HOCKEY IMAGINES: BOOK 2 // REQUESTS CLOSED

#29: CARTER HART - #79 PHILADEPHIA FLYERS

A/N: Quick authors note, this one is a loooooong one so buckle your seatbelts and get ready because it's a wild ride! It's over 10K long, enjoy.

I see how he is with my mother, that man I am supposed to call my father. I see how much being with him tears her up inside. I see how much it breaks her up inside when she watches his back leave the house to go meet up with his many mistresses. He never goes out of his way to hide the fact he is seeing other women behind her back, in fact he makes a point to announce where he is going when he leaves late into the evening.

I wish my mother would up and leave him, I wish we could leave this man and start a fresh somewhere new. Just me and her against the world but she chooses to stay with him after everything he has done, she stays with this monster. And I know why she does it, she wants to pretend that nothing is wrong with our family when I know everything is wrong with it, and it hasn't been right for a long time.

I was young when I first started to see things were not great between my mother and father. I always knew my family were different because of the title my father holds, but when I went to my friends' houses and saw how their parents interacted with each other, it was completely different to how my parents acted around one another and even me included.

I have never brought it up to them that I know what is going on with their relationship, I keep it silent and bottled up inside of me. And because of how their relationship is, it's taken a toll on how I see my relationships with men. Seeing how committing to a relationship, to one man has affected my mother, I don't want that to happen to me. I'm scared of letting myself go and fall for someone who may end up one day doing the same thing to me that my father does to my mother. I see how it affects her, how life is one big strain on her, and I don't want that to happen to me.

And after another dramatic exit by my father saying he is going out for a while, I left the house to let my mother clear her mind for a bit and that's why I currently find myself sat in a small cafe reading a book.

I sigh and turn the page, my eyes taking in every word written on the pages. I hate leaving my mother alone after my father makes his exits, but there are times when I must get out from there as well. I'm living in a dysfunctional home and I can't escape it, not until my mother comes with me. That's the reason why I have stayed this whole time, I would have left that place the moment I turned eighteen, but I didn't, I stayed to make sure my mother is alright. I can't leave her alone with that man and the moment I leave that house, she is coming with.

I am so engrossed in my own thoughts of the problems I am having at home, I don't hear the chair in front of me scrape across the floor. It is the cough from the person who took the seat grasps my attention. My head lifts off the page, my brow scrunching in confusion when I see a male my age sitting in front of me.

"Can I help you?" I ask closing my book over as I stare into his eyes.

He gestures to the book in my hands, a sheepish smile forming on his lips. "I saw you reading that book." He says, his eyes making their way back onto me and I straighten up under his gaze. I feel a weird sensation in the pit of my stomach when his eyes keep looking at me, they are beautiful eyes.

"What about it?" I question him. My thoughts going wild as to why he decided to sit down here in front of me when there are plenty of other free tables to sit at.

He smiles again, a genuine smile that has me rooted in my spot. "I've read it before, it's quite an interesting read." I watch as he raises a hand to push back his hair that falls in front of his eyes, the simple gesture almost has my heart beat quickening its pace.

I tilt my head to him, my eyebrows pulling together as I still try to understand why he is sat in front of me. "And?" I say squirming in my seat when he looks at me from under his lashes. What the heck is going on with my body here? Why is it reacting this way to a male I have never met before?