Better Together (Patrick Kane)

14| I Love This Part

Patrick

I lay down in my bed tossing a practice ball up and down. It used to be a drill to work on my hands my dad had me do for hours to work on hand eye coordination but for right now it was just keeping me sane. It was 2008 now and the season was starting to round out. I had been playing pretty well and that was mostly thanks to Danny. Her hockey insight is incredible to say the least. She was able to take my game to a professional level and the stats show it. And although things between us has been sticky recently we always find our way to each other again. That's one of my favorite things about us.

But the longer I go on feeling like this the more I realize that I can't do this anymore. Seeing Jon almost kiss her, I panicked. The thought of her being with someone else frightened me. I couldn't imagine how she's been feeling these past few months when I run off with Amber. And now I know what I must do.

Amber comes down the stairs and plops on my bed. She notices something is different and sighs.

"There's something wrong, isn't there" she starts.

"Not with you, no. I just, I don't think I can be with you anymore. I can't see us going any further than we are now" I admit.

"You want to be with her, don't you" she asks.

"I always wanted to be with her. But I couldn't for the longest time" I explain.

"And now you can" she asks.

"I don't know. Probably not yet because I've done some questionable things. I wouldn't want to be with me if I was her but she always see things in me most miss. So maybe she does. But I do want to be her friend in the very least and being with you isn't helping that."

"I see. Is this because I said you can't be friends with her?"

"That's part of it. But in the end it comes down to the fact that she is very important to me and I haven't been treating her right lately. I should be the reason she smiles, not the reason she cries, and that's exactly what's been happening lately. And that's not really something you can do about it. It's kinda between her and I" I explain. "There really isn't anything you can change that will fix this. It's just how I feel. I'm sorry it had to be like this. I really do like you... it's just-"

"You love her" she finishes for me.

"I do. No matter how much I tell myself I don't or that she won't love me back I know both of those are a lie. I wanted to be with you to prove to myself that I can go on without her but that's a lie too. And I've been so terrible to her in her process" I sigh.

"She'll forgive you. I know she will" she says patting my back.

"Thank you. And I really am sorry" I insist.

"I know. I'm honestly surprised we lasted this long" she jokes and I laugh.

"Yeah. It's been a good few months" I admit and she nods.

"Well I guess I should leave. Good luck Patrick" she says kissing my cheek and getting up. She leaves and I let out a long breath. I didn't want to do it but I had to. I knew she would understand, she knew from the start how I felt but still gave me a chance. It gave me a chance to figure things out and I did.

I lay back down and continue to toss my ball. I go through my phone and delete all the pictures I had of us. I throw away the hair ties and other things she kept around here and I could finally move on.

I go upstairs and find Danny sitting in the kitchen baking. She had her "kiss the cook" apron on and I was half tempted to.

"Whatcha making" I ask.

"Someone's favorite" she smirks and I perk up.

"It wouldn't be the brownie cookies you make that taste like heaven" I ask a tad bit too excited.

"It is" she assures me. I watch her cook for a little before she puts the food in the oven and jumps on the counter with me.

"Amber left kind of quickly, is everything okay" she asks.

"We actually broke up" I say and she freezes. She squints her eyes and I try to read her body language.

"Why" she asks.

"I wasn't happy. I couldn't make her happy" I shrug.

"It's because of me, isn't it" she asks and I sigh.

"Not directly. I liked her and but she wasn't you. She made you uncomfortable around me she was around and I didn't like seeing that. She didn't want me to be friends with you. So it had something to do with you. But even if we don't end up together we would have separated" I explain and she nods. It falls silent as we sit there swinging our legs over the edge of the counter.

"So... what do you want to do" she asks.

"I want to prove myself as a friend to you first, because I've been a pretty bad one lately. Then, if you're feeling it, we can try it out" I suggest and she smiles big.

"I would love that" she admits.

"And I would like to start right now, with a bunch of food not in my diet and this" I say holding up a copy of Miracle.

"Oh yeah" she laughs holding her hand up and I high five her. Yeah, we're going to be fine.

We get the food out the oven and grab a carton of ice cream then retreat down to my room. We make our plates and she curls into my side as we watch the movie. Both of us knew our lines pretty well and enjoyed reciting them.

At one point in the movie I look down as she rests under my arm. She was smiling bright as the US defeated Russia in the semis and celebrated on the ice.

"I love this part" I say at the same time as her and she laughs. She looks up to me, happy as ever. And that was encouragement enough that I did the right thing.