False Confidence | j. hughes

2

Maya spent 2 hours with each of her siblings with Marley she caught up with how Marley likes kindergarten, and then they played Barbies after they watched about 15 minutes of a movie before Marley became restless because she wanted to go to the park so she and Marley began the 10-minute walk to the park where Marley decided halfway through that she was gonna run to instead of walking calmly with Maya. after Maya and Marley got back from the park Henry almost instantly dragged her away to the younger kid's loft space upstairs where he decided that he and Maya would play Minecraft together and catch up with each other. he asked her how the university was, she gave the child-friendly answer of how it was as she hadn't started the university experience till about 6 months ago with the surprise party her friends threw for her after her ex cheated on her. Then Maya asked Henry how school was and Henry spent over an hour telling her. 

Cody who was eager to have someone play basketball with him dragged Maya to the backyard so that they could play after 2 hours of playing not so shockingly Cody won the game even tho Maya played basketball throughout high school and was supposed to go d1 sadly for her she got too many knee injuries and had to give up her dreams. just as the game finished they got called inside by their mom to come to wash up and to come inside to eat dinner as a family because she had made steak mashed potatoes and green beans for dinner. after dinner, Maya finally got to look at her phone where she saw a message from Trevor saying that he was at the Hughes' lake house and she could come by at any time to pick up her brother's present if she wanted she could hang out there for a while so they could catch up. 

Around 7:15 PM, Maya left her mother's house to get her brother's present from the lake house, which is a 45-minute drive away. Upon her arrival, Maya messaged Trevor that she had arrived. As she approached the door to knock, it suddenly swung open, and Trevor appeared outside, greeting her with a big bear hug. After they released each other, Maya heard someone yell, "Trevor, close the door behind you!" Turning around to see who yelled, Maya identified the person as Quinn, who said, "Maya, what are you doing in Michigan? Your brother said that he didn't think you would come since you kept backing off the plans last minute."

"I knew he would say something like that since he kept asking me daily if I was still coming. The reason I'm here is that I forgot something at my house, and I needed Trevor to get it for me and bring it here," Maya told the older boy.

"Come inside; we need to catch up, and I'll give you Cole's present," Trevor said, practically begging Maya to spend time with them.

"Fine, but I have to leave before 11," she replied since she was already an hour behind schedule. 

*Maya pov*

"Come on in. Just so you know, it's only Trevor, Luke, and me at home currently, since Jack is in LA visiting Alex," Quinn said. As we entered the house, I was surprised to see that it looked practically the same as the last time I was there, as if it was frozen in time. The only difference was that the walls of the house were adorned with memorabilia from all of the boys' hockey careers so far. As I took a moment to look around, I saw pucks from all of their first games, first goals, and their jerseys framed on the wall. 

When Quinn led me into the living room, I was shocked to see the photo of my family and the Hughes family together. The photo had my mom and her dad standing beside each other, with her dad's arm around her mom. It had the Hughes parents right beside them in an almost identical pose. Quinn and Cole had their arms around each other's shoulders, and Cole had one of his hands on my shoulder. In front of Quinn and Cole, there was Jack, me, Abby, and Luke. We all had our arms on each other's shoulders.

It felt strange to see my mom and dad looking happy together in the photo, knowing that it was taken at my family's old lake house before the divorce and before the affair my mom had. The photo was taken before October 2008 the only reason I could tell was that her hair was still dyed brown after the divorce in April of 2008 my mom instantly married the man she had the affair with that fall in January they had their first kid.

As soon as Maya sat on the couch in the living room, Luke came in from the backyard where he had started a fire. He asked Maya when she arrived in Michigan, to which she replied, chuckling, that it was yesterday morning. Quinn then asked if Maya planned on attending her brother's party, to which she said yes since her friends were arriving in two days and wanted to go too. Maya then turned to Trevor and asked him what had been happening with him lately. This prompted a 30-minute rant from Trevor about everything from roommates and contract negotiations to friends and everything in between. After his rant, Trevor asked Maya what she had been doing lately. Maya started telling the group, "Well, the past couple summers I spent in San Jose with my ex-boyfriend's family because, for some reason, every time we had plans to come up here, his mom would call and say how much she needed us, so he had to cancel all our plans and we had to go see his mom. It turns out the only reason he wanted to go to San Jose was so he could see the girl he was cheating on me with. I found out about it two days before Christmas, so I spent Christmas with my friend Harley's family in Anaheim. A month after my birthday, they had a surprise house party as a kind of mood booster and birthday party for me. Then, around March, my dad messaged me, asking me to come back to Michigan and spend the summer with my family.y He also told me to invite my friends since it had been so long since I talked to anyone here. The house that I and my roommates are living in currently went up for sale, and we were scared that we would have to find a last-minute housing situation in the middle of the school year, but my dad bought it as an investment property after we graduate next summer and all start our own lives. That's pretty much all that has happened for me; what about you, Lukey?" 

Maya had used Luke's childhood nickname and asked him how he felt about starting his NHL career. Luke shared his excitement about the new opportunity but also expressed sadness at leaving his friends and team at the University of Michigan. He was particularly looking forward to living with his brother Jack again as they hadn't lived together full-time in years. Luke also mentioned his university friends and how Maya would get to meet them in the summer. Maya and others present could see the excitement in Luke's eyes as he spoke about hockey, even though at times it was hard to follow his ramblings. After Luke finished, he turned to Quinn and asked why she had been quiet throughout. Quinn replied with a chuckle, saying that not much had changed since they last saw each other, except that she was being considered for the role of captain for the Canucks. Though she didn't think she would be chosen, being considered was still a significant achievement for her. As Maya realized it was time to leave for her dad's house, she said goodbye to everyone and glanced down the hall at a picture of her, Jack, and the other kids sitting on a dock watching the sunset together.

When I arrived at my dad's lake house, everyone else was already asleep. I carried my luggage upstairs to my room. As I was preparing to go to bed, I thought about the last time I had hung out with Jack. It was a week before I left for Los Angeles and he left for New Jersey for his second NHL season. We were sitting on the dock together, just like the photo that was on the wall of the Hughes' house. We talked about how different it was going to be since we were going to be on opposite sides of the continent. We both said we would keep in contact and talk as much as possible, which we did for the first few months. But since then, it has been mainly holiday wishes, birthday messages, and congratulations on big moments. 

I didn't realize how much I missed the Hughes boys until I saw two of them today. Even though part of me was sad that Jack wasn't there, as he was the one I was closest with when we were kids. 

*I spent 2 days on this chapter and I feel like it sucks if you have read Chapter 1 before this chapter was uploaded you might want to reread it as I have edited and changed some parts of it*