PART NINETEEN: SEPARATION
The next week was surreal. I had already told myself before that dating Patrick could be difficult. He would be gone a lot and seeing him wouldn’t be easy, especially when we each had schedules we had to plan around. However, the whole thing still hit me like a brick wall.
We texted each other everyday. Knowing that I would at least be able to talk to him made things better. From my past experience, I had learned that guys were the worst texters ever. They didn’t usually put much effort into conversations on the phone. I knew when I was talking to Patrick though, that he actually wanted to make an effort. We could talk for hours if we had that much time. After only a few days, it seemed like we had known each other for years. Conversation came naturally for us, and whenever my phone lit up, my face did too. Tess could tell that I was being seriously affected by him. She lived with me, though. She saw me every day, so that wasn’t a big deal. The real wake up call came when even Brian and my parents could tell that I was acting differently. Brian and I only texted and Skyped, and my parents and I only talked on the phone, yet they could sense something in my voice when I mentioned my favorite player. By then, they had found out about our date, and their favorite thing to do was to tease me about my giant crush that was starting to seem more meaningful than just that.
I thought that I might at least be safe at hockey practice, but I wasn’t. Tess told everyone on the team everything that happened and before I knew it, they were putting more effort into embarrassing me than they put effort into drills. During games was the only time I was able to escape from everything, because my team and I were all focused on playing good hockey then.
It only took half a week for me to realize all of this. I still had a few days left before there was another home game for the Hawks, but I realized that I didn’t want to just talk to Patrick anymore. I didn’t want to just look at a picture. I wanted to physically be with him and feel his presence. Oh no. I was sounding like someone who was in a serious relationship. Patrick and I weren’t, though. We had only kissed a few times and gone on one date. It had never been confirmed that we were a couple, but I was acting like we were one. What if he had realized that I wasn’t worth a second date, let alone a long term or even short term relationship? I had to snap out of this daze I was in, because I had won the final competition of the Blackhawks internship. If I let my favorite player break my heart, I would never be able to go back to the UC, no matter what kind of offer they gave me, because I probably would never fully heal from something like that.
I thought about all that one night while laying in bed. It was one in the morning and even though I had a morning class, I was still awake to text Patrick. The things I did for him already. I had finally found a cozy position to lay in and as soon as I got warm, I had to go to the bathroom. If I had just gone to sleep at a normal time, I wouldn’t have had to go through such annoyances.
I got up and went to the bathroom, and once I got back in bed, I had a text from Tess, the girl who was literally only a few feet away from me and only separated from me by a wall.
>Why are you still up?
Tess slept with her door open just a crack, so whenever the bathroom or hallway light came on, it would light up her room. I never understood how anyone could sleep with their door open since I had to be in complete darkness when I slept, but I had to accept it. Apparently she was still awake and she noticed the light.

>My class is late, so I have every right to be up all night browsing Pinterest. Why are you talking to him again? It’s 1 am. Shouldn’t he be resting up for a morning skate?

>Doesn’t he know that you have a class in the morning? I mean, he should have realized a while ago that someone with a face like yours needs EXTRA beauty sleep

>Maybe

>I’m not coming in there! For one thing, that’s too much effort when I’m already comfortable. Plus, if I come in there you’ll get even more distracted from sleep and you’ll find yourself with your head on the desk in your class

>Oh, then skip it. You don’t ever skip, so why not

>Well I’m done talking to you then. Hurry up and tell Patty that you didn’t choose the college life, the college life chose you and you need sleep to survive it

>Patrick Kane’s mullet, your argument is invalid! Goodnight Lean!
As much as I hated admitting that Tess was right, she wasn’t lying when she said that I needed to go to sleep. I talked to Patrick only until he had gotten settled in his hotel room. By then I decided it was okay to say goodnight, since he had to get some shut eye too. When I woke up hours later for class with the feeling that I would have to have coffee to function, I hoped that this whole thing with Patrick wasn’t all for nothing.
Patrick’s P.O.V.:
Sleep always felt best on the road. I took advantage of every second of it that I could get during long stretches of away games like the one I was currently in the middle of. The odd thing about it, though, was that I always had the strangest dreams in hotels. There was something about them that made my mind run wild at night. This time I was dreaming that it was a hockey game in Pittsburg, and I had the puck. I had the perfect chance to score, so I went for it. The puck flew past the goalie, who for some reason was a penguin. An actual penguin that apparently wasn’t skilled in sports. Even though it probably didn’t mean much that I had scored against an animal, I heard cheers. I looked for my teammates, who normally would have been skating towards me to celebrate, but they disappeared into thin air. Only one person was skating towards me, and it was Lena, in my jersey. She hugged me before she disappeared with all the other (penguin) players as well as the fans. I was completely alone and I suddenly heard a familiar voice.
“Hey Kaner!” it said. “Kaner. Kaner…”
“…Kaner! What the hell are you doing? We have to get up, we have a morning skate soon.” I jolted awake when a pillow hit me in the face and I realized that the voice in my dream had actually been Johnny Toews in real life, trying to wake me up.
“Give me a break, I just had a dream that I was playing hockey against animals,” I mumbled, my eyes hurting from the light that streamed in through the hotel room windows.
“Seems legit. Any other interesting things happen?” he asked, stuffing water bottles into his hockey bag.
“Oh, not much. All the animal and human players disappeared and Aria showed up. Then she hugged me and disappeared. That’s about it.”
“You need to ask her out already. You’ve been having way too many dreams about her. It’s not normal anymore,” Johnny decided, stuffing his face with an omelet that he had ordered via room service. He pointed me in the direction of my food which had apparently arrived as well.
“I did ask her out,” I told him before taking a bite of food. It was still warm, even though I had woken up late.
“That’s not what I mean. You need to make this an official relationship. She seems to be more like a girlfriend to you than anyone else you’ve ever dated,” he clarified.
“We’ve only gone on one date. I don’t want to screw this up. You sure it’s not too early?”
“According to Tess, it’s definitely not too early. Just do it,” Johnny told me. I decided he was right. It hadn’t even been a full week since I had seen Lena and I was already missing her way too much. We did already act a lot like a couple. Boyfriend and girlfriend were just labels, so she couldn’t possibly object to making things official. The only thing that would change would be that we’d have better reasons to make time for each other. That and our parents would probably get involved in things somehow. Or at least my parents would. They were already pleased with Lena based on what they had heard from me about her. What could possibly go wrong?
The morning skate went well, and the game later did too. I was able to keep an optimistic outlook on things for the rest of the day, after making my decision about Lena. I still had a couple days before I would see her, which sucked, but I knew hockey would help me get through them.
I was right. I had enough things distracting me to make the days go by a little less slowly. However, I was still anxious to see Lena the second I got back in Chicago. I couldn’t see her right away, though. She had already fallen asleep on me by the time I arrived at my apartment there. I wanted so badly to see her, but I had to wait until morning practice, which she had already told me she would come to since it was a Saturday and she had no classes. Thank god for weekends, I thought, before I managed to fall asleep in my familiar bed. I had no strange dreams that night, or I at least didn’t have any that were memorable enough for me to recall in the morning.