Wine Drunk
2276 Words
Four years have passed and not a word from Lucas, not that I was surprised. It wasn’t like I tried to write him. Oh, who was I kidding, I did try. I wrote him so many letters, telling him about what was going on, how I was feeling at different moments, even telling him how much I missed him and couldn’t wait for him to come home. I didn’t send the letters, not one. I told myself that I would send him a letter when he reached out to me, but because that never happened, there those letters stayed in a box in my closet, where I plan to never look at them again.
A lot has happened in the past 4 years.
Kyle has been continuing to play for the Panthers and has become captain of the team in a short 4 years. He has been consistently working his butt off and has become someone that the new recruits would look up to. He even helped with training for the house team in the city and helps with the high school hockey teams as well and of course, the kids loved it. Having an NHL captain at their rink, helping and teaching them.
Mia was still in school, and she wasn’t around a lot. Her and Kyle broke up, but they kept it mutual and cordial. We all still lived with each other, but they made an agreement that neither one of them would bring their dates to the house, to keep the house mutual territory. I don’t think that was going to last though, Mia has been seeing a teaching assistant at the school and they seemed pretty serious. I would give it less than a month before she moves out, it’s not like she’s here much anyways, once a couple of weeks to stop by and say hi and grab some things that she needed for her boyfriend’s house. Surprisingly, Kyle was okay with this.
As for me? I have been dating on and off over the past couple of years. I have been recently seeing the goalie to our team, Xander Black. He joined the team the same year as Kyle and me, but we never really got along. He was too arrogant for me. But come to find out, he was just putting up a visage because Kyle would threaten anyone on the team that wanted to pursue me and trust me when I say when I found out, that didn’t last long. I have been seeing Xander for about 6 months and I was happy. Was I happy? I believe so.
I was in my home office when my cell phone pinged. I ignored it, knowing that I had to get this recruiting session finalized soon before it was too late, and coach and Daly had my ass, I mean the recruiting started tomorrow and these were still not finished. Procrastination at its finest. They already didn’t like the fact that I was seeing Xander, they believe him to be a distraction, but that is not what was happening.
It pinged again a couple minutes later, still ignoring it. I opened another browsing screen on the computer and put on some music, to drown everything going on in my mind out.
My phone wouldn’t stop pinging! I groaned internally and looked at the phone.
You have a deadline of 3pm today to send me the plans for the recruit session. Don’t disappoint. Daly.
Girl, we need to get some lunch soon, call me! Mia
We need to talk. Kyle
We need to talk. Xander
I miss you. Unknown number.
The last one caught me eye. It wasn’t even in this area code. Probably a wrong number. I went through the missed texts, replying one by one. I told Daly that I will have the plans to him by 1 pm and he was more than thrilled.
I messaged Mia that we should meet up tomorrow after practice for lunch.
What confused me was the Kyle and Xander both said we needed to talk. They were together and should be on their way home from an away game they had last night, so I couldn’t help but think that something bad happened.
I texted Xander. Hey, what’s up?
Are you home? We will be back within the hour, and we really need to talk.
Um…can’t we talk now? I am finishing up some recruiting information for Daly.
I would rather have this talk in person.
I internally rolled my eyes. If anyone on this team knew me well enough, they would know that I would rather have someone be direct with me than beating around the bush. I have had enough of that in my life and at the age of 23, I didn’t want to deal with that more.
Nah, you can tell me now. I knew that might have sounded a bit harsh, but at this point I was annoyed.
Alena, please, in person. No one ever uses my full name unless it’s important.
Nope. You can tell me now or you don’t bother coming over. Plain and simple.
You are ridiculous. I just wanted to talk about us, nothing bad. So, I will see you in about an hour. I left it at that. We have been seeing each other for the past 6 months, what could he want? To break up. Okay. I mean yeah, that would suck because I would have to see him all the time, but it is what it is.
Why am I thinking like this? Shouldn’t I be more upset with the possibility of a breakup? Why was I not upset with that possibility? Things have been going well I guess. I called Mia, ignoring my brother for the moment.
She picked up immediately, her phone was always attached to her hand.
“Lena! I miss you! How have you been?” she said excitedly.
“Good, emailing Daly right now with the finish plans for tomorrow, what are you doing right now?”
“On my way home.”
“Our home or your home away from home?” we both laughed.
“Our home. I got wine!”
“Good, I need it. See you in a bit, we need to talk about something. Kind of have been bothering me.”
“Okay, I will grab two bottles then.” She laughed and we hung up.
Sent. I texted Daly.
Thank you! I will send you the list of those that signed up for try outs in a bit. I am finalizing one last potential recruit from Germany and then the rest is up to you.
I rolled my eyes. Germany? I have learned to dislike that country. I mean, I shouldn’t because what did that country to do me to make me upset except, ya know, exist. Wonderful.
