Chapter 52

I hope everyone has a Happy New Years! Sorry this chapter couldn't be a little more upbeat for the occasion, but you know how it goes. Have a safe and fun night tonight!










Sidney stared at the door long after Tanner walked out of it. What had happened? Two days ago everything between them was fine and now he felt like it had all fallen apart. He needed to figure out how and why. It was obvious what the last straw for Tanner had been, but how had it gotten to that point?

He struggled to think back on the last week, the last few weeks, to see if he could remember anything that would signal that things had been headed south, but nothing came to mind. Everything had been normal and then they’d snapped, but things didn’t just suddenly break down like that. Something had to have started to put stress on their relationship to cause tonight.

He turned and walked into the living room, collapsing down on the couch with his head in his hands. He wasn’t going to be able to handle this until he knew what had gone wrong. He started to work backwards through the events in the last day or two hoping to find the cause. It was the only way he could think to figure it out.

Tanner had left because of Tamara. He’d had Tamara over for dinner despite knowing how much Tanner didn’t like her. Hell, he didn’t even like her. Then he’d sent Tamara down to the wine cellar to get a bottle. He hadn’t looked at what she’d chosen when she opened it and poured a glass for each of them. He should have paid attention. He honestly hadn’t even noticed what bottle of wine it was until Tanner told him. For that he’d never forgive himself.

He’d invited Tamara over to get back at Tanner. It was petty, but he had been hurt. She hadn’t come to bed the night before, instead choosing to sleep in a guest room. They’d had arguments before, but they’d always gone to bed together. Then she hadn’t come down for breakfast like she always did and when he’d called home after practice she wasn’t there. He’d guessed and gone to the deli she frequented for lunch and saw her there smiling and laughing with another guy.

It wasn’t even the fact that she was having lunch with another guy that hurt. It was the look on her face that hurt him. He saw that sparkle in her eyes when she laughed that he felt he hadn’t seen in so long. He wasn’t sure when exactly he’d realized it had gone away, but he knew it wasn’t there. Yet when he saw them laughing together, he saw it again. And it was directed at someone that wasn’t him. It stung more than he’d like to admit.

Tanner hadn’t come to bed the night before because of their argument. He’d been angry about the game that night and when he’d gotten off the ice all he could think of was seeing Tanner smile at him and he knew it would all fade away. He’d walked into the family lounge only to have the girls tell him Tanner hadn’t shown up to the game. She hadn’t even called or texted him to tell him she wasn’t going to be there and no one else knew where she was, including Grace.

He wasn’t angry at her for not going, he was angry at her for not telling him or anyone else for that matter. If she’d told him earlier in the day that she was going to stay home and work on her paper he would have been fine with it. If she’d called and left a message for him to find on his phone after the game he would have been fine with it. Instead there had been nothing. Not a word from her about where she was.

For all he knew something had happened to her, and after the past year that she’d had, he was legitimately worried. He spent every day wondering if he was going to come home to bad news. Every time Tanner sneezed, coughed, even looked tired he had to fight the urge to drag her to the hospital to make sure everything was okay. When she hadn’t shown up to the game and hadn’t called anyone to tell them she wouldn’t be there he’d just about panicked.

Instead he’d gotten home to find her sitting at the desk in front of the computer. She hadn’t even come out to see him when he’d gotten home. It was also apparent that she hadn’t even checked in on the game. Did she care that little about what he did? She couldn’t take two seconds to either check the score for a final or walk out of the office and ask him about it?

They’d argued about her not being at the game, but he was pretty sure they both knew they weren’t really upset about that. Now that he’d thought back on it he knew why they’d argued. He was angry because she hadn’t shown any concern for what had gone on with him that night and for making him worry about her. She was apparently still angry at him for not telling her about who he was a year ago.

He was so tired. He’d spent the last year trying to be perfect for her. It was exhausting. He’d screwed up back then, he could admit that, but hadn’t she told him that she forgave him and she was past that? Didn’t that make her a liar too? He couldn’t do it anymore. He couldn’t walk on egg shells around her because he was afraid she’d get mad. People screwed up. He would screw up. She was just going to have to accept that if she wanted to be with him. He didn’t expect her to be perfect so why should he have to be?

He got up and walked upstairs to go to bed. He walked into the bedroom and was met by pictures of the two of them smiling out at him. He turned around and walked out and headed into a guest room. He just couldn’t sleep in their bed until he knew they’d be okay. They had a lot of things to talk about, and it couldn’t come at a worse time. He was leaving tomorrow for a week long road trip.

He woke up the next morning when he heard a bang. He bolted upright in bed and listened for a moment. He heard another sound come from their bedroom. Tanner was home. Sidney jumped out of bed and rushed into the room, eager to get things talked out. He froze just inside the doorway when he saw Lisa and Kelly dragging suitcases out of the closet.

“What are you doing?” he asked. They both jumped at the sound of his voice and then turned to look at him. Boy, if looks could kill.

“Getting more of Tanner’s stuff,” Lisa said coldly.

“What do you mean? Why?” he questioned, a knot forming in his stomach.

“Are you that fucking dumb?” Kelly shot at him. Lisa elbowed her in the ribs and gave her a small shake of her head. Then she turned her attention back to Sidney.

“Tanner asked us to get some things,” Lisa told him. For the first time, Sidney noticed that there were other bags packed and sitting near the door where he was standing. A lot of bags.

