Dream On (Jonathan Toews)

Chapter Seventeen| Real Love

Jonathan

As the days pass Mary Kate continues to improve on her skills with us at practice which is crazy because she's already abundantly talented. She joins line rushes and even starts some defensive drills. We have doctors keeping a close eye on her and although they aren't happy with her playing hockey again they say if anyone can do it it would be her. She takes ibuprofen and iced almost every day so she's been fine and no one has yet to knock her off the puck so she's doing something right. We were 18 games in and still have yet to put a regulation loss on our record. Better yet we were riding a five game wining streak. Things around here were pretty much perfect. Everyone was healthy and happy and I was beyond blessed to have this life given to me.

"Why 87" I ask Mary Kate as we wrap up the morning skate before the Edmonton game tonight. "Isn't it obvious, Sidney Crosby is soooo hot" she says over dramatically. "I know you're joking... but that still stings" I say grabbing my heart. "I'm sorry come here" she says with her arms open as I skate into them. "Better" she asks and I nod. "You never told my why you chose this number" I remind her. "That's how many days I spent in the hospital. Couldn't walk for 30 and spent the other 57 relearning how to live again. And this time I was doing it on my own" she says. That was not what I was expecting. I know in college she wore 19 because I've watched a lot of her game tape but didn't expect her to change her number and for that reason. "That's deep" I comment as everyone exits the ice and we stay out. "It motivates me. I fought hard for 87 days to get my life back to being tolerable. Those 87 days were making the rest of my life worth living. And now that I'm here trying to make my dreams a reality, I wanted a reminder to how I got here" she admits. I start to head off the ice and notice she isn't following. "Are you coming" I ask as I was about to step off the ice. "Nope, gonna condition" she says skating to the far blue line. I step off the ice and decide to watch instead. For about ten minutes straight she was sprinting, never slowing down. I don't even get how she was doing this, a perfectly healthy person would collapse after five minutes. But there she was at top speed still going. After that she lines up about twenty pucks on the blue line and stick handles in and out of them before taking slap shots, each one going in. Once she finishes she comes off and find me in the hallway. "Were you there the whole time" she asks as I toss her a towel. "Yeah, you're a workhorse" I say. "Think like a defenseman and play like a forward" she laughs. Indeed.

We beat the Oilers in over time and get our win streak to six. It felt good to be able to come home and just relax. "Mary Kattttttte" I whine as I laid across the couch. "Yes dear" she calls coming out of her room. "Can you rub my back" I ask and she rolls her eyes. I sit up and she straddles my back before letting her fingers go to work. I don't know if it's that she's so gentle yet so rough or that she knows where every muscle is, but her back and shoulder rubs are to die for. I let out a moan and just hope she didn't hear that. "You're not slick" she giggles. "Shhhh, I think I'm in heaven" I say as she places a kiss on my jaw. Yup, I'm in heaven.

After a while I pull her to my side and she lays her head in my lap as I played with her hair. I could smell her soap as my fingers get tangled in her soft hair. After a while I notice she had fallen asleep. "Is she knocked out" Patrick whispers and I nod. "Lets fuck with her" he says too excitedly. "Touch her and I'll chop your hair off" I threaten and he steps back and into his room. He is a mess. I carefully pick her up and start to head to her room, as I watch her stir in my arms I decide to go to my room. I pull back the blankets and place her under them. She quickly curls up into a ball and I crawl under the blankets with her. As I lay beside her I watch as she stirs, she looked so peacful, I wonder what she was thinking about. "Jonny" she mumbles softly. "Yeah baby" I responds. "Can you hold me" she asks with childlike innocence. "Of course, come here" I say pulling her into me. I rest her head on my chest as her arms latch around my waist and our legs get tangled up. "I love you" she says quietly. "What" I ask. Did she just say she loved me? "I love you Jon, I always have" she says opening her beautiful crystal eyes. "I love you too" I say and she cracks that beautiful smile of hers.

She quickly falls back to sleep but I stay awake thinking about what happened. All these things I've been feeling, why I can't speak to her sometimes, why I constantly just want to make her happy, see her do good. It was all love, from the moment I laid eyes on her. She went from stranger to one of the most important people in my life in the matter of days.