The Racquet Accident

Chapter Five: You Believe in Santa Claus at 21.

Chapter Five: "You Believe in Santa Claus at 21."

WHEN BENNY HAD BROKEN up with me, I also found out he had been cheating on me with my supposed 'friend' Ashley.

Not physically. The cheating was emotional.

The hidden glances. Their banter and seemingly short conversations. It sounds intriguing between those two parties. But it's never a great feeling on the one who it hurts. And it stung. The knowledge of it stung badly when he had revealed it all on one early November night when we were at a house party.

I had drunk a little but only to the point where the slight buzz was not going to end anytime soon. However, Benny drank a lot.

There was no recollection of what brought his need to say those things unprovoked What I did remember was his voice raising like the sound of an ambulance's siren getting closer and closer to passing by you.

The awkward but unfazed stares from people I had surrounded myself with weekend after weekend, let me know the conversation had occurred at least once before. Just not usually with me in the room.

The speech itself was a blur but key points stood out. His admittance of finding me boring. The shock settled deep within me, keeping my feet frozen as he went on, moving past attacking to comparison. When I found myself being compared to Ashley on and on until he slurred out how much he couldn't wait to sleep with her.

Paula said I had enough rage for a nation. That night, my anger rendered me silent as I barreled my way out of the room and eventually out of the house filled with what felt like thousands of people. I had pushed my way down the stairs with the intention to run my way home with no jacket in the middle of Canadian Fall. All I was wearing were some sneakers, a tube top, and ripped jeans.

One key point from that night: Nikko had dashed out of the house after me. 

He was the one who had managed to catch up to me before I made it down the end of the street.I didn't recall smelling any alcohol on him as he placed a jacket—his jacket—over my shoulders that night. He didn't say anything else, either. All he did was steer me in the direction of one of his roommates' cars. He had mumbled about stealing the keys.

During the car ride, both of his hands were on the steering wheel, and he decided to admit that he didn't have his driver's license through the silence. But he had learned how to drive stick because of his older cousin, Eric. He didn't say much after that.

If he did, it wouldn't have mattered at the time. I had only paid attention to the passing scenery of Jasper Bay, the light snow on the ground, the deep breaths I had to take to contain myself, and the tears I couldn't completely wipe away at the embarrassment of that night.

Another key point from that night: when Nikko had pulled up by the side of my house, I had been in the middle of trying to give him back his jacket when he made promise to text him. I nodded as I exited the car, feeling his eyes on me as I entered the house and ended up collapsing into Jay's arms in tears.

I didn't text him for almost two years.

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When I made Herringway University's squash team, I found out after I had sat in my desk chair for five hours and decided to finally check my email the following Sunday before Monday practice. There had been two other tryouts after my run with Nikko that week. I had come from coding for hours in the library to running to the rec center for fitness tests. My body still ached but the news in front of me made all of it so worth it.

I must have stared at the message for far too long in my bedroom because someone let out a gasp behind me. As if she was my mother (a warmer, huggier version of my birthgiver), she wrapped her arms around my shoulder while pointing at the screen, "Larine!"