I was sitting on the couch watching TV when Mia turned the corner, handing me a bottle of wine, and she plopped right next to me. We opened our bottles and drank.
“Xander wants to talk…” I said to her.
“About?”
“He just said about us, nothing bad. A part of me was thinking he wanted a break.”
“Oh? What makes you say that?”
“The fact that he wants to talk…”
“But about nothing bad he said. Maybe he wants to take things to the next level?”
“What level though? We are dating, seeing each other sexually. Like what more does he want?”
“To be official maybe?”
“He isn’t the commitment kind of type thought.”
“Yeah, but one person could make that change for the better. I mean, I know him, and we don’t get along that great but you know I just want you to be happy and from what I seen, he makes you happy.”
I sat there in silence. “Lena, does he make you happy? Do you want to break up with him?”
“I honestly don’t know. I’m comfortable but something is nagging me. What was weird is that Kyle said we needed to talk too.”
“About?”
“I don’t know. I called you after I talked to Xander.” She rolled her eyes at me.
“Call your brother now.” By this point in our conversation, the bottle of wine was half gone. I was going to start feeling the effects in a bit.
I called Kyle and put him on speaker.
“Lena. Finally. I really need to talk to you before Xander comes over.”
“Um…why?”
“What ever happens, just say no.”
“What do you mean?” Xander walked through the door at that moment. “Hey I gotta go, Xander just got here.” And I hung up the phone.
“Mia.” He stated.
“Xander.” She stated back. There was tension in the air between the two. Even though Mia has always been supportive of my decisions, she never really cared for Xander, but she was hopeful that maybe he was different than the other guys.
“I am gonna go lay down for a bit.” She said and proceeded upstairs to her room.
Xander came over and took the wine out of my hands and sat next to me.
“Hey, I was drinking that…” I pouted.
“And I told you I don’t like you drinking.” He looked at me with a bit of anger in his eyes. I shrugged my shoulder.
“I’m an adult Xander. If I want to have some wine with my friend I will. Now, what did you want to talk about?”
He sighed and ran his fingers through his shaggy hair. “I want us to- “and with that, the front door slammed open and walked in Kyle.
“Lena, there is someone I want you to meet.” Kyle said as he turned the corner to see Xander.
Xander stood up to meet Kyle’s eyes and they just glared in silence. It was becoming a bit uncomfortable.
“MIA!” I yelled. The boys never looked away from each other. I heard her feet coming down the stairs and instantly stop.
“Um…what is going on? Why do they look like that are about to kill each other?”
“I don’t know…” I whispered. “What is going on?” Neither one of the answered me. “Someone better answer me, or I swear to god I will hurt you.”
“Go ahead Xander, tell her what you wanted to tell her.” He glared at him.
Xander looked over to me and pulled me from the couch and took my hands into his. “What I was going to ask you before he interrupted us, was that I want to take this to the next level, I want us to be official.” I looked at him confused and then back to Kyle.
“Okay…what do you want to say Kyle.”
“I am going to come right out and say it because I know how you are and you prefer blunt HONESTY over sugar coating and trying to fix things with band-aids. Lena, he cheated on you.” My eyes went wide, and I just went ‘oh’.
“No that isn’t what happened!” He clapped back. They started screaming at each other and looked over to Mia, who just kept looking behind Kyle. I grabbed the wine from the table, walked over to Mia at the stairs and starting drinking.
“Lena…look” she whispered to me. I turned around, mid drink and my eyes went wide. I lost the air in my lungs. The grip on my bottle left and it crashed to the floor. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t look away.
She nudged me in my side. “What are you going to do about Xander?”
I looked at her. I looked at Kyle and I looked at Xander. “Get out.” I spoke.
He looked at me in surprise. “Why? I didn’t do anything but warn you about him!” Kyle started raising his voice.
“I need to talk to Xander, alone. Give me 2 minutes and then come back in and we will discuss the surprise you brought home with you.”
Mia, Kyle and his guest left to go to the back porch.
Xander walked up to me and grabbed my hands and I pulled away. “Don’t do this Lena. Please.”
“Nah, I think I will do this. You have been, okay and all but I am not feeling it.”
“It’s the wine talking. You don’t mean it. You know we are good together.” He kissed my cheek.
“What happened when you guys were gone? One chance right here to be honest.”
He looked into my eyes, knowing that I was dead serious. “one of the girls that went to the game gave me her number and I texted her and she sent me some pictures and yea…”
“Did you sleep with her? Did you send her pictures? What did you do?”
“No, yes and blocked.”
“I see.” It was all I could say. Was he being honest? I don’t know. “I need time to think.” I stood up and left him standing there and went out the front door to my car and drove away
- Writer
