Running Away From a Past Life

Chapter 17

    That last day in the hospital went by quick. Ian and I made it through the last night talking until I passed out. I woke up the next morning to my doctor setting up a wheelchair to take me out in. I was beaming with excitement to finally go back home, not to mention the fact that Mia was fine. I realized that I had almost lost her, and now things were back to normal.

    Aunt Liz decided that it was ok for Ian to stay with us until things were more settled. Ian was busy at the computer doing all of his homework via email with the teachers. I felt bad that he wasn’t going to his graduation, but he said he’d much rather be here with me than sitting at a long, boring graduation ceremony. A few days passed and he received his diploma in the mail, along with a letter from a college hockey scout. Not too long ago, a scout from the University of Michigan came to one of Ian’s games and was inviting him to their school with a full ride scholarship to play hockey for them. Ian’s face lit up when he saw the letter.

“Ash! A scout from Michigan went all the way across the country to watch me play, and they want me to join their team!” Ian was like a little kid on Christmas.

His favorite team had always been the Detroit Red Wings, and since he was a kid his dream was to play with them at the Joe Louis Arena. And now here he was getting invited to a college team in Michigan, he was on the right road to actually end up pro after college. He hadn’t reached the point of realization yet, though, the thought had already crossed my mind that we were going to have a baby soon and moving around and college stuff would be difficult. Ian finally looked away from the letter and looked at me standing there holding my stomach. I could almost see his heart sink. My worst nightmare just came true. Ian’s dreams were on the line, I couldn’t let him not follow his dreams, he had worked hard and he is one of the best hockey players I’ve seen, not that I’d seen many but he occasionally convinced me to watch NHL games with him, and he was just as good as them. Ian was born to play hockey, and here I was holding him back.

    The week went by and the hockey issue didn’t come up once. It had been weighing heavy on my mind the whole time though, so I finally brought it up one night while Ian was looking up local job openings.

“Ian, I’ve really been wanting to talk to you about that letter.” I began.

“What letter?” Ian asked, completely consumed by the information on his laptop.

I gently grabbed the side of his face and pulled him over to meet my eyes. He quickly caught on and kissed me, then leaned his forehead on mine and opened his eyes, looking back into mine. Time slowed down and we both just sort of enjoyed the peaceful moment for several seconds. Mia was kicking away and Ian slid his hand down to my stomach and laughed. Life’s perfect I thought. There was just one thing that I needed to resolve.

“Ian, I want you to keep playing hockey, and I think you should accept the invitation to play with Michigan.” I looked seriously at him.

“Ash, you and I both know that can’t happen-”

“Why not?” I cut him off. “Our lives aren’t over…just more difficult and responsibility-filled.”

“It’s just…I don’t know…I need to be here for you and….it’s impossible.” He finally concluded.

“You’ll never get another chance like this. For one, the University of Michigan is a good school, and you’ll go there for free and play college hockey. Sure, it’ll be difficult having a baby and balancing college with a hockey career, but this is your one shot. I can tell you right now that I’ll do anything it takes to make this happen.”

    Another week went by, I was almost 22 weeks pregnant. Ian had talked to his parents about the college and hockey thing, and they were so proud of him for his great achievements and also said if we moved to Michigan, they’d buy us a house in Ann Arbor, where the University of Michigan is located, since Ian going to college would cost nothing. They had saved up a ton of money for college for him, so they were basically using it for a house and his new hockey gear and school books. Not to mention the fact that Ian’s parents are pretty well off with money. I remembered Ian’s old house that was nearly as big as Lauren’s from the party I went to what seems like so long ago. This was becoming more and more of a possibility! Money wasn’t an issue because there’d be no college fee’s, and Ian’s parents were buying his books and paying for a house for us. Ian asked me one more time if I was truly ok with this. I confirmed over and over again that I would do whatever it takes to get him to follow his dream, and that I was happy with this. He picked up his cell phone and called the scout.

    The Fall semester at the University of Michigan didn’t start until early August, which meant that Ian had three free months until college. This also meant that we had three months to find a house in Ann Arbor, set it up for Ian’s parents, since they still insisted on buying one for us, and getting moved in. On a side note, I also had three months to say goodbye to my friends and Aunt Liz. Other than the hardest part, being saying goodbye to Aunt Liz, saying goodbye to Olivia was going to be nearly impossible as well. Even if I stayed though, she would’ve gone off somewhere to college so it was an inevitable fact that I would have to say goodbye to my best friend in the entire world. Sure, I knew we’d see each other sometimes, but things would be very different; Olivia has always been there for me, but now we were going our own ways in life. She is a friend that I know I’ll never ever lose though, and for that I was so thankful. Corinna would be the next hardest person to say goodbye to. Her and I had become very close lately, especially when she gave up her longtime friendship with Madison to do the right thing. I had a lot of respect for Corinna.

    A week went by as Ian and I planned and looked through catalogues of houses. I was 23 weeks pregnant at the time, about 17 more weeks to go. I called Olivia and Corinna and we all went on a triple date. Olivia was still with Josh, and Corinna had recently been asked out by a guy named Anthony, who was sort of a nerd, in the fact that he was a bit more shy and really smart and dedicated to school. There’s nothing wrong with nerds though, it may sound crazy, but I was a bit of a nerd myself in school. My favorite classes were calculus, chemistry, and anatomy, and I got straight A’s on my final report card. Other than being nerdy, Anthony was actually pretty hilarious, and had a pretty nice body to go with it. Corinna had found a perfect guy for her personality. We all went to a movie and then out to Olive Garden for a nice dinner. Ian and Josh were talking excitedly about this one part in the movie and Anthony quickly jumped into the conversation, leaving us girls to chit-chat with each other. I just had to tell Olivia and Corinna all about Ian going to play hockey at the University of Michigan, and broke the news about moving there.

“Oh. My. God! NO FREAKING WAY!” Olivia caused a bit of a scene and almost jumped out of her chair. “I’m going to U of M too!!!!!” She squealed with excitement.

I had made fun of her for causing the scene, but I ended up being the one jumping out of my seat and hugging her as we jumped around all kinds of excited. Corinna just laughed and we both apologized, and she told us it was ok because she was going to be just one state over, so fortunately for us we wouldn’t be too far away and could still hang out on occasion.

“Dibs on being babysitter!” Olivia raised her hand and nearly shouted. By this point, the guys had stopped talking and were staring at us like we were crazy.

“When are you going to be home?” Aunt Liz texted me a few minutes later.

“Should b home soon. Y?” I texted back.

“There’s something important that I need to talk to you about.” She texted back, I didn’t know what she was talking about but I instantly became nervous.