Robert's POV
Scarlett walked in the house, bundled up with rosy red cheeks. She was with a few friends last night and stayed at Katie and Taylor's place. I didn't really expect her home before noon. She was holding her jacket closed, talking to herself. "Hey babe." She smiled, "I have to pee."
She ran upstairs towards to the bedroom and I heard a thump. I got off the couch and started walking to see what was going on.
"Hey. Get back here!" She yelled.
I got to the top and saw a puppy bounding towards me and Scar crawling after it. I leaned down to pet the animal that was licking at my hands before running back to her.
"You're so cute. Yes you are. Yes. You and your sharp little puppy teef."
"You got a puppy." I stated.
"His name is Stanley." She beamed, letting the dog lick her face. He was cute, I have to admit.
"Scarlett, I just don't think a puppy is a good idea. You have class and I'm gone for sometimes a week." I opened my mouth to say something more, but she looked so damn happy with him.
"So can we keep him?" She asked a few minutes later.
"Yeah. We can keep him." Her face lit up as she leaned over to kiss me. Then, for the next few hours she paid more attention to the dog than to me.
I might be jealous of the puppy.
I thought she would eventually get hungry, but no. She played with that puppy for hours. I watched as long as I could, but my stomach started to make noises.
"Alright, I'm going to Panera." I got up and grabbed a jacket from our closet. It was mostly her closet, to be honest. It's pretty much either sweaters or formal dresses. She also started stashing some of my old jerseys and sweatshirts behind her clothes. It's fine until I'm looking for something and she's wearing it.
Probably looks better on her anyway.
"Bring me back soup and pasta."
"No." I started down the steps. I could feel her stare at me, unimpressed with my answer.
"Please." Scar drug out the word like a little kid would.
"Come with me." I yelled, almost down to the living room.
"But Stanley."
"Take him outside and then leave him in the bathroom. We won't be long."
We sat at a table in the corner, where we usually do. Lately we haven't been going out to eat very often. Depending on the day, I would make dinner before she got home or she would do the same.
"So what breed is he?"
"Bernese mountain dog. He was the runt that no one wanted, so I took him. They said he wasn't expected to make it past six weeks, now they're giving him eight."
"What?"
"There's some problems with him, if I didn't take him they might have put him down." I sighed, it's really not surprising. She wanted to help everyone and hated when she couldn't.
"So our puppy might not last two more weeks?"
"No he will. I have faith that he will."
I dropped the subject after that. I didn't want to think about Scarlett if Stanley actually didn't make it. I knew she would be heartbroken and that was the last thing I wanted her to be.
Lately, Scar had something against our couch. We would always watch movies from the floor. Maybe that was so that we could be closer. I guess I can't really complain. I was spending time with her and that's all that really mattered.
"Hey Ty," Scar answered her phone, upsetting the puppy that was laying on her, "What's going on?" She sat up. Her face lost all emotion for a few seconds before she started rubbing her nose. "Is she okay? I thought she was eating. How long is she going to be in the hospital? Will she be going to treatment?" She started to raise her voice. Tyler apparently wasn't answering her questions. "Okay, well let me know what's going on."
As soon as she hung up the phone, tears started falling. I pulled her to my chest and let her cry. I knew it would take a while to be able to choke out a word or two.
"She passed out and has to go to the hospital. She stopped eating and Tyler tried to help but she wouldn't." I wiped the tears from her face and held her hand. "I can't lose her, Robert. I can't."
I thought about what to do for a few minutes. It was hard with her finals coming up and me being gone for hockey and now that we had a puppy that may or may not make it very long, that was also something to consider.
"Go to Vancouver. Tell your professors you'll email them your assignments and be back in time for finals. I'll get you on the first flight out of here."
"No. I can't. I want to be here when you get home."
"Scarlett, you want to be up there with Kenzie and your family. Just go." She just nodded and went upstairs to start packing. I grabbed the iPad from the coffee table and started searching for tickets. Once I bought them, I joing her in our room.
"You leave at seven tomorrow morning." She nodded, throwing more clothes into her suitcase. At least half of the items there had to be mine.
"I'll bring Stanley outside, then you should get some rest."
I came back in to see Scarlett curled up in the middle of our bed, crying. I set Stanley down next to her. I didn't exactly want a dog sleeping with us, but I guess it would be alright for a few days. "I can take care of the puppy while I'm in town and Rachel said she can while I'm traveling."
"I love you," She mumbled, pulling herself towards me."
"Scarlett, you know I'd do anything for you."
Scarlet's POV
Being away from Robert for almost two weeks wasn't something I was looking forward to, but I needed to be with Kenzie. Or at least somewhere near her.
"Call me when you land in Vancouver." He said. I probably should have been through security five minutes ago, but I didn't really care. "Scarlett, you need to go."
I gave him one last kiss and walked towards the check point. Once I found my gate, I put in my headphones and turned the music up loud enough to shut out everything I was thinking about. I saw people give me funny looks because of the Canucks hat, Penguins sweats. During my layover in Minnesota, some guy actually tried talking to me about it.
"Let me guess, you have a Ducks shirt on underneath your sweatshirt." He laughed, sliding onto the bar stool next to me.
