nhl one-shots | multi

my person | c. hart

my person | c. Hart

Summary: when you just can't take that emotional leap, and it seems Carter can't either.

"I can see you're still awake- is everything okay?"

It was the first text that had made Y/N stop and think for more than a moment that entire day. Her nose was buried deep into a chemistry textbook that had sunk it's claws into her back. The various formulas and equations having her tied around the throat, barely giving her enough room to breathe.

The lamp on her desk illuminated her small bedroom- her apartment only big enough to allow her a washroom, kitchenette and a mattress. Ever since she had started school that year, the majority of her room had been taken over by textbooks and binders- and half empty tissues boxes with a pile of snot rags growing steadily beside it everyday.

"School is being a bitch" she replied. Her eyes trailing to the bedroom window. Behind her cream coloured curtain, she could see across the street. Her apartment was up on the twenty-first floor so there was a nice view of the city below her. The apartment building across the street had various lights scattered amongst it.

Given the time, it was no surprise to her that normal people would be asleep by now. But across the silent road, there was a single window that her lips turned upwards at. Room 35, 25th floor.

Thats where Carter lived.

A sweetheart by Y/N's own definition. And if she asked around, she was sure that his reputation would live up to the word.

Carter was a very important person in Y/N's life. He might not know it, but he was.

Even though they hardly spent any time together, let alone saw each other in passing, He always seemed to be the one person that could tell when Y/N wasn't okay- or when she just needed someone to give her a little bit of hope.

She thought that he might think of her the same way, but there was a very good chance that would never happen. While Carter played hockey for the local team, Y/N was a full time student, too busy to get a job but too much free time to really develop any hobbies or skills.

She lived on her student loan and luckily for her it was enough to keep her afloat, even if some months she had to stretch her budget pretty thin.

That was one of the nice things about Carter though. He didn't seem to care that he and Y/N were from different classes. Sometimes he would drop in with a box of pizza and a bottle of wine, others he would appear with a box of cupcakes that YN knew better than to indulge on.

It was the little things that Carter seemed to notice that made Y/N's life a lot easier.

"Fuck it- you don't need it anyway"

Y/N laughed softly at her phone, her smile widening. There was a cramp in her cheek and she realized she had spent the majority of the day frowning and furrowing her brows- so much so that any change in expression pained her.

She would love to take Carters advice and just throw her books away, tell her professors that they could piss off and flip the off after dropping out of school. But she knew that wasn't an option. Not for her anyways.

"Not everyone has million dollar contracts waiting for them Harty" she sighed.

Looking out her window, she noticed a silhouette in carter's apartment. She couldn't make out his features, but she could see him standing in the window- his shadow giving him away.

Y/N imagined that Carter was smiling in her direction, that his blue eyes were glittering from the reflection of the traffic lights on the street. She wished she could see Carter's upturned smile from the illumination of his phone screen. The pale blue light highlighting every slant and Crook of his jaw.

"I could just pay for your whole life. You would never have to lift a finger"

His words had caught Y/N off guard. Never in their whole inkling had they discussed them being anything more than friends. Sure they had a few romantic gestures here and there, but Y/N had always convinced herself that she was reading into things and she was getting carried away.

"I would have nothing to give back to you." She told him, it was truthful. The woman was a thousand things, but willing to take charity was not one of them. She had grown up with the idea that you work hard for what you have, and if you didn't have to, then it was never really yours.

Carter frowned. "I wouldn't need anything in return." He sighed. He knew that the conversation was entirely hypothetical but he just wanted to take care of her.

Y/N sighed. She reached out and took his hand kindly, her eyes smiling. "I know..." She told him. For the night they stayed there sitting in their own silence, nothing uncomfortable about the situation, just the pair of them simply being

There was no heavy awkward conversation between the two of them, no tension in the room that could be cut. They were on different schedules, completely different wave lengths.

Even from across the road, Y/N knew that. Carter did too.

As much as they both wanted to speak up and tell the other that they had feelings, or rather inclinations of something more. They never would.

Whether it came down to time as an excuse, or simply thinking that the other wasn't interested, They would remain in emotional limbo with one another.

Until the very last day Y/N graduated, and the day Carter was traded to a team in Canada.

It wasn't in the cards for them. But even though, they would always be friends. The other's person.