#57 - New Opinions

Separated - Usher


“How are you getting along?” Mario asked as he came up behind me. I shrugged my shoulders, gripping the bike handles tightly as I forced my legs to move faster. “Sidney… torturing yourself isn’t going to solve anything. You hate the bike…”
He sighed when I didn’t answer him, moving until he was standing in front of me. I reluctantly slowed down to a more manageable pace, glancing up at him. “Let’s go for a walk.”

I exhaled loudly, gradually slow down to a stop before I said anything. “Why?” I asked quickly as I shoved myself off the small black seat, grabbing for a towel.

“Because you need to get out of the house… let’s go play pool.”

“There’s a pool table in the rec hall… and one in the kid’s room. Why don’t we just stay here?” I grumbled, following him out of the home gym.

He snorted, turning around and shooting me a mischievous grin. “Because I said so… and I’m older, smarter, and much more talented than you… not to mention better looking…” He answered, causing me to shake my head as I headed for my room, planning on hopping in the shower.



We played two games of pool before he started to talk to me; or at me rather. As much as I hated listening to Mario when it came to personal things, he was always right, so it would be a waste of my time to ignore him.
It just sucked being around someone who was so sure of everything, someone who had it all figured out and pulled together; I told him that too. “Sidney…” He laughed, shaking his head as he started racking the balls. “I do not have everything figured out and I hardly have my life pulled together. I just know more things about relationships than you… I have been with Nat since before you were born; I managed to pick up a few things over time.”

I nodded, grudgingly, wondering what ‘things’ he was going to share with me. “So… what do you need to tell me, oh wise one?” I quipped, lining up a shot.

He sighed, leaning on the pool cue. “I know it’s cliché, but relationships are something you need to work at Sidney, if you want them to work that is. Nat and I have had our share of problems… if neither one of us wanted to be here whole-heartedly, do you really think we’d still be together?” He asked, staring at me hard as I finally glance up at him. “If you and Jespin got together, then yes… you’d be happy, for now. But I know my daughter Sidney, she’s a steady kind of girl, she doesn’t change her mind easily, if ever.
Unfortunately she got that from me; and I apologise for that… but there’s not a whole lot I can do about it now.”

I knew there was no point arguing with him. He was right, and it wasn’t like changing his mind would change the truth; but I couldn’t help it. “I would have made her happy Mario, I could have, but she never really gave me a chance.”

“Exactly Sidney, that’s what I’m trying to say. She won’t ever give you a chance because of the fact that she doesn’t chance her mind. She wants him.
And even if she never has him again, she’s always going to have those feelings. Of course I’m going to speak highly of my daughter, but I think she’s doing the right thing here. It’s not fair to either one of you to continue in a relationship like this… think about it.
Maybe it’d last for a little while but at some point - one, five, ten years down the road - it’d fall apart, and you’d both be worse off. You can’t pull a relationships out of ’could haves’ and ’what ifs’, it doesn’t work like that.

We continued our game in silence. I could tell that he had more he wanted to say, but he didn’t want to push me. “It still doesn’t seem fair.” I said at length. “I end up alone, she ends up alone and he just goes on with his life… unaffected.” I complained, glancing up at Mario.

He shook his head slowly, the glimmer of a secret in his eyes. “I wouldn’t say that he’s unaffected Sidney. You can’t know that… for all we know, he’s going through the same thing she is.
Jespin, for some reason, has a hard time believing that she deserves certain things. Even though she had what she wanted, she just can’t seem to accept that someone could want to be with her - someone that she wants to be with.” He added quickly at the end, catching sight of the look on my face. “She’s always had that masochistic side to her…” He added softly, staring off into space.

I had no idea what he was thinking about, but I was sure I didn’t want to know. I especially didn’t want to feel bad for Ovechkin. The thought of him sitting all high and mighty somewhere in Russia fitted in nicely with my ’blame Ovechkin for everything’ mindset. I wouldn’t want to consider him a victim.
Even if Jespin ended things with him, I was positive that he was unaffected, regardless of what Mario thought he knew.

If anyone knew how self-serving he was, it was me. I was the one that had been compared to him since World Juniors. I was the one that had to watch him sweep the awards shows and push me out of the leader board.
It wasn’t that I thought I deserved to be at the top; after all, when Geno did better than me, I didn’t think ill thoughts of him. Same with Thornton and all the other great players in the league.
It was Ovechkin, and the fact that he didn’t seem to give a shit about anything. He played with reckless abandonment - like he was untouchable - not giving a shit about who he hurt or who he had to push out of his way; this time he‘d gone to far though. He took his style out of the game, and put it to work in the real-world; resulting in the situation we were in now. Some how, I was gonna find a way to pay him back for what he’d done to Jes - for being such a dirt bag.

I could still remember his hit on Gonch in the play offs; I didn’t care what anyone said, it was dirty, just like him. It was no less than what I would ever expect though.
No, Mario might fully believe that he was suffering too, but I wasn’t going to fall for it. Maybe he had tricked Jes into thinking he was a good person; but he had allowed her to walk away, knowing that she wanted him.

