People love you until they don't need you anymore.

____________________________________

JAKE

FEBRUARY

Jules, come home. Please. You can't just leave Emma

She's asking where you are

You don't have to run away from this

Don't do this to Emma

Emma's asking about you again

Text messages I would never send and phone calls I would never make. She was gone. That much I knew. The realization hit me like a ton of bricks every single morning. And she sure as hell wasn't coming back. Once Julianne has made up her mind, there's no changing it. I looked over at the baby monitor, which conveniently had a video camera in it so I could see Emma in her crib. She was lying on her back, pink giraffe hugged to her chest, pink footy PJs tugging at the tips of her toes when she stretched. I put the monitor down and rolled over, knowing she would be awake soon, and sure enough, she was.

"Hi, Pretty," I said softly as I walked across her room. She was standing up in her crib, holding onto the side of the railing.

"Hi, Pretty," Emma copied me and I couldn't help but smile.

"You think Daddy's pretty?" I asked her, pointing a finger at my chest which caused Emma to bounce around a little bit and laugh. She held her arms up as I lifted her out, pink giraffe and all. Emma immediately snuggled into me, tucking her head just underneath my chin and stuck her thumb in her mouth. "Your hair's a mess," I said as I lazily made my way into the bathroom to brush her hair.

"Nooo," she said through a mouthful of giraffe and thumb.

"Yesss," I answered her in the same tone as I set her down on the bathroom counter. "And we need to change your diaper.

"Nooo," she smiled up at me.

"Yesss." I took Emma's pink giraffe from her and gave her kisses with it. She squirmed and wiggled, trying to get away from her best friend.

I poured some more Cheerios onto the tray of Emma's highchair. "Morning, Jake," Dad said as he walked into the kitchen.

"Hey," I said as I cut up some grapes for Emma.

"Hi, sweat pea," Dad bent down and kissed her cheek. Emma leaned her head on him as she stuck another cheerio in her mouth. "Are those good?" he asked her stealing a cheerio off of her tray. "Oh, I got one! Papa got one!" Emma giggled, a smile stretched across her face.

"What's Papa doing?" I asked her as I put a handful of grapes in front of her. "Is he eating all of your breakfast?"

Dad grabbed one of Emma's feet, giving it a little shake before going to pour himself a cup of coffee. "You wanna go shoot around later today before the big game?" he asked me.

"It's just quarterfinals, Dad." I laughed.

"Yeah, against Ashland." He added some cream to his coffee.

"We should have never lost that game." I shook my head.

"You guys played like shit that game." He sipped his coffee.

I stared at Dad. "Dad!" he looked at me and then at Emma.

"Oh—yeah—uhh, cucka. You played like cucka."

"Jake, I don't know if you can go shoot around with a person who has a mouth like that," Mom said as she walked into the kitchen. Emma kicked her feet wildly.

"Who's that, Emms?" I asked.

"Grama," She whispered. She hadn't quite got the "nd" in Grandma yet, and she occasionally missed the "r."

"Jake, this came for you in the mail yesterday." Mom tossed an envelope across the counter.

Jules the paternity test came. 

I wanna open it but I don't know what I'd do if Emma isn't mine.

I picked up the rectangular envelope, staring at it. What if she's not mine?

"I'll open it later." I shrugged, trying not to pay too much attention to the look of pain that crossed Mum's face.

"I'll take Emma for the day. You go hang out with your father before the game tonight," she said as she gave Emma some more Cheerios.

"Go on. Go get ready, champ." Dad gestured towards my bedroom with his coffee cup.

△

I walked into the locker room. Silence. The only other person who was there getting ready was Derek, which was no surprise. I pulled off my shirt and tossed it into my locker.

"Hey, man." Derek looked up from taping his stick.

"Hey, Leight." I sat down on the bench and folded my hands together, interlacing my fingers one by one. I stared at the floor, breathing.

"You good?" he asked me, looking away from his stick and over at me.

"I don't know." I responded.

"I mean, besides you kissing my girlfriend and all." Derek said. I had been waiting for it. For so long, I had been waiting for him to call me out on it.

A long bout of silence passed, until silence was all there was. Until it became too much to bear. "She left me," I said so quietly I wasn't even sure if Derek had heard me. I had meant to apologize, but that came out instead.

He tore the tape off, running two fingers along the seam, just to make sure the tape was on there good. "What?" he asked after he set leaned his stick against one of his locker walls.

"She's gone, bro." I finally looked up at him, my head still hung low.

"What do you mean? Like you guys broke up?" I knew Derek understood exactly what I was talking about, but neither one of us wanted to say it out loud, because somehow, if we just thought it, then it wasn't quite real yet.

I shook my head and fixed my Kings hockey hat. "Like she left me. She left Emma. Left town. Just packed up and left. Went to live with her Aunt, or something." By the time I had finished speaking, my hands were clamped so tightly together, my knuckles were white. I clenched my teeth instead and tried to regain feeling in my knuckles.

"She didn't take Emma with her?" he tilted his to the side, floppy brown hair falling with him.

