I rolled into the locker room with the pungent, damp, sour odor of hockey assaulting my nose, and the feeling of hope for the first time since she ran out of the circus that was my apartment the other night. But it was short-lived as a hand grabbed my jersey and threw me into the wall.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
I looked up to see Dave seething. He ran his hands through his hair, and his eyes were lethal as he motioned for me to stand back up. Shit.
“Let me explain?—”
Not happening, as the second I was up, he grabbed me again and threw me into the other wall before I hit the floor.
“You’re my best friend and you go after my sister?”
With that, the locker room cleared of my teammates. People were grabbing bags and flying out of Dodge. Yes, there would be no witnesses to my painful, untimely death.
I stood. “It’s not like that.”
“It’s not like that?” He hissed. “Your famous words when it comes to women.”
In the split second I blinked, his fist flew toward me. Luckily my Spidy reflexes kicked in, and I dodged so he didn’t take me out.
“No—”
“Fern has been through hell over the past years. She survived cancer, and she deserves happiness!”
“I care about her.”
Fire shot from his eyes as he grabbed my jersey and pulled me to his face. “No. You’re Wolkowski. You’re my friend who drinks too much and sleeps around. You have issues that you haven’t resolved from the past, and you know exactly what I’m talking about!”
I pushed him back. “This is different.”
“Hell yes, it is. This is my sister. This is you being all hot for a girl and then crushing her a few weeks later. You end this now. She deserves everything good, and that won’t happen with you around.”
“No.”
Dave took a swift step toward me and we were face-to-face.
“So, you have no doubt you won’t hurt her?”
I had hurt her. My heart sank. I’d made her cry, and I’d looked into her eyes and saw disappointment and pain as a result of being with me.
“You don’t think your roaming eye won’t tear her apart at some point? That your partying and drinking are too much? You are your own worst enemy, Gabe. I picked you up when you were close to checking out, man. You stop making moves on Fern.”
I gulped as I saw his eyes read mine. He looked at me for a long second, and I knew he knew.
“Motherfucker, you already made the move. You went behind my back and took advantage of my sister!”
The good news, he didn’t throw the knockout punch. The bad news, I felt my feet leave the floor as he hurled me into the lockers behind me. I got up and went right back to him. I stood chest-to-chest ready to take it. I had gone behind his back, and I had hurt his sister.
“I care about her.”
“You care about her? Then end this now.” He spoke through gritted teeth. “You know as well as I do that you’ll end up breaking her. You’re a wild card, and we both know how things end when you’re involved.”
His words were beating me harder than his fist ever could. They were all true.
“You can’t stand there and tell me you don’t have a single doubt about yourself and what you’re capable of doing to people. To her? That what you feel today won’t be gone in a month or two? That once you get used to her, you’ll have all the shit from your past resurface, making you cut and run? We both know what you do, and you can’t change. You’re the way you are from your messed-up past, and you’ll be that way forever. Not good enough for Fern.”
I stood silently, taking my punches like a man as my insides were falling. I wanted to get the hell out of there, but my legs wouldn’t move. It was familiar. It was my birth mom’s slum apartment with her boyfriend, telling me to get lost. That I was a useless nothing. The other kids in the many foster homes I lived in telling me I was dirt because my mother died of an overdose. That I would someday too because I was wired like a loser, and that’s all I’d ever be.
These were the words I’d spoken to myself thousands of times. And they were the truth. It killed me, but it was true. “This is different.” My sentence was weak, unbelievable. Like me.
