Free Delayed Penalty by Shey Stahl Page A

thought I could stay until she fell asleep. God knows I didn't want to leave. Here was a perfect excuse.
    "I could stay…if you want," I suggested, not really wanting to leave. "I used to just sit here and watch movies."
    Those bright blue eyes looked even brighter and lit up her face. "That sounds good."
    She reached for the remote beside her bed the same time I did, and our fingertips grazed. It wasn't the first time I had touched her, but it was the first time I had touched her. Before there was nothing there. Now, I felt that fucking touch from the tips of my fingers to my toes.
    Leaning back in the chair, not knowing what else to do, she looked up at me, and I was gone. Fucking gone. I knew then why I couldn't not come here every day. This girl had a hold on me.
    I knew why she wanted me there. She didn't want to be alone, and I didn't want her to be. It was part of the reason I kept coming to the hospital. She had no one right now. If I didn't come, who would?
    I couldn't tell you what movie was playing. My eyes were only on her, in a non-creepy stalker way. She seemed different. Of course she seemed different. She was awake, dumb ass.
    We ended up watching a movie that was on one of the basic cable channels, and before I knew it, I started nodding off.
    When I woke up, Ami was asleep, curled to the side with a peacefulness about her, so I snuck out quietly. I left a note beside her bed that said: I'll see you tomorrow .
    When I closed the door behind me, I leaned against it and closed my eyes, then slid down the length of the door until I was seated on the floor. I pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes, trying to hold back any emotion I had. She was awake and that attraction, that draw that had kept me coming back, was intensified to the point where I knew I'd never be able to leave this girl alone.
    Once I got back to my apartment and into bed, I only had about two hours before our morning skate. I couldn't sleep, thinking about what had happened to her, but the shitty part was it didn't even happen to me. It happened to her. A girl. Just a girl.
    Shitty things happened. They happened, and there was nothing you could do about it. Then they're over and you dealt with it, or you didn't. Some people did, some didn't. Ami was trying, I could see that, but the guilt that she survived was written all over her face.
    Part of me, a part I frequently told to shut up, wondered what I could possibly offer someone like Ami. Maybe friendship, but for someone who spent the majority of the fall through spring traveling, it was hard to offer her much.
    Then again, would she even be interested in me?
    You're so far ahead of yourself it's pathetic.
    What was pathetic was the fact that I was even thinking like this. Leo was right. I was cherry picking.
    Sometimes I felt like I was stalking Ami, like I was the guy in the corner, taking everything in, waiting. That kind of stalking. Or maybe that was just watching? It felt like stalking. If I had the chance to learn anything about her, I would wait a minute, an hour, a day, a week, a year, just to know her. For me that was the hardest part because I wasn't a patient person.

 
     
    Defensive Zone – The zone or area nearest a team's goal.
     
    Game 47 – Columbus Blue Jackets
    Thursday, January 14, 2010
    (Home Game)
     
     
    Hockey players weren't like your average athletes. Some were, but most of us were different. If you compared us to football players, you'd see the differences right away.
    We were aggressive; some girls called us secretive, and others called us whores.
    They didn't usually say that after a night in the sheets with us, though. They were usually begging for more.
    They liked us because we didn't give a fuck. If you wanted rough, you got it rough with a hockey player. And then there was the endurance part.
    Not many guys could take hits like we could or got off their asses and continued their shift while sweating, skating, taking bone crushing hits against