Malkin and Me

Chapter Ten

Eleven days felt equivillent to three hours. When he left, I sulked around again. He was gone for eight nights this time, the longest time yet. I tried to keep busy but there wasn't enough to do. I made Evgeni promise to call me every night, but sometimes he was so tired he could barley hold up a conversation. He called anyway. I read books and I watched movies. It still wasn't enough. He was only home for three nights before he was back on the road again.

"Evgeni, I'm trying, I really am, but this is making me insane!" I said, the morning before he was supposed to leave.

"Lida," he sighed. "I thought we worked this out."

"It's not the same for you as it is for me! You can speak English, you're with the team all the time. I'm always alone! My sister half the time can't talk for more than twenty minutes."

"I can't control your sister, or the team scheduale. Getting mad at me isn't going to fix this," Evgeni pointed out.

"I just want you to try and understand!" I wanted to pull my hair out.

"I do understand, Lida."

"No, you don't! You say you do, but you don't. Have you even thought for five seconds what it's like here when you're gone?" Frustration was quickly turning into anger.

"Tell me what you want me to do, and I'll do it."

"I want you to know how to make this fun and then do it."

"This is what it's like to date a hockey player! Not everything can be fun all the time." His tone was condescending, and it pissed me off.

"This is never fun anymore!" I yelled. I regretted it, it wasn't true, and I couldn't justify saying it.

"Then why are you even bothering?" Evgeni drooped immediately, looking like a melted candle.

"That isn't what I meant..." I started.

"No, Lida, it's fine. If you're not having fun, if this isn't what you want anymore, that's fine. Just don't pretend like it is." He turned away from me, picking up his bag.

"Evgeni, wait," I said.

"For what? For you to make this worse? Break-ups are bad enough, just leave it, Lida!" He snapped at me and slammed the door on his way out.

"Break-ups?" I repeated. I sank down to my knees, the tears that had built up in my eyes during the argument now cascading down my face. I stayed there for a long time, crying on the carpet at the bottom of the stairs. Even when I stopped crying, I didn't move.

Was that a break-up? Were we not together anymore? Would he still call that night? What was I supposed to do? Did he expect me gone when he got back?

That night, Evgeni was kicked out of the game for fighting. In the dressing room, he threw his equipment against the wall. He hid the pain he was feeling from that morning with anger, and the anger was far from fizzled. When the coach came in to yell at him for being an idiot, he stopped himself. Dan Blysma could see something was wrong, and decided to just leave it.

When Evgeni didn't call me that night, I cried until I fell asleep. In the morning, I resolved to fix it. I tried calling him, but there was no answer. I went to the grocery store to console myself, buying everything chocolate and caramal I could find. When I heard a male voice speaking in Russian, I turned around so fast that I hit my elbow against the shelf. It wasn't Evgeni, but a blonde boy speaking into a cell phone.

"You too, Grandma, bye," he said, hanging up.

"You speak Russian?" I said. He looked up, warily.