I knew what I would do in his position; I knew what I would do if Jespin loved me and she was planning on leaving.
I’d follow her for as long as I had to, in order to make her understand.
No, I’d believe Ovechkin wasn’t a conceited, selfish bastard, if he ever got off his high hoarse and came for her; until then, I was the only one with my head on straight.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~


Honey And The Moon - Joseph Arthur


I watched Sidney leaving out the front walk with my dad, neither of them talking as they climbed into Dad’s SUV; heading off for god knows where. I couldn’t help but wonder whether or not I had done the right thing.
I would never be fully healed, but I was healing, even I couldn’t deny that. I might never ever recover completely, but at this point, wasn’t anything better than this?

Not only had I pushed Alex away, but now I had done the same thing to Sidney; the only difference was that now Sidney was in the same position as me. I had broken his heart the exact same way that my heart was breaking. “WHERE IS SHE!?” I heard someone scream from down below me as the front door flew open, pulling me out of my thoughts. I sighed as I heard Lauren run up the stairs, turning around, just as she busted through my door.
I walked across the room and flipped my laptop shut, the last thing I needed right now was for Lauren to see what people on the net were saying about me. She took a giant gasp of air before shouting; “Ovechkin?! Alex I-look-like-I-should-be-riding-a-fucking-brontosaurus Ovechkin?!”
I stood completely still, raising my eyebrows slightly as she glared at me. “ALEX OVECHKIN?! What are you thinking?! Have you lost your mind… well, clearly you have but… what the fuck happened?! Car accident? Fall down an elevator shaft?”

“Have fun in Fiji then?” I asked nonchalantly. When she didn’t responded I started trying to answer her questions. “Lauren, listen-”

“Oh yes… yes. Please do explain this to me because right now I’m at a complete loss as to when my sister became a complete RETARD! What the hell Jespin!?”

“Lauren… I love him.” I sighed as she snorted.

She flopped down on my bed, shaking her head as I moved to sit next to her. “I can’t believe you would do this to us Jes. To mom, dad, Sidney… me! Do you have any idea all the things that people are saying about us now? They’re laughing at us… and it’s your fault.”

“I thought you’d be happy.” I snapped, pushing myself away from her. “Just makes one less person trying to get Sidney, and seeing as how he didn’t notice you were alive even when I was gone…” I trailed off shrugging as she visible winced.

“Yah well… at least I’m not selfish enough to sell my own family out.” She spat back, getting up and moving across the room haughtily. We glared at each other for a moment before she reached for the handle.
I heard the door open and I moved over to the wall, glancing out the window. “Dad spent his whole life trying to get to where he is today… and you threw everything he ever did into the shitter. You say you did it because you’re so in love with Alex? If you’re so fucking in love with him then why aren’t you still with him?”



“Well, that could have been a lot worse… really…” Keisha said after I relayed my conversation with Lauren to her. “I’m serious!” She added when I stared at her incredulity. “Look, you said yourself that she’s kind of crazy uppity, and on top of that she’s in love with Sidney. The same Sidney that doesn’t pay attention to her because he’s lookin’ at you. I mean, think about it… she’d die to be in your position and as far as she’s concerned, you’re wasting an opportunity.”
I shifted uncomfortably as Keisha continued to flip through the TV channels. “She has a point though…” She added after a moment.

“What?” I asked, wondering if she was actually serious.

“If you love him so much… why aren’t you still with him?” She said slowly, causing me to turn and stare at her. She shrugged her shoulders, waiting for an answer.
There were a million things running through my head; headlines, forum names, hate clubs… I just rolled my eyes and climbed off my bed, returning a minute later with my laptop.

“Look…” I said slowly, clicking through a few pages before finding the one I’d been on before. “My dad said, that a lot of what people were saying, was probably just because they didn’t want to see Alex with a girlfriend. Does it look like these people care?” I asked, sliding the laptop over to her.
She took it and started reading,, only going a few lines down before stopping.

“Jes, these people are idiots, they don’t know anything about you… or her. You know what that Masha bitch is like. These are just crazy Russian fans that think as long as Alex is dating a Russian, that’s all that matters.
If people really knew… if they knew how you felt about him and how he felt about you; they’d want you to be with him.” She sighed, flipping the laptop shut again; the hateful words disappearing.

It had been a site, set up in support of anyone but me. They were saying how much better Masha was for Alex, then I could ever be; I was just some skanky American trust fund kid. How could I ever deserve the Russian ’king of hockey’. No, he was much better off with a Russian woman, someone that understood his culture… someone that wanted all the attention and drama that went with dating an NHL player. "Right, how he feels about me..."

"We've been through this too Jespin! You love him and he loves you! He's just one of those stupid guys that doesn't have the balls to say it. I've seen the way he looks at you Jes.
I've seen how his face lights up everytime you come around... that means something... it really, really does.
I would give anything to have a boy look at me, the way he looks at you."

I gave her a small grin, flopping back down onto my bed. Everything Keisha was saying, seemed logical and true; but there was no denying the hate-on everyone seemed to have for me. The hockey world was better off without my interference, and that included Alex.