52. Mal

52

MAL

T oday was my first official day that I'd be back out playing on the ice. Initially, I thought I was beyond fucking ready to get out there again, but when the day had finally arrived, all the eagerness that I anticipated wasn't there.

Instead, there was nothing.

For so long hockey became my distraction. Through the countless games, practices, meaningless fights, I found myself stuck in a life that I thought I deserved.

One of no purpose and extreme loneliness.

But then out of nowhere, Doe came along in the midst of a time I thought I had it all figured out. When I had thought I was better off without anyone in my life. And just like a hurricane, she tore down all my sturdy walls until all I could see, all I felt, was her.

Even now as we sat on the couch, all I could look at was her. Sitting with her legs crossed, holding a computer in her lap, I found the simplest of mundane things the most fucking precious to watch.

She wasn't dressed up, she wasn't doing anything that would have caught my eye, but by her just being here in my house, taking up space and making it hers, it was something I knew I would never forget.

"I can feel you staring," she said over the screen of her computer without looking at me.

"Can't help it, so you better get used to it."

Her head tilted to the side as she finally peered at me.

"You make me nervous when you do that."

Nervous?

I laughed.

"Why?"

She then rolled her eyes dramatically.

"Because it's distracting having someone like you look at me."

"Someone like me?"

She sighed.

"Someone extremely good-looking that makes it hard for me to concentrate."

My chest flared out from her comment.

Fuck, would she be upset if I distracted her even more with my mouth on her cunt? I had a feeling she'd let me, but not willingly at first. She'd make me work for it.

"What are you working on anyway? You're on that thing a lot," I asked, and suddenly her cheeks flushed.

My curiosity immediately piqued when I caught the pinkish hue blossom on her cheeks.

"Just work things. Commenting on videos, uploading photos to the team's Instagram account. Nothing exciting."

I wanted to believe her, and a part of me did, but there was still that unsure side of me that had me questioning it. So for now, I let it go.

I went back to watching a video on my phone when suddenly Doe got up and set the computer down onto the couch beside her. She had walked off into the direction of the bathroom and just when I was about to change the video I was watching, the sound of vibrating filled the air.

At first, I couldn't figure out what it was. If it wasn't my phone, it had to have been Doe's. I quickly rose up off the couch and followed the sound until the illuminated screen caught my eye and I reached for it.

But what I saw knocked the fucking wind right out of me.

Shelia.

A name I hadn't heard in so long, that I was beginning to believe that she no longer existed. Her phone continued to ring and all I could do was stare mindlessly at the caller's name.

I felt numb.

Frozen.

And when it finally ended, a string of message notifications filled her phone and they were all from Shelia. I couldn't stop myself from unlocking her phone, it was as if my body had been taken over and everything from my past came flooding in.

A wave of nauseousness, along with what felt like deceit, had swept through my body and lanced at my heart. Then when I finally opened the thread of messages, everything I believed, everything I worked so fucking hard for, disintegrated into nothing.

Shelia: We miss you, Wren. Please call us when you have the chance.

Shelia: Please let us know that you're okay.

Shelia: We went and saw Alice today and she wanted me to tell you that she can't wait till you're back home. We love you.

Shelia: We watched one of Mal's games today. Please tell him that we're so proud of him.

Fuck…

I couldn't breathe.

My vision was beginning to turn black now as my whole body became engulfed in rage. Why was Shelia blowing her shit up? And why hadn't Doe responded? None of what I was looking at sat right with me.

"Mal?" Doe's hesitant voice asked from just behind, which caused my back to go painfully stiff.

My eyes slammed shut as unimaginable pain radiated throughout my chest.

"Someone was calling you," I said through gritted teeth and slowly spun around to face her.

Guilt was written all over her face.

"Who?"

I tried my hardest to not throw her phone across the fucking room but I was on the verge of destruction.

"Don't, Wren. Don't pretend like you don't fucking know when you do." My voice broke as the desperate look she was giving me tore me apart. "What is this? What are you hiding from me?"

I tossed her phone onto the ground in front of her, not giving a damn if I cracked it or not. She instantly flinched but didn't make any moves to grab it, instead she dropped her head in pity and immense guilt.

Just fucking tell me, Doe! I wanted to scream.