“Why would she need all of this?” He could hear the shake in his own voice. He also felt like he knew the answer, but he didn’t like it. He was hoping that there was some other excuse. He looked between Lisa and Kelly who were avoiding his gaze and chewing on their lips nervously.
“We thought you’d be at practice already,” Kelly said quietly, refusing to answer him.

“We’re not practicing this morning because we’re flying to Anaheim. Just answer me.”

“Maybe you should just talk to Tanner later,” Lisa suggested.

“Tell me!” he shouted in a small panic.

“She told us she was moving into Grace’s guest room for a while,” Kelly said, her eyes on the floor.

He felt like he’d been punched. Tanner was moving out? It had been his fear and they’d just confirmed it. This couldn’t be happening, could it? They hadn’t even talked, figured things out, so how could she just be moving out? Was it because of the wine, the argument, or the fact that he’d lied to her a year ago? He had to know what it was.

“I’m going over there,” he said more to himself than to the two girls standing in front of him looking more than uncomfortable.

“No! You can’t,” Lisa told him.

“Why not?” he demanded.

“She’s not there right now. She went into school early to study for her exam this afternoon,” Kelly explained.

Sidney felt his stomach lurch. Tanner never studied in the same place. Sometimes she’d go to the library, sometimes one of the many computer labs. Other times she’d pick an empty classroom, whichever felt more comfortable for her at the time. He’d never find her. He left the girls standing in the bedroom and rushed to get his phone from the guest room he’d slept in.

“Tanner, it’s Sidney. We really need to talk. Please. I don’t want to leave today for the week without talking to you. Call me back. Please,” he begged into the phone when her voicemail picked up.

He sat back in the kitchen as Lisa and Kelly carted most of Tanner’s things out of the house. He held his phone the entire morning waiting for Tanner to call him back. As the hours passed he felt more and more afraid that she wasn’t going to. Eventually he ran out of time and had to hurriedly pack and get to the airport to make the flight. He boarded the plane with just one thought running through his head. Were he and Tanner over?










I hit the ignore button on my phone as I sat in a quiet corner of one of the dining halls on campus when I saw Sidney’s number pop up on the screen. I waited until I heard the alert telling me that I had a voicemail and then picked it up. I listened to Sidney’s message as my hand shook. Then I deleted the message, put my phone back down, and went back to studying.

I bypassed the breakfast I had sitting in front of me when I took a bite of my bagel and realized I just wasn’t hungry at all. I pushed the tray away from me and tried to focus on the notes I’d made the night before. Now that I was looking over them, they didn’t make a ton of sense to me.

I shouldn’t have made them last night when I was so upset. They were a jumbled mess of words that didn’t resemble the English language to me right now. I put them away and pulled out the notes from class and the textbook. They were my only hope for my exam now.

I stayed in the dining hall until my back started to hurt from leaning over the table. I still had another hour until class so I made my way into a lounge in the building where my class was. I found it empty and sprawled out on the couch in it. I continued to scan my materials, but I felt like I was retaining nothing.

Finally it was time to head to class and take the exam. I struggled my way through the entire thing, cursing Sidney the whole time. If it hadn’t been for him, I would have been able to focus and probably ace this exam. Instead I knew I was going to have to settle for a B, if I was lucky.
I wasn’t at all in the mood for my second class that day, so I put my finished 15 page paper in the professor’s mailbox and headed to my car. I drove to Grace’s apartment and fished out the keys she’d given me so that I could get in while she was at work. When I walked into the guest room I saw bags of my stuff sitting on the floor along the wall. Lisa and Kelly must have grabbed everything like I’d asked.

I felt like my heart was ripping in half as I looked at them sitting there and I had to turn and walk out into the living room. I dug out a syllabus from one of my classes and checked what was due soon. By the time Grace was home from work I was a week ahead in that class and working on getting ahead in a second one.

She didn’t say anything to me past asking what I wanted for dinner and I was grateful. I didn’t want to talk about Sidney. I wasn’t ready to talk about him. I thought about his message earlier for probably the millionth time that day and fought back the tears that threatened. Who was he to say when we talked? We’d talk when or if I was ever ready. I was the one who'd been hurt.

Grace disappeared for a while until the dinner she’d ordered showed up at the door. I wasn’t sure what she’d been doing and I didn’t ask. I wasn’t up for much conversation. When we finished eating I went back to getting ahead in my classes and Grace disappeared again. I figured she knew I wasn’t good company right now and was giving me space.

The clock hit midnight and I closed my books. I’d been going on schoolwork nonstop since Friday afternoon when I’d found out about the exam today. My head thundered with a headache, probably from tension and I rubbed my eyes a few times to try to readjust them before I got up from the couch and headed to the guest room.

I walked in and saw in surprise that there weren’t any bags sitting on the floor any longer. I opened the closet door and saw that my clothes were all hanging neatly and my shoes were organized the way I liked them. I opened the dresser drawers and found more clothes folded and put away. That was what Grace had been doing all night.

I changed and got ready for bed before pulling the covers over my head. That’s when things hit me. The anger and grief struck me all at once. I’d been doing work all day and keeping myself distracted just to ward off these impending feelings. Now that I didn’t have anything to do they’d invaded my mind.

I was in Grace’s apartment instead of my own home sleeping in bed alone instead of next to Sidney. I thought about the sight of all of my clothes hanging in a strange closet and folded in a strange dresser. I clutched at the pillows and the blankets as I curled up into a tight ball and let the sobs tear through my body. I’d never thought it was possible to feel this much pain.