"It's actually one of my old hockey shirts from when I played in Vancouver." It wasn't, but he didn't have to know that. He definitely deserves every bit of sass that he's about to get. "And what if it was a Selanne shirsey? Would you make fun of me for acknowledging an amazing hockey player?"
"No, it's just kind of funny that you're wearing a Canucks hat and Pens sweats."
"Grew up in Vancouver. Engaged to a Penguin. Bieksa was my hero growing up. Have a problem with that?" I cocked an eyebrow, daring him to say more.
"Nope." He quickly slid out of his seat and went somewhere else to drink at 9 in the morning. Apparently people don't understand you don't go up to a girl when she's crying.
A few hours later, I was meeting my father at baggage claim. He looked every bit as upset as I was. "Hey Scarlett." He hugged me, not letting go. "You won't be able to see Kenzie until tomorrow, but there's a game in town so I thought we could go to that."
"Sounds perfect." I grabbed my suitcase from the carousel and he led me to the car. "Could we go play out on the pond." Yep. We definitely were the stereotypical Canadian family.
"Yeah. Of course."
I got to the hospital pretty early the next morning. She was sedated and would be for a while. Or at least that's what we thought. She woke up around noon, screaming and pulling at the IV's that were giving her the nutrients that she refused to give herself for months.
"Kenzie, you need these. These are keeping you alive." The nurse told her, but it didn't calm her down.
"No. They're going to make me fat!" She screamed. I started to cry so I went out to the hall, not wanting to make a bigger scene. I sat down on an empty section of floor and pulled my knees to my chest.
"How's everything going?" Robert answered his phone. He sounded tired. I checked the time and realized he was probably taking a nap.
"Shit. Did I wake you?"
"It's fine. How's everything?"
"She woke up and started pulling out the IV's." I started crying into my legs, phone still pressed against my ear. "I just wish there was something I could do."
He took a deep breath, "You can help everyone, Scar."
"No. I need to be able to help her."
"It's going to be okay. She's going to get help and she's going to be healthy, Scarlett." He tried calming me down, but his voice can only do so much.
"I miss you." Yep. It had already been a day and I'm that girl. I guess it wouldn't be so bad, but just being around him makes me feel better when everything is going wrong.
"I wish I was there with you." Kenzie's mom appeared in front of me, giving a smile when I noticed her.
"I should let you go. Call me later. I love you."
"I love you too, Scarlett."
"Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt your conversation," She apologized.
"Oh no. I actually woke Robert up, so I was going to let him get back to sleep anyway." I wiped my runny nose on my sweatshirt sleeve and stood up.
"Scarlett, you should go home and spend some time with your family. Kenzie is going to be out for a while, so go get some rest. I'll call you when she's up." I nodded, hoping the tears would stop at least until I got home. She gave me a hug and I walked outside. I was slightly undressed, but luckily my dad's care heated up quickly.
I walked into the house, heading right to the kitchen. I found my sister, eating ice cream right out of the container. She grabbed a spoon out of the drawer and handed it to me.
"You doing alright?" Lilly asked with a mouth full of oreo ice cream.
"It's hard." She nodded, letting me get a rather large scoop of ice cream.
"Listen, I'm sorry about making a big deal about you and Robert sleeping together. That was really uncalled for."
"It's fine. Just try not to do it again."
"I won't."
We stood there in silence, eating ice cream as I tried not to cry.
"You know what you need? A Taylor Swift jam session." She turned on the new song and grabbed my hands, moving them for me. It didn't take too long before I was smiling and we were being idiots in our kitchen together.
Once the song was over, we went back to eating ice cream only to find both of our parents holding up their phones, laughing.
"That was good. Care to show us again?" My mom was almost on the ground laughing.
"Facebook is going to love this." He would.
Me and my sister stayed up talking, just like we used to. It was nice. We've had our differences in the past, but we've always been there for each other.
A couple days later, I was sitting in Kenzie's room with her. Everyone had gone back to work, so I would bring my computer and work on school stuff while keeping her company.
"Why didn't you tell anyone you stopped eating?"
She didn't answer my question, just stared out the window at the falling snow. "How do you do it?"
"Do what?"
"Confidence. You're so confident with your size." Ouch.
"Oh. I uh." I started blinking back tears. I know she didn't mean to say I was fat in any way, but it still hurt. Especially from my best friend. "Robert helps a lot."
"Even before him. You've always had so much confidence and you didn't care. How do you do that?"
"I don't know.." I knew I would be calling Robert later. Before this I had problems standing next to her since she was skinny to begin with, but now she was almost just skin and bones. And I'm still me. "You just have to realize the people you're around, love you for who you are. It doesn't matter what number is on the scale. That's what helps me."
"Yeah, I guess."
My phone started buzzing. Robert's name flashed across the screen. Maybe a text from him was just what I needed.
>> Hey beautiful. I'm just about to get ready for the game and wanted you to know how much I love you and that I can't wait to see you next week.
>> Because I hear 'I haven't seen you in almost two weeks' sex is pretty great.
>> And our home is really lonely without you here.
I laughed at the texts I had recieved, shaking my head. I was lucky to have him and I couldn't wait until the wedding.

Notes