My Girl (Jonathan Toews)

26

Jonathan

We ended up beating the Kings in the western conference finals in a epic game five thanks to Patrick and yours truly. So we were back in the Stanley cup final for the first time since 2010. What started off as a awful year ended up being one of the best of my life. And I couldn't think of a better place to be to enjoy it all than by Alexis' side.

"Why are you staring at me" she asks and I turn my focus back on the road. We were off on a little day road trip with Kimberly to get away for a while. The kid was passed out in the back seat and we had been driving for about half a hour now. It was getting kind of crazy in Chicago and Alexis needed a break from skating so we decided to leave for a little.

"I'm sorry, I can't help it" I defend.

"It's not a bad thing, I kinda like it. But I don't get why you stare, you see me almost every day" she reminds me.

"I know, but I love looking at you. And not just because you're pretty, although you are indeed very pretty, but because just looking at you makes me so happy. You make me feel like I'm in a dream where someone like you would never end up with me. I guess I'm just reminding myself that you're real and that you really do love me" I explain.

"Do your friends know you're a softy" she teases and I chuckle at her.

"No. But my mommy does" I joke as she rolls her eyes at me.

"You're such a mommas boy" she accuses.

"I am" I agree.

"I would be too if I had your momma" she claims.

"Do you ever miss your parents" I wonder and she lets out a long sigh. She looks from the road down to the hands in her lap as she twiddles her thumbs.

"I still think about them from time to time, a lot more before you were a part of the picture. My parents and I used to have a good relationship until I got hurt. They believed in me and I would have done anything to make them proud. But when I got hurt the one thing they needed from me was the one thing I couldn't do. I needed them to listen to my struggles, to my fears and nightmares and they didn't. They tried to rush me to get back to the ice and I knew that if I did I would lose every chance I would ever have to ever be happy again. I couldn't go out there and be that girl my parents wanted to me to be, I was too broken. I could never be that girl I used to be and they just couldn't accept that. And I tried to tell them to listen to me but god, they refused to believe that what happened to me happened... sometimes that's the end for people. I was 19 and I had been going through the toughest part of my life and the only person there to support me was my toddler sister.

So I guess I miss parts of them, the good times we shared and all that we could have been. But if they ever come back all they're getting is a door in the face just like they did to us. They don't get to be here just when it's easy, they need to be here when it's hard. Especially when it's hard. They decided that without skating I was nothing and that's where they're wrong, because I was more than a figure skater. I'm still human and I still hurt. If I wasn't ready to face my demons yet then there wasn't anything they could do about it. They just didn't understand" she says barley above a whisper.

I'm the only person she has ever opened up about this, and even then it was hard. But she knows that I love her and Kimberly and would never hurt them in any way. I always listened like she wished her parents would and I don't give her that "everything is going to be okay" crap. I know that this path she's on is a hard one and she's been walking on it for a while now, through the hot stones and thumb tacks. But I carry her when her feet get tired and always stray her from the path time to time to have some fun. Kinda like today.

"I hope you know that you're enough. No matter what your parents think, no matter what happens with figure skating in the future, you are a wonderful human being. Kimmy brags about you all the time, she loves that you're her best friend and that you're taking care of her. She sees that you're trying and she wants you to be happy. She's so young but she's so smart, she's figured me out pretty well. And I get why you want to protect her, I do too. I just hope you know that your parents were wrong. You don't need figure skating to be worth something. You're a dime and I'm lucky to call you mine. It's like how I stare at you just thinking to myself that any man in the world would be lucky to have you, and I do. And they don't and that's their loss" I say.

"You really think that about me" she questions softly.

"I do. When times are hard is when you find out what people are really made of. Do they take responsibility and rise to the occasion or do they give up and point fingers? They're just using you as a excuse to run away from the fact that without you skating they had nothing. And they couldn't stand the fact that without skating you still could have been something, something that wouldn't need them to be there for in order for it to happen. So they dipped and blamed you and you rose up and got a job to support your sister. You did exactly what you had to to make your sister safe and happy" I claim.

"Well I was doing a pretty shitty job of it. She almost died when she had pneumonia and I lost my job at the diner not too long after that. If it wasn't for you we would be on the streets somewhere or she could be dead" she admits.

"And if it wasn't for you trying to protect your sister I would have never stopped to help" I remind her.

"I just want her to have a good life, not to live with so much heartache like me. That's why I kept the whole skating thing away from her, so she didn't end up like me. But she's a smart cookie, she figured it out pretty quickly" she admits.

"I think it's pretty simple. You're amazing and that's all there is to it" I say and she giggles.

"Well thanks for believing in me."