it was over, but I wasn’t ready.” I shrug as though she can see it. “So I ran. The rink wasn’t far from the house—I’d walked there a million times on my own.” My voice turns raspy as I think about little Everly, hiding behind that Zamboni, desperately holding her world together.
“I was there about ten minutes before Beckett showed up for his one-on-one practice. He found me hiding out, sobbing into my mittens. And I just…I let him have it. I told him it was his fault. That he didn’t have a dad, but it wasn’t fair for him to take mine.”
I pull in a breath, blinking away the memory of Beckett’s face, harsh and angry in my watery vision.
“I’ll never forget what he said.” I swallow hard. “He said, ‘It’s not my fault your dad likes me better. I actually play hockey. You just sit in the stands.’”
“Oh my goodness,” Julia whispers. “Evie, I’m sorry. That’s terrible.”
“Yeah…and that’s not the end of it.” I exhale a heavy breath, trying my best to shake it off. “I saw him again, two years later. I lived mostly with my mom, but I was staying with my dad for the week. I never visited him at practice, as a general rule—not after the divorce—but I was submitting a story to a young writers contest. I needed money for the entrance fee, and I was running up against the deadline. So I put aside my rules and visited him at the rink to ask him for a check.”