"She doesn't want Emma." I sighed, closing my eyes.

"When did she leave?" Derek leaned against the wall.

"After the party last weekend... With Georgie." I slammed my hand against a locker. "After she told me she'd been cheating on me with him." I let out a groan of frustration. "I swear to God, Leight, if we make it to State and Mansfield makes it to State, I'm gonna cripple him." I glared at the bench.

"J! Buddy! Did you get that paternity test yet?" Calum asked with a grin as he strolled into the locker room. He chuckled slightly as he started pulling pads out of his locker.

"Came in the mail today." I said solemnly, which was enough for anyone to stop what they were doing. Calum actually dropped his helmet, his second stick fell out his locker and knocked over Derek's stick. The whole situation was quite loud. I didn't even notice A-Mart come through the door.

"Sorry, DL." Calum reached down and picked everything back up. "Jake..." Calum looked over at me. "I had no idea, man. I was just teasing you about the picture..." He rubbed the back of his neck.

I nodded. "It's fine, C." I stuck my fist out.

"So, she was really cheating on you with him?" Calum touched his fist to mine before placing his helmet back in his locker. "That long, huh?"

"Long enough for me to wonder if Emma is mine." I started putting my pads on.

"This thing is really perplexing to you, isn't it?" Derek asked.

"When'd you add that word to your vocabulary?" Calum nudged Derek. "Your girlfriend helping you study?" He put some air quotes around the word "study." Derek just smiled sheepishly. "Jake, I'm sure she's yours. She looks like you for Christ's sake." Calum shrugged. "Which is a pretty hard thing to do." He laughed and I punched his arm.

"Did you open it?" Derek asked the one question that had been hanging over all of our heads.

"No."

"Why not?" he started putting pads on as well.

"What if she's not mine?" I whispered as a few more guys walked in.

"She's yours." They both said at the same time.

"You don't need a damn piece of paper to prove that Emma's yours." Derek added.

"And after we win this game against Ashland, you, DL, me and the rest of the boys are gonna go get shitfaced." Calum put his hand on my shoulder.

I nodded and finished getting ready.

Did you drink away the memory of Emma yet?

△

"Alright, boys, circle up, now." Coach said, gathering us around, clipboard in hand.

"Let's go! Let's go!" My dad called out.

"What was the score of the Ashland game?" Coach asked us. Derek opened his mouth to answer, but clearly it was a rhetorical question because Coach kept on speaking. "It doesn't matter," he said. "That was the past. Leave it there. Tonight, we're gonna set a new score." He nodded. "A new standard."

"We focus on tonight." Dad began, pointing at the floor. "We focus on our teammates and how the other team plays. Don't think about what happened last game. Ashland is gonna come out a totally different team than they were in the beginning of January. And so are we," he said, making eye contact with each of us.

"Kings on 3." Coach held his clipboard up high. All of us followed suit, raising our arms up to meet him.

"Let's score right away," I said to my line with Dougie nodding right along with me.

"Have them play catch up all game?" Calum clarified. "I like it."

"Go up the boards and keep feeding to Rossy and Leight?" Chuck asked.

"Yeah, that's exactly what we're gonna do." Calum nodded. "Chuck I know you and Derek play D, but after we get things going, Jake'll drop back into your position and you'll cheat up for a bit."

"Put them in their place in the first minute." Derek nodded.

I put my fist in the centre and everyone soon joined.

I lined up at centre ice, taking in Ashland's forest green jerseys. The guy who was playing centre on the other team was a scrawny kid. I all but towered over him, but I knew he was lightning quick. Tonight, though, I was determined to be quicker. And I was, because everything was in slow motion as the ref dropped the puck. The second it left his hand, I exploded from my position, catching the puck on my stick right as it touched the ice. I wasted no time checking where Ashland's centre was. I wasn't about to get stripped after a start like that, so I fed the puck out wide to Calum, who played it back down the boards to Derek, who was coming up behind him.

"Flat," I heard Dougie call out, letting Derek know where he was.

Derek chipped the puck over to Chuck who carried it up the centre of ice. He pulled a move getting around an Ashland defender with ease. He looked right, to Calum, who was tied up in the boards, trying to break away from a defender.

"Take it behind." I ordered Chuck. He wasn't supposed to be the feeder, but he had to now.

"J, switch." Derek called out as we changed positions right before Derek made a break for the middle of the ice, asking for the puck with his stick.

Chuck fed him the puck and just as we expected, two Ashland players descended on Derek like there was no tomorrow. Besides the fact that Derek couldn't see anyone and could barely move, he managed to weave around both of them, leaving the two guys lost and confused. I'm pretty sure they almost ran into each other. My skills sessions had paid off. Derek sent the puck back outside to Calum, who was hanging out on the boards, ready.

"Here, C." I shouted as I was positioning myself at the top of the ice.

Just as the puck left his stick, everything slowed down again. It was like I could see the spin on the puck, the little chips of ice skittering off to the side, looking like stardust. I felt my entire body give as I received the puck on my stick. I swung the it to the other side, pushing it out in front of me, ever so slightly, before winding up and letting a rocket of a shot loose. I saw it hit the back of the net with power and grace all at the same time, sending shavings of ice raining down onto the rink below it.

