The Road to the Cup ~ Wattys 2015

As Long As You're Mine

Sidney's Point of View

I stared after Erin as she left. She had just taken off Abdelkader's necklace and put it away. And then she had told us to 'have fun'. She didn't mean it, and I knew that. It gave me a little hope that she might still love me, even with Abdelkader and Derek being in love with her and Annalise dating me.

"Come on, Sid, she said have fun," Anna pulled me toward her and tried to kiss me.

"Don't call me that," I said, trying to keep some space to myself. I had brought her back here so that the guys wouldn't see us fighting, but then I had gotten upset with myself and the fact that Erin was seeing someone that wasn't me and had another guy falling all over her when I couldn't have her. With that anger and the alcohol in my system, I had started kissing Annalise, trying to use her as a release for my feelings. It was stupid, and I realized that now.

Annalise, however, was thrilled. She had wanted to kiss me weeks ago, but I had resisted. It was my fault that we hadn't touched very much; it just hadn't felt right to me.

"What happened? We were having fun," she complained.

I resisted the urge make a snarky comment. Erin may have taken off his necklace, but she still had a boyfriend. I couldn't just drop Annalise for a girl who had never told me, outright, that she loved me.

"Sidney?" Annalise said, pouting.

"Come on, let's go back to the party," I told her, taking her hand.

There was no more sneaking off and making out. I knew Erin had been being sarcastic earlier, and I had realized that I wasn't actually ready to move forward with Annalise. If Erin hadn't walked in on us, I would have repeated my previous mistakes, and I didn't want to do anything that had the potential to hurt Erin, again.

I would have gone to talk to Erin, but I couldn't escape Annalise. And even if I had, I wouldn't have had the nerve to go up to Erin when she was surrounded by the rest of the guys, so I left her alone.

We met before the game the next day. She was wearing the necklace again, and while it upset me, I didn't let her see that it did. It wasn't any of my business. She had a boyfriend, and a guy waiting in the wings if the need arose. They loved her and had never hurt her. I had, and it would always be there. I could never redeem myself to her completely, so I would be her best friend and I would try to support her to the best of my ability. She deserved better than me, and I had no right thinking that I deserved her. She was too good for me.

I attended the team's New Year's Eve party with Annalise. We didn't have a game, so we went out for the night. The Red Wings traditionally played on New Year's Eve, so Erin had told us, and she had flown back to Detroit to be with her family and watch the game. We turned on the game at the bar to watch, too. The game had pretty much ended, so everyone else had gone to dance for a while before the countdown to the new year. I stayed in the back room, watching the final plays of the game.

Abdelkader scored on an empty netter. Yay. The Red Wings won, and I was about to shut it off, when I saw it happen. He was heading off the ice into the tunnel to the locker room and Erin was right next to the rails. He looked up and smiled at her, and she leaned down to kiss him. I choked on my beer; I thought she was dating Derek! "Well, we know who Abdelkader will be kissing at midnight!" The announcers laughed.

I opened and closed my eyes a few times and tried to erase the image from my mind. Her love life should not matter to me. We weren't dating, just best friends, but apparently that didn't mean I got to know who she was dating. 'You have a girlfriend; you don't need to worry about who Erin is dating,' I told myself. She would never hear about this from me. As far as I was concerned, that had never happened.