Page 92 of Playing Her Game

Rez

Three weeks.

Three fucking weeks of losing, and I spent most of them looking for reasons to blame everyone but myself. Bad bounces. Missed assignments. Shitty power plays. The refs, on one particularly ugly night, although even I knew that was bullshit before I finished saying it.

The truth was, we weren't playing well enough to win, and I wasn't playing well enough to drag us through it.

Then we won two in a row.

Those were my favorite nights of the entire stretch, and it had nothing to do with the standings or the relief of finally getting a couple of wins under our belts. It was because I got to FaceTime Anna afterward. Both nights. I could be sitting in a hotel room with my gear still half unpacked, my body aching, and the taste of a win still in my mouth, and then her face would appear on my screen.

Sometimes she was already in bed. Sometimes she'd be sitting somewhere in that enormous house of hers, looking like she'd rather be anywhere else. We talked about the games, about the weather, about whatever she'd done that day. Most of the time, nothing important. Nothing that should have made me look forward to a phone call more than I looked forward to getting back on the ice.

But it was.

Then we lost to Dallas.

I was in a bad mood before I even left the rink, and Anna heard all about it when she called. She didn't try to tell me I was overreacting or offer some bullshit about how we'd get them next time. She listened while I complained, then asked me whether I'd eaten anything that wasn't supplied by the team.

I told her she was changing the subject.

She told me I was hungry and an asshole.

I ordered food.

Then we won three straight.

Three wins, three nights of feeling like maybe we were finally finding our game again, and three more calls that I started looking forward to before the final horn even sounded. I wasn't stupid enough to believe a few good results meant we'd fixed everything, but I was starting to feel like myself on the ice again. The guys were looser. The room had its edge back. I could breathe without feeling like every mistake was another reason to question whether I deserved the sweater.

And Anna was there, on the other side of the phone, giving me somewhere to put the rest of it.

I didn't tell her that part.

I wasn't sure what to do with it myself.

Then we lost to Columbus going into the All-Star break, and I was pissed all over again.

Not just because we lost, but because we should have been better. I hated going into a break with that taste in my mouth, knowing I had days to sit around and think about everything we hadn't done well enough.

The All-Star weekend was never happening for me. I'd already made that clear. I wasn't interested in putting on a show for a few days while my team was struggling, and I had no intention of pretending otherwise just because someone thought I'd look good in a promotional photo.

Winter break was coming, and I had to make a decision.

I could spend it at home, doing the same things I always did, in the same places, surrounded by people who knew exactly who I was and had no interest in asking who I wanted to be.

Or I could go to Germany. To Anna.

I didn't know what she'd say if I showed up. I didn't know if she'd want to see me, if she'd be angry that I hadn't given her more time, or if she'd look at me and remind me that the six days we'd spent together were over.

I'd spent weeks telling myself I could handle whatever answer she gave me.

That didn't mean I wanted to hear it.

The café is smaller than I expected, tucked along a street in her hometown, with fogged windows and little tables close enough together that I can hear half the conversations around me. I've been here long enough to finish one coffee and order another. The second one is going cold.

I have the photograph she sent me open on my phone.

It isn't anything special. A table by the window, a cup of coffee, a plate of something sweet, sunlight falling across the wood. She'd sent it to me weeks ago, telling me this was the café she'd come to every day when she needed to get out of the house. Her favorite place in town. Somewhere she could sit alone, with no one expecting anything from her.