26. Kennedy

I don’t knowwhy I’m always surprised at the bite of a cool Nevada evening. I’ve lived here long enough to know the deal.

The cold nips at my face as I step out of my apartment building, the night air harsh against my skin. The world feels different tonight, emptier somehow, as if the darkness has seeped deeper into my bones. My steps are slow, heavy with the weight of what I’ve lost. Shane isn’t just an absent connection or a regret; he’s a part of me that I didn”t realize I would miss this much.

As I wander through the nearly empty streets close to campus, memories play over in my mind like a silent movie, each scene more vivid than the last. There”s Shane, laughing at something I said, his eyes crinkling at the corners. There”s Shane, looking at me near the Suns Commons building, his gaze intense and full of something I was always afraid of.

These memories, once sweet, now twist inside me, sharp and jagged. It”s as if each step I take is accompanied by his shadow, a constant reminder of what we had and what I”ve had to let go.

I reach the rink and sit on the metal bench on the East side of the rink we often shared. It was far from common foot traffic most nights and it was here one night, that Shane covered my lap in his team jacket and finger fucked me in the in the breezy night air. It was reckless and amazing. But tonight, the bench is just a cold reminder of snippets in time that are now just painful memories.

What I heard in the rink can’t be unheard.

While he may not have talked about me maliciously, I can’t trust him. It’s that simple. The things people think about me, and then hearing them secondhand from the venomous whispers of our peers, continue to echo in my mind.

Clingy.

Insecure.

A nobody.

Psycho stepsister.

Their words, perhaps not his, but how could he not have influenced them? How could he not have painted a picture of me that led them to see me this way?

My phone vibrates in my pocket, an interruption to my painful reflections. I pull it out, half-hoping, half-dreading that it might be Shane. He hasn’t called me once since I walked away from him the day of his game.

When I check my screen, I’m disappointed to find that it’s just a reminder of tomorrow’s class. The mundanity of it—the obvious reminder that life goes on even when it feels like my world has crashed and burned—somehow makes the ache even sharper.

I know I should stand, walk back home, try to sleep, but my body refuses to move. Instead, I let my gaze drift across the other side of the rink, where darkness meets the treeline. It was there we watched the Fourth of July fireworks last summer. He stayed in town for hockey training camp and I stayed for an internship with a local bank.

I remember how his hand found mine in the dark, our fingers intertwining naturally, as if they were meant to fit together. I remember the way his lips felt against my forehead that night, soft and reassuring. I remember thinking that I didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world that night but sitting on that bench with him.

The contrast between then and now couldn’t be more profound. Where there was once warmth, there’s now a chilling void. Where there was companionship and friendship, there’s now solitude. It”s as if our entire relationship never existed.

And yet, despite the hurt, despite the betrayal, I miss him. I miss the Shane who taught me how to play chess, who would always look for me in the stands during a home game, who could make me laugh until my sides ached, the one who looked at me as though I was his grounding, his center. I miss the feeling of being part of something special that was just ours even if we couldn’t tell the world about it.

It was ours.

Tears finally leak, streaming down my cheeks, unchecked. I think I’ve cried more in my life than I ever have being in this ill-fated relationship with Shane.

Asshole.

Eventually, I stand, my body stiff from sitting in one place too long. I walk back toward my apartment in the quiet of the campus. On the trail toward my destination, I run into Lorenzo, the guy I was once friendly with from freshman seminar. I’ve seen him a few times since back then, and we’ve offered each other a few silent waves in passing, but this time, there’s no way to avoid each other. It’s only us on the walkway. It would be rude not to speak.

“Hi,” I say awkwardly.

“Hey, Kennedy.” He stops.

“How are you?”

“Good.”

Before we continue on our way, I decide to ask him what I’ve been dying to know for the longest time. I’m running out of friends on this campus and he used to be one of them.

“Hey, Lorenzo.”

“Yeah?”

“Did I do something to offend you freshman year?”

“No, Kennedy.” His eyes drop.

“Then why do you actively go out of your way to avoid me?”

He seems taken aback by the question.

“You don’t know?” he says.

“Um, no. That’s why I’m asking.”

“Sullivan ordered me to stay away from you.”

“Shane did?”

“He even punched me in the jaw to make sure I understood the directive.”

“Wait, what?”

How did I miss that?

“To be fair, I might have said a few things to goad him into the fight. He may be pretty and shit but that’s a crazy motherfucker. I didn’t think he’d actually swing on me.”

Huh.

“Okay, thanks for telling me.”

“No problem. Are we good?”

“Yeah, we’re good.”

“You won’t tell him I told you?” He runs a hand over the top of his freshly shorn hair. “I’m not trying to reignite any old feuds between the teams.”

“I won’t say a thing,” I promise.

A small inkling of doubt creeps into my consciousness as I finish my walk home.

Did I get it wrong?

Did I just push away the best friend I’ve ever had?