I wanted to get on my knees and beg for her to take me out of this misery of not knowing.

"I was going to tell you…" Her voice had half the strength, half the depth it normally did, and I fucking hated it. "I was going to tell you so many times now, but I was terrified of how you would react."

My heart sunk.

"Tell me what? What were you going to tell me?" I demanded more fiercely now.

With her head tipped down, refusing to look at me, refusing to face me, I knew it had to be bad.

Whatever it was.

"I… I didn't just come here randomly. To Seattle, to work for the Orchids' organization," she began to confess, causing my heart rate to take off. "I came here for you, Mal."

For me?

What the hell did that mean?

"Eleven years ago you left us. No calls, no messages, no letters, no anything. And I despised you. For so long I hated the man that you were."

Her words felt like a knife to the chest as I staggered back.

"But then I had Greg and Shelia come to me. They were so lost about what to do, Mal, about how to get you back home. And that's when they asked me." Her voice cracked. "They asked me to come and get you."

Fuck…

Betrayal like no other had flooded me. Finding any air seemed like an impossible fucking task as the weight of her confession stripped it all out of the room.

What did she mean they asked her to come here? Did that mean everything up until this point was a fucking lie?

Tearing my eyes away from hers, I could hardly look at her without feeling the burn of her deception.

"Mal…" She tried taking a step closer toward me, but with the firm shake of my head, I stopped her. It was against all my instincts to tell her no, but I knew if she was near, I wouldn't think clearly.

"So, what does that mean? That all of this wasn't just a coincidence?" I scoured my brain for any signs, anything that would have given me a clue on what I could have missed or if I was just blind due to my obsession.

Ultimately, it was my fault for not looking further into her sudden reappearance into my life. How fucking blindsided I was for the woman who haunted my dreams, and not once did I think twice about why she was here.

I quickly spun around so my back was to her now.

With my fists clenched tightly at my sides, I slammed my eyes shut as the pain began to sweep across my chest.

"You came here to fuck with my head to get your way? To get me home again?" I growled with a pounding head.

"No, Mal, I… I didn't expect for this to happen, to fall in love with you, but I did." She cried through tears that I couldn't see but heard. "At first, yes, my intentions were solely focused on forming some sort of truce with you so I could convince you to come home, but somewhere along the way the lines started to blur and I realized I didn't despise you like I once did…You needed me just like I needed you and I fell so hard and so easily that I was terrified to tell you the truth."

I wanted to tell her that I didn't need her. That I'd been doing perfectly fucking fine until she came along, but my heart wouldn't let me. The one organ that I swore was faulty had now felt like it had been repeatedly run over and stomped on like it was nothing.

"How am I supposed to believe that any of this was real and at what point do I say that it was? At Kate and James's gender reveal? Hayes's anniversary? Fucking when?" I finally turned back around to face her.

"Mal…"

"No, don't… You lied when you had every chance to tell me the truth. Why, Doe? Why not fucking tell me?" I said, my chest aching in the worst possible way.

"Because it was already too late! You wouldn't…" she choked, her eyes wavering for a split second before coming back to me. "You wouldn't have felt the same."

Her preconceived idea of how I would have reacted pissed me off. Didn't she realize that no matter what this woman put me through, I would always be hers?

"So you waited until now? When you know I can't live without you?" My voice was now raw with emotion as I scoured her eyes for an answer.

One that I couldn't find through the endless tears that were streaming down her face.

She looked so fucking broken. So torn, and although every bone in my body was telling me to forgive her, I fucking couldn't.

Not when another heap of questions had bombarded through my gut.

"Does Shelia know?" I swallowed as the pain from saying her name became almost too much to handle. "Do they know about us?"

Doe's watery eyes met mine.

"No, they don't know anything. I… I've been lying to all three of you," she confessed.

Fuck.

Why, baby? Why didn't you tell us? Why couldn't you have just… Fuck! Why couldn't you have just told me?

"How long did you think you could keep this up, Wren? Till I fucking proposed? Till I got you pregnant?" I asked instead.

Her eyes went wide from the confession of all the things I wanted with her.

"I don't know, Mal… I wasn't—I wasn't going to let this go on forever. I was just waiting for the right time."

"The right time should have been the moment you fucking saw me. You know I can't tell you no. You know that I'd do anything for you."

