55. Mal

55

MAL

A ny ounce of happiness that I had was now stripped away from me, leaving only an empty shell of a man who barely had the strength or gumption to wake up in the morning now.

Hockey was now turning into a chore and my mood had taken a severe hit after I had walked out of the hospital.

Looking back, I never should have left Doe there all alone. I fucking hated myself for doing that to her, but with all her truths finally out in the open, I felt like I had no idea who the woman I had fallen in love with was anymore.

Our story was created and built on lies and in that moment, I couldn't look past that. I still couldn't but that didn't stop me from missing her.

So fucking much that every thought, every dream, every waking moment she was on my mind. When I closed my eyes all I saw was her, and when I opened them, all I wished for was for her to be here with me.

She was an endless loop in my head that I couldn't stop even if I tried and even now as practice came to an end, all I could see was my beautiful girl on her knees on this ice. The image fucking haunted me and on a grunt, I continued shooting drills as all the rest of the guys left for the locker room.

My shoulder felt as good as new, but the rest of my body felt spent. My legs ached, my heart cracked—I needed this distraction right now.

Anything to keep my mind off Doe.

"You all right, man?" James asked from behind me as I smacked the puck into the net on a swoosh.

"Never better," I grumbled.

In other words, leave me alone.

"You sure? You look a little tense."

My teeth clenched tightly onto my molars. I couldn't tell whether he was being obtuse or if he was trying to get a rise out of me. He had to know what was going on. There's no way he didn't.

I'm sure the whole fucking team knew and not once had any one of them spoken a word to me besides James.

"I'm not in the mood, James," I gritted out, as I pulled another puck toward me.

"Understandable." His voice caused me to pause. "But I think it's time that someone had the courage to talk some sense into you."

The fuck?

My whole body went rigid and I finally spun around to look at him. Helmet off, sweat permeating his flushed face, his mouth twitched in amusement.

"Whatever you're about to say, Hendricks, don't. You have no fucking clue what's going on and if you know what's best for you, you'll stay out of it."

Shaking his head, he chuckled.

"I know that you've found out about Wren, and ever since you told her to leave, you've been nothing but a fucking depressed lump on a log."

My hand went for the strap on my chin and I tossed my helmet onto the ice before skating over to where he stood.

"I never once told her to leave," I seethed as my muscles rippled with tension. "I never… I never wanted for her to leave."

The reminder that she was gone made me wince.

"You didn't give her much of a choice now, did you? She was living with you, where else did you expect her to go?" He threw his hands up as if her leaving was entirely my fault.

Of course I didn't want her to fucking leave. If she wanted out of our house then I had at least expected her to move back in with James and Kate for the time being. But if I were a better man, I would have made her stay.

Regardless of everything.

But I was too fucking stubborn and too fucking heartbroken to have the strength to face her every day.

"I never wanted her to move out, but when I came home and found all her shit gone, I had assumed she moved back in with you and Kate."

James sighed.

"She had no reason to stay in Seattle any longer, Mal. She was here for you."

I scoffed.

"She wasn't here for me. If she was, she wouldn't have lied."

"She didn't have any other choice! Tell me, if she would have told you from the very beginning what her plan was, would you have listened to her? Would you have agreed to go back home?" he questioned with the raise of his arms and a tone that had me reeling back.

Why the fuck did he care so much anyway and why was he suddenly making me feel like I was in the wrong?

"Maybe not in the beginning, but she had so many opportunities to tell me. I would've…" My words trailed off into a moment of silence as my whole body locked up. "If she would've just told me everything, I would've done anything for her."

His gaze was unwavering, almost like he was dissecting every word that fell past my mouth.

It unnerved me just as much as it irritated me.

"I know you would and that's what I don't understand about any of this. If you truly mean that you would do anything for her, then why the fuck are you here right now and not making amends with Wren? She never meant to hurt you, Mal. If anything, she was protecting you because she knew she would lose you again if she told you everything."

My chest expanded on a heavy breath.

"It's not just about the fucking lies, it's about the fact she doesn't trust me like she did Hayes," I confessed on a growl, and as soon as I said it, my head dropped in utter defeat.

Fuck.

"I can't compete with him. I can't compete with what they had."

For a minute, my admission had lingered in the air before James had finally spoken up.

"No one is telling you to compete with him. You're doing that all yourself, Mal." His words smacked me dead center in the chest. "You may never know the type of bond that they had shared and to be frank, I don't think it would be any of your business to know. What matters is the fact that you know what you two have together

"I thought I knew what we had, but I'm not even sure about that anymore." I hated saying it, but I felt like I knew nothing anymore.

I couldn't help but question everything, and even now, with James here defending her actions, I was even more fucking confused.

James's chin dropped as his chest expanded on a breath.

"Blue's Words," he responded simply and surely.

Confused, my brows dipped together.

"What?"

Lifting his head, our eyes met.

"When you decide that you're done sulking for the night, open the browser on your phone and look up Blue's Words. Maybe you'll find your answers there."

Then swiftly turning around, he began to skate off toward the exit, leaving me even more confused and annoyed than before.

Whatever it was, he seemed confident that it would change my mindset.

I wasn't so sure it would, but once my curiosity got the best of me, I made my way off the ice and into the locker room where I yanked off all my gear and searched for my phone.

Once I had it, I plopped my defeated ass onto a bench and typed in the words "Blue's Words" until a link popped up. Hesitantly, I clicked on it.

At first, I was extremely fucking confused.

All it had were dates and a lot of fucking journal-like entries that I noticed people commenting on. Lots of people commented but I wasn't interested in reading them. But as I scrolled through it, something had caught my eye. The most popular entry that had hundreds of comments.

And that's when I began to read Blog Entry #1.