Ch. 1

Shattered

In a way, I need a change
From this burnout scene
Another time, another town, another everything
But it's always back to you
Stumble out in the night
From the pouring rain
Made the block, sat and thought
There's more I need
It's always back to you

But I'm good without ya
Yeah I'm good without you
Yeah, yeah, yeah

How many times can I break til I shatter?
Over the line, can't define what I'm after
I always turn the car around
Give me a break; let me make my own pattern
All that it takes is some time
But I'm shattered
I always turn the car around

 OAR - Shattered

Ch. 1

“Is this a joke?” I spoke out-loud to myself as I stood in the backyard of my parent’s house in Lethbridge, staring at the text message Brent Sopel had sent.  It read, “Good Luck in TO.” ­ I automatically texted Barker and he said that Sopes sent a text to him telling him good luck in Minnesota.  We all kidded on the team that Brent was the team agent, somehow always knowing about trades and signings before anyone else. 

“Kris?!” my girlfriend Dawn called out as she came out of the house to look for me.  I was hosting a BBQ with a bunch of our friends and family, the first of many planned to celebrate winning the Cup and to celebrate that it was summer.

“I’m over here, Dawn,” I called back without a ton of enthusiasm in my voice, still wondering if Sopes’ text message meant what I thought it meant.

I observed Dawn as she squinted past the bright lights that illuminated the patio but effectively hid where I was standing against the fence.  I watched her eyes light up when she found me and couldn’t help but smile a bit when she came bouncing down the steps over towards me.  She was always upbeat.  Maybe that had to do with the fact that she was always a little flighty, but it was that blissful ignorance that kept us in a relationship for this long.  The large smile that lit up her face quickly faded when she noticed my melancholy mood.

“Kris, what’s wrong?” she asked with a furrowed brow.  I always loved her worried look.

“I think I’ve been traded,” I spoke like the wind had been knocked out of me.

“Traded? But, why? Are you being serious?!” she asked, every question coming out in a higher pitched voice.

“Well, we have major cap issues and with my contract getting screwed up last year, I kind of saw this coming…I guess,” I answered evenly.

“But where are you going?  Who called?” she continued with tears forming in her eyes.

I held up my Blackberry, showing her the message from Sopel.

“TO?” she asked, her eyes searching mine.

“Toronto.”

“Toronto?”

“According to Brent, yup.”

“Why hasn’t anyone from the team contacted you...?” The question was just finishing coming out of her mouth when my phone lit up like a Christmas tree as Fergalicious began blaring out into the warm evening air.  I raised an eyebrow at Dawn and answered the phone.

“Hello?”

“Kris, this is Stan Bowman…”

“Hey Stan,” I said, trying to put a semi-smile on my face.

“Kris, I hate to call you with this news, but you unfortunately understand our situation here in Chicago with the cap-space…”

“Yes, I am aware of that.”

“Well, at the end of August you will be reporting to Toronto for camp.  We can’t say thank you enough for what you have done for this organization, and I mean it when I say that this is all business and nothing personal.”

“I’m not taking it personal in any way.  I will be back in town for the ring ceremony if the schedule allows,” I said, trying to stay upbeat a huge constricting knot began tightening in my stomach.

“That sounds great.  See you then Kris and good luck with your career, you are going to be a great hockey player.”

“Thank Stan, bye.”

“Bye.”

I pulled the phone away from my ear, hit the end button and stared down at the plastic object like it was foreign to me.

“This is terrible,” Dawn whispered. 

I was ready to agree with her, because it was terrible, scratch that, it sucked ass.  I just won the Stanley Cup with this team and the thanks I got was to be traded.  It felt like a punch in the gut and already my mind went into hyper drive, thinking about logistics and wondering how I might fit in with my new team.

I was slightly annoyed that Dawn automatically made this more about her.  “I don’t know what I’m going to do now…” she sobbed.  No doubt she was going to find this terrible because she was going to college in Chicago, a decision I had tried to talk her out of numerous times because I unfortunately knew the business and knew how easily it was to be traded.  Against my wishes, she decided to pick Northwestern instead of another one of her top choices.  Sure, it was awesome having her in town with me all the time during the season, but now it put us back to square one.

Instead of saying, “I told you so” or say that I was kind of excited about heading to a Canadian team I just pulled her into me and held her as she cried because that is what you do with the girl you’ve dated since you were 16.  After 10-15 minutes of just holding each other in a tight embrace, I made the first move to go back into the house where my friends and family were obviously having a good time from the laughter and talking that was filtering outside.

Of course my mom had to be the first one to notice us when we walked back inside, hand and hand.  “Oh my God, what’s wrong?” she cried loud enough that the whole place went silent and stared at Dawn and me.

“I just got off the phone with Stan Bowman…I’ve been traded to Toronto.”

A collective gasp went up around the room and Dawn busted into tears once again, this time more dramatically.  After a period of silence, save for Dawn’s sobbing, my brother Mitch piped up, “Dude, that’s awesome! Toronto is going to be fucking crazy!”

“Yeah!” my friend Jeff chimed in as he lifted a beer towards me like a toast.

I just nodded as a smile burst across my face.  They were right.  Toronto was a huge hockey town, hell any town in Canada was a hockey town and this was going to blow Chicago out of the water.  At least I didn’t get traded to the Islanders or the Panthers…

The party went back into full swing, but Dawn was still upset so she ended up running back outside with our friend Tanya running after her.  As much as I wanted to go out and console her, a part of me just wanted to celebrate with my friends.  This was a new opportunity, a chance to get even more ice time and be an integral piece of a young team.  Brian Burke and Ron Wilson were both stand-up guys you wanted to work for, and I was excited to be apart of whatever they had planned.  The hardest part was going to be the fact I wasn’t going to be on the ice with guys who had become my best friends and brothers for lack of better terms.

