nhl one-shots | multi

when things were better | c. hart

Summary: When Y/N stops by her exe's house to drop off his things and let go of their relationship, she doesn't expect to find him there. Nor does she expect to find a hundred reasons for her to stay.

Requested: No

Sometimes things just didn't work out. No matter how much time and effort you could put into them, sometimes there was jut no such thing as a happy ending. Especially when it came to relationships. Y/N was finding it increasingly difficult to stay with Carter. It seemed as though no matter how hard they tried, they just weren't on the same page.

Which was why they split up. Between balancing her life back in Edmonton and the one she and Carter had made in Philly, it left little strength for her to keep up with her relationship. Carter was in the same boat. He was constantly on the road and with the stress of the season, he had been neglecting his girlfriend, and himself.

Unlike most relationships, Y/N didn't have any ill wishes towards Carter. He was a great guy and she really did think that they could have made things work. After all, she wouldn't have said yes to his proposal if she thought otherwise. But that was a year ago, a time before she had moved to Philadelphia and a time before Carter was the starting goalie for the flyers.

A lot could change in a year, and while Carter thought that he and Y/N could handle those changes- he didn't realize that people would change too, that their relationship could change for the worse.

There was no denying that the two of them were in love, between their constant affection and text messages of reassurance and checkups, their bond was extremely tight. But as both of their schedules got busier, they started to lose that spark.

Sex became a rare occurrence, so rare in fact that Y/N couldn't even remember the last time that she and Carter had been intimate. She thought it might have been sometime around New Years or possibly his birthday, but that was months ago. Of course sex wasn't everything in a relationship, but when the two of them were rather young and in their twenties- it was something that they looked forward to.

"Do you want to have sex?" Carter asked Y/N one night, laying on his back as he stared up at the ceiling. The mattress was firm underneath his back and he relished in the tension that was being taken off his spine. It had been a long day of practices followed by a game in which the flyers were victorious.

Furrowing her brows, Y/N looked away from her book- glancing at her fiancé who was lying next to her shirtless. She wore one of his t-shirts and a pair of panties for comfort, not because they were a turn on. "What?" She asked, it wasn't something she had been expecting.

Carter didn't even look over at her, he continued to stare at the ceiling. "I don't know... I just thought maybe we should- you know, since we haven't done it in a while."

That was the night in which Y/N realized something was wrong.

The fact that they were starting to treat intimacy as a chore had been the first thing that jumped out to her. They were missing a familiar passion that once reminded them of their love. Now they were simply just together because they had been so for years before. It was familiarity that was keeping them together, not their actual connection.

"No...not tonight." Y/N frowned, putting her book away as the thoughts began to consume her. All through the night she couldn't shake the feeling that things were really coming to an end. The ring she wore on her finger was a reminder as to what they had both wanted at one point, and how they had failed to make it happen.

Carter had started to see that things were fizzling out too. While he was on the road, he often found himself looking forward to crashing in his hotel room rather than the phone call he used to make after a game. He didn't think calling Y/N anymore was necessary, she knew that he loved her, how many times could they have the same conversation about his day when it really never changed? He knew that their routine was the same, so what was the point of talking unless he actually had something to share with her?