When We Write the Stars

Chapter 22: Hayden

 "I'd rather die tomorrow than live a hundred years without knowing you." —Pocahontas

     I wanted more. I wanted a relationship and dates and to call her my girlfriend. I couldn't have more though. It would never work out, and we'd both end up getting hurt, I felt like I'd told myself this a thousand times, and yet I still wanted more than anything to be able to call Cassie Bennet my girl. It hurt when she said she just wanted to see each other for hookups, but I knew she was just saying that to protect herself.

     Now I was home for winter break, or at least part of it. We didn't have any games over the week of Christmas, but I had to be back for a game on December 30th against Arizona, luckily it was a home game though so I wouldn't have to drive back to Seaport until the 29th. My family was from Vancouver Washington, which was so far south it was basically in Oregon. Seaport was about as far away as I could've gotten from Vancouver Washington without actually crossing the border into Vancouver BC.

     I always loved coming back to my grandparents' house. My grandpa had built it himself many years ago, he was a contractor until he retired and my grandma was a teacher. They took me and my two little sisters, Melanie and Elizabeth in after our mom left. I didn't think about my parents very often, I'd never known my father, and our mother would show up sporadically throughout our lives, but never stayed for long. Our grandparents had done a better job raising us than our parents ever could've. When I finally signed with an NHL team, the first thing I was going to do was make sure my grandparents never had to think about money again, they'd done so much for us and definitely hadn't been expecting to raise three more kids.

     It was nice being home, my sisters were both seniors in high school this year, and waiting to hear back from everywhere they'd applied to. Melanie like me played Hockey and had been recruited by a few Division 2 schools, but was still waiting to hear back. Elizabeth was the artist of the family though, and wanted to go to school for graphic design. Neither Elizabeth nor my grandparents really understood all the hockey stuff, I think they all thought of it as more of a hobby than anything, even after I'd been drafted, but Melanie got it. I was hoping after I actually signed with a team they'd realize how big of a deal it was.

     I spent pretty much all of the break going back and forth between helping my grandpa fix up various things around the house, skating at the local rink with Melanie and a few of my friends from high school who were back in town, and trying not to think about how badly I wanted to share all of it with Cassie. I was giving her space because I felt like she wanted it, and she said we shouldn't hang out unless it was to hook up, and for obvious reasons, we weren't hooking up while we were in different parts of the state.

     One morning, a few days before I was set to return to Seaport, my Grandma sent me to the grocery store to get eggs, we'd run out the night before and she wanted to bake cookies for me to bring back to school. I would gladly make the trip to the store if it meant getting free cookies out of it. I was standing in line for the checkout, there was only one cash register, when I heard a voice I hadn't heard in many years. A voice I'd thought I'd forgotten entirely.

     "Hayden, hey," Audrey's voice sang through my ears. I'd always loved the sound of her voice. It makes me sound lame, but she had a good voice. It was kind of deep for a girl and had a sort of flow to it that I'd always liked.

     "Audrey," I ask in response, somewhat startled and unsure of what to say, "It's uh been a while."

     "Yeah it has been," she says, "How's college going?"

    "It's been good, should be finishing up in the spring, then hopefully off to the NHL," I respond, taking this opportunity to get a good look at her. She looks the same, yet different. Her hair is shorter, where it used to be nearly down to her waist, it now brushes her shoulders, just a smidge longer than mine is. She also got her braces off, which makes sense since it's been over four years since I last saw her.