Later that night Dawn was laying in my arms as the moonlight peeked through my childhood bedroom windows.

“What are we going to do?” she asked, still sniffling from time to time.

“What we’ve done before when we didn’t live in the same city,” I said soothingly into her hair.

Dawn and I had been together since I played for the Lethbridge in the WHL.  She was a year younger than me and we had gone to school together.  I guess you could call her my high school sweetheart for lack of better terms.  Of course it had been on and off here and there, due to the fact that I was so focused on hockey and she was so focused on me.  I like to consider myself an independent person, not the type who likes to be smothered.  I am a hockey player with women always fawning over me and it was all too easy to sweet talk one of them to come home with me.  Now, being older, I was becoming more of a conscious of her feelings, but that didn’t always stop me from making the wrong decision, hence the Vancouver limo pictures.  It was a wild night and the internet would never let me or Dawn forget.  I’ll never forget the look of hurt on her face when we returned home from the road-trip and I had to face the music.  She truly was a rock in my life and I figure that one day I’d settle down enough to ask her to marry me.  Unfortunately for her, I wasn’t quite to that point yet.

“I guess you were right,” she pouted against my neck.  “I shouldn’t have gone to school in Chicago…”

“But I thought you liked it there,” I easily quieted her.

She sucked in a ragged breath, like she was attempting to hold back the tears that I felt against my skin once more.  “I do,” whispered.  “I’ve made a lot of friends and they really do have a great program…” she faded off.

“Well then, finish school up at Northwestern and when you are done you can move in with me at whatever city I’m playing in at that point, besides you only have 2 years to go Dawn.”

“But its 2 years, Kris,” she sniffled.

“Two years should be nothing considering how long we’ve already been together,” I said with a half chuckle.  “Hell, look how long it took for Sharpie and his woman to finally tie the knot.”

“I do not want to wait that long,” Dawn said in a sudden change of emotion that told me she was not finding any humor in our situation.  “Besides, she at least had an engagement ring for a few years,” she pointed out a little harshly.

I took a deep breath before tackling the argument we had been having for the two years.  “I’m not ready to get engaged Dawn,” I said simply.

“Well, I am, Kris,” she hissed as she sat up in bed, taking the sheet along with her to cover her bare breasts.

“What’s the point in getting engaged if we both aren’t ready?” I said while I sat up in the bed to rest my back against the head board.

“I just don’t understand what needs to happen to make you ready.  This is completely ridiculous; I don’t know why I’m basically wasting my time with this relationship.  You are obviously not committed enough to even stay away from other women, why should I think that will ever change?!” she cried out, becoming more hysterical.

“Dawn, sssh,” I attempted in hushing her because I didn’t need her waking up the whole household, not that it would be the first time of course.

“I’m tired of not being a priority in your life,” she began sobbing.  Great, more tears.  I can’t handle crying women…

“Dawn, you are a priority in my life,” I started in. “I’m just not ready to talk marriage right now.  I want you to finish college and then we will go from there…”

“I’m done,” she suddenly cut me off as she dropped the sheet, climbed off the bed and began picking up her clothing.  “I’m done, I’m thru, I can’t handle this anymore.  All you do is put me on this roller-coaster and I just want to get off the ride, Kris.”

I jumped up and wrapped my arm around her waist to stop her from flying around my bedroom.  “Dawn, please wait and listen to me…”

She stood up straight, spun around so that she was facing me and hissed, “See! Right there is the big problem!”

I felt my brows furrow as I looked at her, confused at what she was attempting to get at.  “What?”

“It’s always about you,” she said in the most serious, grown up voice I had ever heard out of her mouth.

I’m fairly sure I’m not the only person in the world who ends up laughing when they become nervous, because if so, I guess I would be considered the biggest ass on the planet.  Unfortunately the nervous laugh came at this time.  “Dawn, you are over reacting…” As soon as the words were out of my mouth I found myself holding my face with my hand as Dawn slapped me hard.

“Don’t you dare laugh at me or this situation, Kristopher Versteeg.  You are wrong, since day one it’s been all about you.  You are a selfish son of a bitch who can only love himself.  So good luck in Toronto, enjoy the single life that you already thought you had even with me waiting at home for you.  Hopefully you will finally think of someone else besides yourself or at least find someone who doesn’t care if she will always be second or even third in your life,” she spit as she finished buttoning her shorts and slipped into her flip-flops.

“Dawn, please don’t do this, you are upset…” I began as I ran my hands through my hair, thinking about how tired I was.  I looked over at the clock and saw it was 2am.  Heh, well no wonder I’m tired.  “Dawn, you’ve always been the one I’ve loved,” I started back in.

“You have never loved me the way that I have loved you, Kris.  Maybe someday you will see that,” she said as the tears streamed down her face at a furious pace.  “Goodbye,” she said as she pressed her wet face against my cheek and kissed me.

I grabbed onto her wrist as she turned to walk away.  “Please, Dawn,” I tried one more time, even though I knew this was the end and that I was damn lucky it had lasted this long.

She just shook her head slowly back and forth.  The only choice I had was to let go of her and watch her walk out of my life.