And once again, everything sped up. Calum and Derek were jumping on top of me, banging my helmet and clapping me on the back. "Yo, Jake, that shot was perfectly placed." Derek had this goofy grin on his face. Not even his helmet could hide how excited he was.

"That goalie had no idea what the hell just hit him." Calum laughed.

"Goal scored by Kings's centre, #27, Jake Roswell!" The announcer's voice roared through the speakers. The crowd went wild. Fans were banging on the glass. And for once, Coach looked as if he didn't wanna completely strangle me.

I, and the rest of my line, made our way towards the bench for a line change. "Nice shot, kid." Coach clapped me on the back. "Thought you and I were gonna have to have another talk." He joked.

"No, the first talk was good enough." I tried to steady my breathing as I made my way over to an empty spot on the bench for some water.

△

"Final score," Calum said, taking a deep breath, pausing for dramatic effect. "Kings: 5. Astroids: 1!" he raised his face to the sky, letting a howl out. "Let's go get shitfaced, boys!" he slung his arms around mine and Derek's shoulders. Thirty-five minutes later, Calum pulled up in front of a familiar house that was blasting music all too loud.

"Looks like Mansfield advanced to the next round," Dougie said.

"Scrubs." Calum and Derek said at the same time.

"Good," I nodded. "It's not State until it's us versus them." I glared at the house as Calum shut his car off.

"Let's go congratulate them," Calum gave us all a wicked grin, which soon made its way onto my face.

The four of us got out of the car and made our way up Georgie's front path.

"Where do you think you're going?" A guy at the door stopped us.

"We're here to congratulate you guys," Dougie said with a sappy grin on his face. The guy had a skeptical look on his face. "Tough game against Walden." He shrugged, like he was sympathizing with him. "But that goal in overtime was insane, man." He stuck his hand out.

The guy shook his hand. "Yo, bro! I scored that goal!" he pointed to himself, a happy grin lifted his cheeks.

"Well then what the hell are you doing running the door? Someone get this kid a drink!" Dougie led him inside before looking over his shoulder back at us.

"Did that kid take a professional schmoozing class or something?" Derek asked as we followed Dougie.

"Nah, but he's planning on majoring in it once he gets to college." Calum laughed.

We found the keg and each downed two red cups worth of beer before doing anything else. "God, I needed that," I said as I filled up my cup for a third time.

"Dude, dude," Derek hit my shoulder. "They're playing quarters. We gotta play." He pleaded with me. I looked over, my eyes scanning the table. My eyes immediately fell on Georgie. His back was to us and he was taking a shot.

"It would only be fair, right?" Calum asked. "I mean, we have to at least say hi to our host." He took a gulp of his drink.

"Oh we're gonna do more than say hi." I felt my stomach churn in anger and contempt. More with each step that I took towards Georgie. I got to him and put my hand on his shoulder, wrenching him away from the table, making him face me.

"Hey, dude, what are you do-" Georgie started, clutching a quarter, but then stopped once he saw who it was. "Who let you scrubs through the door?" he laughed.

"Your boy, Tommy," Dougie nodded. "Sick goal, man." He teased Georgie.

"Well he shouldn't-" Georgie started to reply but I cut him off when I punched him square in the jaw.

Georgie wiped the corner of the his mouth, spitting some blood out. "What the hell was that for?" he asked.

"You know what the hell that was for." I pointed a finger at him before letting another punch go. This time I went for his other side. "How was she? Was she a good lay?" I shouted at Georgie.

"It's not my fault she wanted me more than she wanted you." He still managed to smirk after all of this.

"Oh yeah? Well here's some news for you." I took a step towards him, until my face was millimeters from his. "Remember Emma? The kid that Jules had?" I asked him. "She might be yours," I whispered. "We came here to congratulate you on the game, but looks like I should congratulate you on another thing, Dad." As soon as I said the words, Georgie's face paled.

"You're lying," he said through wide eyes. "You're lying!" he shouted at me.

"Paternity test came in the mail today." And that was enough for him to tackle me. He landed a few good punches before I came out on top of him, holding him to the ground with my forearm across his neck. "Here's the thing," I said. "I don't feel like opening it." I shrugged. "I mean, what if she's not mine and I've been raising your kid for the past 20 months?" I asked.

"Fucking. Open. It." Georgie gasped, his hands clamped around my forearm.

"Maybe later." I rolled my eyes. "I wanna give you some time to process everything. Just like I did."

"She was a great lay." He choked the words out. I raised my fist to punch him again when Calum and Derek pried me off of him. Calum had a firm grip on my arm and there was no way he was letting go.

"Man, are you crazy? Do you wanna get suspended from the next game?" Calum growled into my ear as a few of Georgie's friends were helping him up.

"He won't rat. Will you, bud?" I asked, kicking his ankle. "Fucking, Mansy." I turned my back on him and followed Derek out of the party.

Goodbye, Jules