I would've understood, or at least I would've tried to.

"I know, Mal. I know you would."

"No, you don't know, Wren. If you did, we wouldn't be here now. Me questioning everything. Your trust… You. I don't know what to believe anymore." I ran a palm over my hair as a wave of dizziness hit me.

"You can trust me, Mal. Nothing about the time that I've been here has been a lie."

Bullshit! I wanted to shout at her. Everything was built around a lie and I was foolish enough to fall for it.

"Can I really trust you?" I stared at her, unblinking.

"Of course you can!" she shouted.

Frantically, she began to pace. Back and forth until her breathing became labored.

"I don't know if I fuckin' can, Doe! And it kills me on the inside that I have to question you… Question us ."

"Don't…" she begged. "Don't say that."

"I have no other choice!" I roared. "You lied!"

She started to shake her head.

"You did this, Wren. You."

I could barely look at her any longer. There were so many conflicting emotions that were running through me but I felt rage beginning to take over.

I began to pace. Back and forth, I could barely look at her and I noticed her breathing.

It sounded ragged, like she was having trouble finding air, then on a gasp, she shot her eyes toward me.

"Mal… I can't…" She clutched onto her chest as frantic eyes sought out mine.

Something was wrong.

"It hurts," she cried out, and I had to do something.

"Baby, what's wrong?" I went to grab her but before she could respond, her eyes rolled back into her head as she collapsed into my awaiting arms. Panic swept through me like a tidal wave and a fear I never thought I'd feel again had taken over.

"My chest," she said through heavy, intense breaths. "I can't… breathe."

At first, I couldn't process what I was hearing. It was as if my whole body went into panic mode as every horrible, painful thought imaginable had entered my brain.

I already lost Hayes.

I couldn't lose her.

I wouldn't survive it.

With her body cradled in my arms, I slowly lowered us onto the ground where I could pull my phone out and call an ambulance.

"It's going to be okay, Doe. Take deep, steady breaths for me," I demanded firmly, although I felt on the verge of collapsing right beside her.

My brave girl was trying so hard.

In and out she was breathing, but on a wince, her eyes started to flutter. Dialing 911, I demanded that they get here quickly and rattled off my address.

"Keep your eyes open for me, baby. I know it's hard but I need you to try." My voice was unrelenting in its attempts at keeping her awake. Her eyes began to fill with tears as she responded with a short nod that unsettled me.

I couldn't fucking stand it.

" No," I demanded. "No tears, Doe. You're going to be okay, you hear me?" I used the pad of my thumb to wipe along her cheeks. "You're not… You're not…"

My throat was clogged with the words I couldn't say.

My eyes then slammed tightly shut as a burst of pain shot throughout my chest.

"Mal…" she whispered as I felt her cool palm cup my jaw. Instantly, my eyes shot open.

Everything about the way she was looking at me was wrong. Her somber smile, the fountain of tears that were streaming down her face, I didn't want this.

This wasn't how our story was supposed to end.

Not like this.

Then on a sharp intake of breath, she opened her mouth. "I love you."

Anger immediately radiated throughout my body.

Why the fuck was this happening? And why was she acting as if that would be the last chance she had to tell me she loved me?

She wasn't dying.

My girl, the love of my goddamn life, wasn't dying.

Then suddenly, in the blink of an eye, her hand had slipped from my face and her eyes began to flutter.

"Doe!" I gave her a shake, but her eyes refused to open. "Doe… You need to open your eyes!" Dread began to sweep through me as I continued to shout and jerk her lifeless body, but nothing happened.

Was she…

No…

"Baby, wake up," I demanded, as I felt my throat begin to harden painfully.

Blinking, I couldn't tear my eyes away from her.

"Doe," I said again, but this time it came out on a whispered sob that slashed its way up my throat. Everything burned. My eyes, my heart, and on a whim, I lowered my head until my ear hovered over her mouth.

I couldn't tell if she was breathing.

I couldn't hear anything over the incessant pounding my heart.

As I pulled my head back, the faint sounds of thumping feet soon came bursting through the room, along with assertive voices that had taken the spot next to me.

Everything that happened next was a blur. The CPR, the noises, I felt like my whole world was crumbling at my feet and all that was left to do was to let it all out.

So, for the first time in fucking years, I cried.