Just You and Me, Kid

April: Spring

Hannah stopped opening Kasperi’s snapchats. He assumed it was because she was back in Pittsburgh, and not alone in Toronto. He had wondered if she was only talking to him because she was lonely, or maybe she felt bad for him. Whatever her reason, he didn’t mind; but now that she was ignoring him, he felt more alone than ever. He still had those picture’s she’d caught him looking at, perhaps a little too closely, that eventful night last fall when Hannah kicked him out. They were starting to get old, too familiar, but he probably wouldn’t be getting anything better. He sometimes felt bad about how he’d found them (creeping her friend’s facebook pages to find vacation pictures, or from her wild time in Cali), but they were all he had, and lately, other girl’s just hadn’t been quite enough.

He spent his five game suspension trying to get back into things. Hannah had reminded him that if he made the Penguins next year, he would get to see her. If he was going to even have a chance at that, he needed to turn his game around. With his mind set on a goal, things were starting to look a little more positive for him. Yet, with Beth’s due date looming in the future like a hurricane/tornado/blizzard/armageddon, he was finding it hard to focus. He just had to figure out how to channel this stress into hockey…

Luckily Kasperi didn’t have to look far and wide to find a way to channel his stress. His hockey buddies decided to have one last bro-night before the pressure of the playoffs set in. It’s something a few of the guys really need. Hockey is as much mentally as it is physically, and sometimes you need to unwind or you’ll break. And what better break than a trip to the capital.

As the boys sat in the train to Helsinki, Joonas talked about their last big night out there, in January.

“Hey Kassu, you gonna call your lady from last time?”

“Why should I?” He replied grumpily. His head was killing him. Every day the hangover got slightly worse.

“I don’t know. It looked like you had a good time, since you had marks all over… And you know I like scratchers, so send her over to me if you don’t want her.” Kasperi laughed at Joonas’ suggestion, but it wasn’t really such a crazy idea. Noora was a chill girl that didn’t want any kind of attachment. Things would be cool. He texted her and they decided to meet up at a bar called Pacifico in Kallio. The bar was a strange mix of hip hop, reggae and rock, but the overall feel was very relaxed with worn couches scattered around, and even a foosball table in a corner. It didn’t take long for Niko and Joonas to claim the table and that the competition. They alway end up getting wasted with “loser-shots”.

Noora wasn’t at the bar yet and it slightly pissed Kasperi off. He likes people to be on time. He checked the time on his phone again, she was five minutes late. Out of habit, he scrolled over to see if he had any messages from Hannah. As usual, there was nothing.Thankfully he didn’t have to wait too long; Noora entered the bar with a bunch of friends (boys and girls). Though everybody in the group came from different background and had different goals for the night, the groups merged nicely. The night was going better than expected. These were awesome, friendly people.

“PAULI JA NOORA !!”

When Kasperi turned around his heart stopped for a second. Before him stood a girl with blond curly hair and warm brown eyes, but what caught his eye the most was her multi-megawatt smile; it lit up the room. He knew he was talking to the people in front of him in the group, but he needed a pickup line.

“Well hello to you too, but I’m not Pauli, nor am I Noora.” Kasperi tried his full pantie-dropping halfsmile again after months of not using it.

“Sorry, Satu, and you are?” She offered a slightly interested smile.

“Kasperi.”

“Well, nice to meet you.” Her smile grew a few watts brighter, and they ended up talking the rest of the night; about shitty weekend jobs to make money growing up; places they went on vacation (Satu went snowboarding in Levi, Kasperi went skiing in Saarisëlka); siblings…

At 1:30 two realisations came: the bar was about to close, and he hadn’t even thought about Hannah for the last 3 hours.


May: Flowers

As Kalpa continued through the playoffs, Kasperi put his heart into the game like he had never before. He was playing for the sake of playing, not for winning. At this point, he didn’t care if Kalpa won the championship or not, he just wanted to play hockey. All he needed to do was improve enough to prove himself at the Penguins’ prospect camp in July. He needed to make the team next year, that’s all that mattered any more: get to Pittsburgh. It had always been his dream to play in the NHL, so he needed to keep his eyes on the prize. With his new ‘muse’/distraction, some of the pain had started to ease. He didn’t check his phone constantly for a possible (but unlikely) message from Hannah, instead he looked to see if Satu had texted.

They saw each other when they could, but now that it was officially summer break Satu needed to work so she wouldn’t be broke during the school year, and Kasperi had hockey. Since hockey had moved back to the number-one spot in his life, he was finding it easy for Satu to slip into that second position. Hannah was slowly pushed down into third as Kasperi tried to turn his attention back to hockey, and now Satu.

