Breaking The Ice

Right Here

Harry's POV

The car was relatively silent as I drove toward my Aunt and Uncle's, Teej and I obviously both taking time to process our own thoughts before we settled in for Christmas with my family, and I was just trying to make sense of all the things running through my head.

It was hard to comprehend all the different emotions I felt, the entire situation that had unfolded before me that morning was something that seemed to evoke things in me that I wasn't sure how to begin dealing with. I can't say that I was surprised that Tanner was such a piece of shit, or that Teej had reacted the way she did, but I just couldn't believe how much of it had gone right over my head. The more I thought about it the more obvious it was to me, and I felt like a proper dick for not piecing it together sooner.

I'd known there was something off about the way she was acting, that feeling in my gut that she wasn't being honest with me, that bell that seemed to go off in my head when I saw his black eye even though I didn't know what it was from. It's like some part of me knew what was going on, but my brain just couldn't connect it. I couldn't help but wonder if maybe I'd put it together sooner if I could have prevented it somehow, if I could have stopped those bruises from forming in the first place.

I wondered just how long it had been going on, how many things had happened right under my nose that I'd missed, not just from Tanner but from everyone in general. I'd obviously been no stranger to the comments made by chauvinistic assholes, but I suddenly had a perspective on it that was so hard to ignore.

She was right when she'd said there was a culture, and it wasn't like I'd been unaware of it, I just had no idea to the extent of it. I didn't know just how much it had affected the way she dealt with things, the things she unconsciously did without thinking that were so different than the way a man would, and it gave me so much more insight into how she came to be the way she was. Between the world that she lived in and the way her mother always treated her, it seemed like she was taught from birth that the way she felt didn't matter, that her opinions or her talents were irrelevant and she simply existed to serve a purpose to everyone but herself.

She'd found her own escape in hockey, the one thing she did for herself, and in order to do it she'd had to endure years of abuse and ridicule simply because she wanted to play. I couldn't wrap my mind around the fact that I knew about it, that I was aware of it, but at the same time it was like I had no idea. I felt horrible and guilty at the prospect that I may have been contributing to it somehow, that even though I may not have been the one to make her feel like that I also hadn't done much to stop it from happening, and that was the worst part.

There was good chance that I had unknowingly or inadvertendly contributed to it. I'd known the media was harsh on her, that some of our teammates were dicks and that sometimes when we were out there was always some guy trying to make his point, and I knew it was wrong and did my best to defend her. But had I really sat and thought about what that must feel like? Did I take the time to think about the situation as a whole rather than just chalking it up to a few people being assholes? Because when I thought about it on that drive home, it didn't feel like I really had.

I knew this was about so much more than hockey, that this situation spoke to a much bigger issue outside of the game in mainstream society that I was all too familiar with. The responsibility I felt to defend women as equal members of the world, to be part of a positive change in the way we did things, had driven me to try to understand. I'd tried to listen and be more conscious, more aware of the things going on around me, I'd tried to keep the promises I'd made myself and do things that would make things better, but after that conversation with Teej I realized just how little I understood of it all.

I think, like most people, I thought that we'd come far as a society. I thought that we were working towards things, that we'd made big strides in being aware of the way we treat people and making things equal, but the things she told me completely contrasted how I thought things were and it became glaringly obvious that I, along with most of the world, was looking at things through rose-colored glasses.