HOCKEY IMAGINES: BOOK 2 // REQUESTS CLOSED

#4: AUSTON MATTHEWS - #34 TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS

Song: Timezone - The Shadowboxers. 

How is it possible that we're still together?

I haven't properly saw Auston in two years, he lives in Toronto, Canada and I live in Los Angeles, America. Somehow we're still together as a couple, but are we really? It's strange, it's like we're trying to keep up something that's not there, something that has faded away before our very eyes.

We started going together in grade 11, we were in the same high school and knew about each other but never spoke to one another until one day Auston came up to me and asked for a dollar to buy a bottle of water. Since that day, almost four years, Auston and I have had a relationship. How did we make Switzerland work? He was on the other side of the freaking world and now that he's three hours ahead of me and living on the same continent, our relationship is failing. How can we not make this work now? The only time I see Auston is when he's in the state of California with his team or during the summer when we're finished for the year, we talk and message each other every day but it feels like we're trying too hard. It's almost like a job; our relationship is becoming a job that we're both working on to maintain.

Yet, I love him. I love Auston and I've continued to love him throughout our relationship, but it's getting hard to continue to love him. Two years! It's been two years since we can properly say that we've been in one another's company. We're working towards something that's not going to last, but how long will it be before we both give up on this?

"Are you going to be coming up next week?" Auston asks looking at me through the laptop camera, he's in Toronto playing ice hockey while I'm currently in LA at university. I raise my head from my notes and bite at my bottom lip, I can't go visit him anymore. I was supposed to fly out to Toronto to see Auston next week but now I can't, now I have to stay in Los Angeles and finish my paper before my exams start.

"Uh." I start and let a deflating sigh leave me.

"You're not coming out anymore." Auston sighs and shifts on his bed. I let another sigh leave me and turn my attention off Auston, I look at the mound of notes and paper that fills my bed that I need to study before finishing my paper.

"I do want to come see you, but I've to finish my paper before the end of April and study for my exams that are coming up." I tell and plead my case to Auston. Most of our Skype calls are like this, most of them last half an hour and then we hang up. It still baffles my mind that we haven't broken up with how we are with one another, it's not healthy yet I still love him throughout everything we have been through. How can I still love him when we hardly communicate anymore? Isn't that one of the main components to maintain a relationship? I want Auston and I to work things out, I want us to be together for the long haul but how can we when we live two different lives in different time zones?

"It's alright, I understand." Auston says and shrugs his shoulders, he rests his laptop on his stomach. I cast my gaze back up to Auston, his eyes are looking at me through the camera. I love his dark brown eyes, they were the first thing that drew me in to him and now there is nothing felt when I look at them. I wish there was still that something there, I wish I could still look at them and feel everything I first felt when Auston and I started going together. Are we just keeping this relationship going because we're both scared to see what would happen if we end it? I've spent four years of my life with Auston and he's become a big part of my life, but if we end things what happens then? How do I go on living my life without him in it? As much as I want to end things with Auston, I want to stay with him and make it through this rough patch of our relationship if that's what you can call it.

"I am sorry, I really did want to come see you." I say truthfully. I've wanted to see him since September, that's the last time we saw each other in person. When he came over with the team to play the Californian teams I was too busy with school and work that I couldn't make it to see him, I hated it but as much as I wanted to drop everything and go to him, it just wasn't possible.