dear jack • jack hughes

010

MY GIRL
Jack's Point of View
📍Newark, New Jersey
October 2021

Lia is coming with me to morning skate today, then we're gonna go get lunch. I would like to think that it's a date, but I'm not trying to push anything.

Lia hasn't met the team yet, and this'll be a good chance for her to. WAG's come to the morning skates all the time. The only difference is that she's not a WAG, yet. Really pondered on that three letter word, yet.

The car ride there is quiet, I know she's nervous, but I don't know why. The team is going to love her, same with all of the WAG's. I know she knows this, but the nervousness is getting to her head so I give her what Lia has always needed: reassurance.

"It's going to be fine, Lia. They're going to love you, I know it." I speak for the team and the WAG's. She's still looking out the window. She taps her hand against her leg, she's counting.

I hesitate my next move, but it would sort of be me making a move, but you only live once, so I do it.

I think about grabbing her hand over the console, the one that isn't counting. I wouldn't want to take that away from her, I know that calms down her anxiety.

"Hey," I grab her left hand as we come to a red light. She looks at our hands then at me. I slightly try to pull away, but she doesn't let go. "It's going to be fine, I promise. If you don't want to go, I'll turn around right now."

"No, it's okay. I'm just in my head, that's all." She says returning her eyes to the window again. She doesn't let go of my hand, so I hold it for the rest of the car ride.

I know there's more things on her mind besides meeting the team, so once I put the car in park, I turn to her.

"What's going on in that pretty little head of yours, Lia?" She turns towards me just like I did a few seconds ago.

"I just.." She hesitates. She wants to say it, but she also doesn't want to say it.

"You can trust me, Lia. I know I haven't always made that clear in the past, actually I've done the opposite, but whatever you say stays in this car." I say.

"It's stupid, really." She says shaking her head, looking down at her lap.

"If it's bothering my girl this much then it isn't stupid, and it actually bothers me, too." I say.

"I've been.. thinking about my parents a lot lately." I wait for her to expand. "I just, I think about what would've happened if they didn't leave. If... you didn't leave."

I don't say anything, I know she has more to say. But even if she didn't, I don't think I could speak in this moment.

"I, I feel like I'm being haunted by all of these what-ifs. What if nobody ever left? Would things be different? How different? Would we be together? It's just- ugh. I know those things can't be changed and I should focus on the now, but I can't help but think about the past." She says.

"I can't speak for your parents, or my brothers, but I can speak for myself." I say. She looks at me, she wants me to continue.

"If I didn't leave, we still wouldn't be together. I left because I was scared of my feelings. I ran from them. And.. if that time taught me anything, it is that I'm done running from my feelings."

"Come on, let's go. We're leaving this in the car. And when we come back, it'll have left the car already, okay?"

"Mhm." She takes off her seatbelt and I turn off the ignition. Once we get into the practice facility, I walk with her to where the WAG's sit during the skate.

She smiles a nervous smile at me, like she's getting dropped off on her first day of Kindergarten. I give her a small thumbs up and leave her be.

After skate, the team and I are getting ready to head out. "Was that Liana I saw?" Mikey asks undoing the lace on his skates.

"Yeah, she's in town for a couple of days." I say. I have to ask her when she leaves. "She's actually waiting to meet you guys."

The few that are ready to leave stand up. "If anyone in this locker room pulls any shit, I'm cutting your fucking head off. I don't care if we're teammates, that's my girl you're talking to out there, treat her like it."

"Jesus fucking Christ, Hughes." Nico says under his breath. I continue doing all of my post game stuff, and I'm one of the last ones out of the locker room. I walk out with Dawson.

"Where's Liana?" Dawson asks. I thought she would've been waiting out here, but she's not.

"She went to meet coach." Nico states. I say bye to the guys, I don't know where she went to meet coach, so I wait for her by my car.

I'm leaning in front of it on the hood when Lia walks out. She has her arms crossed over her body, she looks upset.

"What's wrong?" This could've only been coach's doing. I swear to God if he did something to her.

"Nothing, Jack. Let's go to lunch." She says. Yeah, she's definitely upset about something.

"Did he hurt you?" Is my next question. My hands rest on either of the side of her arms. She won't look me directly in the eyes.

"It's not that big of a deal, Jack." She says. She's totally downplaying right now. She forgets that I've known her since I was twelve sometimes.

"Answer the goddamn question, Lia." She looks into my eyes then. The soft glow to them is gone right now, and I'm going to kill whoever took that away from my girl.

"Jack-" I cut her off.

"Did. He. Fucking. Touch. You." I don't have time to play games right now, I need to know what happened. Who took the glow out of her eyes.

"No, Jesus Christ. He didn't touch me." She finally admits. He did something else, though. I know it.

"Then what happened?" I ask.

"He just said some rude shit, that's all." She says. Once again, she's downplaying it.

"What did he say?"

"It doesn't matter, Jack."

"It does matter what he said if it's got my girl all worked up like this." I pause for only a second. "And I'm not leaving here until I know what he said, even if I have to ask him myself."

"It wasn't your coach, it was just one of the male staff members. He said some stupid shit about you leaving Toronto was a good thing and I should've never came back into your life or some shit." She says. "I know it's stupid and I shouldn't have let it get into my head."

I'm going to kill that son of a bitch.

"Name."

"I, uh, I don't know. He was short, brown hair, wearing a Devils hoodie." She says.

Tyler McCoy.

"Wait here." I say.

"Jack, don't." I turn around. "I don't need you to do that, please. It's fine, okay? Let's go get lunch."

If I wasn't so in love with this girl, I would be punching his face in right now.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

i don't know who tyler mccoy is but i'm stealing his name