Plié and Clout

Chapter 47: Thanks, kinda.

"I don't think you'd like a relationship like Fen and I have, Steph. I think you'd hate it."

"Why?"

"Fen and I treat each other like we're brothers." She turns a little pink around the ears. "I mean, wrestling but competitively, scrimmaging but no boundaries whatsoever. We make fun of each other and play sometimes merciless pranks on each other. I think you need something with a lot more cushion than that. I doubt you'd like it if August roasted you for everything you did."

"What do you mean?"

"I think you're a little sensitive to like what Fen and I have, in the least offensive way possible."

"Alright, but," I rub my hand over my eyes. "You're stable, you tell each other everything, you're still together."

"Trust me, Steph," She pulls my hand off my eyes. "We have rough patches too, just like any relationship. You and August will turn out just fine."

"How can you be sure?"

"I'm not sure, but you can at least hope." She must have just seen the permanent red stains on the edges of my eyes and that they're welling up again now. "Oh, Steph,"

"It's not a big deal, I'm fine." I blink a couple times.

"No, it is, this is my team, my boys, I gotta make sure all of you are okay," she looks around, "go back to your room at the hotel, take a shower, and if you're up for it, and only if you're up to it, come to media, I really want you to skip it, but if you want to, you can come." she's chewing her lip, studying me in the way she does to everyone, picking out every weakness she can fix and then exactly how to do it. Normally it's only for hockey, but this conversation has proven to me that she can do emotions too. "I'm making Rocket and Yeti stay on you at all times, you can't mope on a roadie, that's for when we're home. We need to keep you busy, it's going to suck but the less time you have to breathe the less time you have to think."

I snort. "That directly contradicts the shower statement."

"No it doesn't," she crosses her arms, "difference between moping and taking care of yourself. You're ragged at best and you need a break from peak-season. After that we're giving you constant fire things to do until you have time to take care of yourself again."

"Thanks." I mumble, "kinda." 

AUGUST

I'm watching hockey. I hate myself for it, but I'm watching hockey. It's not the best decision I've ever made and it's surely not the worst, but it's somewhere in the bad.

August is at Zak's tonight, like 6/7 days of the week. She's mostly moved in over there, but somehow the thought of having to live alone is weird to me. I'm not sure I like it. I definitely didn't notice that I was going to have to live alone when I was with Steph, I spent about a night a week sleeping over at their house, cuddled up with him, peacefully ignoring all the weird red flags in his life.

It really should've been straight up obvious he wasn't who he said he was. The people that showed up to his birthday that were all clearly not engineers, the fact that none of them were really canadian and all of them were too athletic for their own good. The business trips and staying until midnight at the 'office' some days. It really should've made sense that no normal business has hours like that.

The fact that he didn't have any social media, according to him, yet knew about everything Jilly posted, the fact that I knew there was an instagram, twitter, you name it, on his phone. The fact that he never ate anything unhealthy, scratch a few marshmallows here and there but nothing else. He lives off grilled chicken, cereal and noodles with minimal toppings. I knew that was weird, but I thought it was just a preference thing.