Satu didn’t expect him to be anybody else, and he could be himself (or at least the version of himself he allowed people to see). She also didn’t talk about herself non-stop, like most girls did. She was interested in the people around her and was truly concerned. It was when Satu took Kasperi to hang out with her friend Marja (she was feeling down after getting dumped) that he knew Satu was the kind of girl that would put somebody else’s problems before her own.

It made Kassu’s heart swell with pride that he had met this amazing person, but at the same time it froze, knowing that he was keeping things from her. He had too many problems of his own that he just couldn’t tell her about: he might have a child on the way, and he’s in love with a woman that’s taken.

Part of him wanted to be honest: admit it and try to make something work, yet another part told him he wasn’t worth her time. He decided to go with the latter, so he tried to make himself look put together. He tried to keep up appearances and enjoy the moments he had with her. He wanted this to work, he just didn’t know how much longer he could keep it up.

June: Sunshine

There was a space of time, a couple weeks, between the end of playoffs and the start of the Penguins’ prospect camp. It was just enough time for Kasperi to slip back into the darkness. He was losing it. Beth was HUGE. Everybody was telling him to get ready to go to America to be there for Beth when she goes into labour, but he wasn’t ready. Even hanging out with Satu became hard, because he was making up lies to cover up lies. He still rolled out of bed every afternoon and made his way to the ice arena, or the gym, no matter how hungover he was. Now that it had warmed up, he started running again, and sometimes that cleared his head.

But at nights, when he was alone, there was too much emptiness for his mind to wander in. He avoided his family as much as possible. The pitying looks his dad shot him made him feel sick. His teammates had given up on trying to get him to go out. The few times he had gone with them had not ended well: Kasperi getting wasted, sometimes getting into fights. Satu was there on weekends. She was great; she was like a rainbow or a sparkling ray of sunshine, but she was tough. She was everything Kasperi needed right now. Well, almost everything. Satu brought some light and color back into Kasperi’s dark, grey life, and gave him a reason to not get smashed every night. But all he ever did was swap the comfort of the alcohol for the comfort of Satu’s body.

On the nights that he was alone, it always started out the same way. He would try to do something productive, maybe start some laundry or attempt to make a healthy dinner, instead of ordering takeout like he ended up doing most nights. But one way or another, he wound up with a half empty bottle of vodka in his hands before eight. On a good night, he would fall asleep watching Netflix, or a hockey game. But sometimes if he happened to come across a Pens game, or saw a girl that reminded him of Hannah, something would snap in his head.

Sometimes he just sent her a text that said ‘hey,’ or ‘sup.’ Those were harmless, compared to the rest. The snapchats started again. Many of them were left unopened, and none received replies. He started calling her; sometimes hanging up after the first ring. He wasn’t sure what he’d say to her if she actually answered, so he hung up. Once, he was too drunk to hang up before the voicemail. Hearing her voice, as tired and annoyed as it was, even though it was a recording, it shocked him for a second. He managed to hang up without leaving a message, but it woke him out of his drunken stupor. There was a tingling/buzzing in his veins, like anxiety before a game, and it reawoke his senses.

It was like a drug almost, hearing her voice. He called her back immediately just to hear it again. That night he fell asleep with a smile on his face for the first time in….he couldn’t remember how long it had been. Weeks? Months?

As the nights grew shorter to only two or three hours of darkness each night, Kasperi found himself staying up later each night. Sometimes he called Hannah several times, depending on when he passed out. In late June, just past midsomer, he watched the sunset/rise at 2 in the morning from the big window in his living room. He’d pulled a comfortable chair over to the window and had been staring out it for hours, watching the sun slowly dip before rising again. He picked up his vodka bottle and discovering it was empty, he set it down and picked up his phone. He fumbled with the screen until he’d hit ‘call’ and Hannah’s name showed on his screen. The phone rang, and he waited for the voicemail message.

“Hello?”

Kasperi’s heart stopped and time seemed to stand still, before it began racing, blood coursing loudly through his ears. He had never expected her to answer, and his throat got tight as he tried to respond. But he heard something on the other end of the line, someone talking, but not to him.

“Mom, give me the phone.” That was Hannah’s voice, he could recognize it no matter how muffled it was.

“I’m sorry, it was ringing, I thought it might be important.” That must be her mom, their mom. Beth…. Kasperi franticly tried to remember what day it was. Was it still June?

“Hello? Who is this? Is this….?” There was a pause and he knew Hannah was checking the screen, and she would probably hang up once she saw it was him calling. “Kasperi.” She didn’t sound annoyed, like he thought she would. Perhaps that’s because he was so used to her voicemail message, short and terse.

“I, uh, hi-” He started, his brain desperately searching for something to say.

“I can’t talk, we’re going to the hospital,” Hannah said quickly.

“Why? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Beth’s gone into labor early, or maybe it’s on time, I’m not sure; I don’t think her doctor got the due date right. Either way, the baby’s coming.”

Notes

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