Chapter 38

So this summer has started to be a little bit more crazy than I originally anticipated (unfortunately) which explains my lack of updates and the breaking of promises. I hope you guys like this one because as I mentioned a few chapters ago, I foresee this story ending sometime soon, I just need to make sure that I get it right. Hope you like it!

Song: "The Dumbing Down of Love"- Frou Frou (great song if you guys listen to it!)

Sid's POV:

"You're an idiot" were the first words that I heard when I walked into the locker room two days later for morning skate.

"Fuck off, Talbo" I said trying to push my way past the nosy Frenchman. I felt like shit enough without someone else reminding me of how I had probably just blown the best thing to happen to me. Ever.

"No" he spit out grabbing me by the shoulder and turning me to face him. "She's been staying with us and crying her eyes out, Sid. What the fuck did you do?"

The guilt after hearing that was maddening and I already felt bad enough. "I said fuck off. Go worry about your own relationship."

"I  don't need to worry about my relationship. I don't make my wife cry herself to sleep at night."

"What's going on?" Flower was the next one to approach us while the rest of the guys tried to pretend like they were truly involved in lacing up their skates.

"Sid's an ass" Max answered brushing by me and making sure that he bumped my shoulder on his way by. I rolled my eyes at the way that he was acting and avoided eye contact with Flower as I pushed to my stall. Of course, Max was there waiting for me, ready to glare and stare at me as I got ready to get on the ice. Why did we sit next to each other again?

I kept getting ready and ignoring the combination of dirty looks (Max) and curious looks being shot at me from various angles in the locker room. It wasn't that I had wanted to yell at her like I did and break things off. It was the opposite. And I wasn't even sure that I knew where we officially stood since neither of us had texted or made the effort to call each other. I guess we were technically broken up but that was something that I had chosen to ignore in the past two days. Even though I had been the one to actually say the words, I still couldn't believe- no refused to believe- that this was actually the end.

It wasn't as if I actually wanted to walk away from her. Not after everything that had happened for the past couple of years. She was a constant in my life that I couldn't get past easily, no matter how stupidly either of us acted.

Grabbing my stick, I walked down the runway, needing to release some of my pent up frustration and aggravation on the ice before warm ups officially began.

Before I was about to step out onto the ice, Max's familiar voice spoke behind me causing me to stiffen uncomfortably. "You know, all you have to do is talk to her."

Yeah, talking to her so that she can officially confirm that she was done. Sounded like the time of my life.

"For reasons beyond me, she's willing to put up with your shit. If you talk to her, she'll listen."

He let go of the the arm that I hadn't even realized he had grabbed and released me as if to say 'it's your choice.'

"It's not that simple" I told him truthfully. I didn't know how to be anything other than who I was and how I had carried on for the past 25 years of my life. How could I give her more when I wasn't even sure that I was capable? I regretted our argument and what I said immediately after leaving her house but that didn't change what either of us had said. Max of course wouldn't see any of this logic. He was happily married with a kid and didn't have the same kind of commitments to his career that I did. It wasn't arrogance that made me think this way, it was reality. No one but Emma and I would ever understand what it took to make a relationship work under the glaring light of NHL-caliber pressure. And even we still fumbled and couldn't get it right.

"You don't want to think that it's that simple" Max told me shaking his head and pushing past me to step onto the ice. "If you can't pull your head out of your ass, you're going to lose her for good."

It wasn't worth the effort to respond to him or tell him that I was pretty sure that I already had lost her for good.


Eliza's POV (yes, you read that correctly): **I thought that I would spice things up a little bit by adding a different perspective.

If it had been anyone else other than Sidney Crosby and one of my closest friends, Emma, I might have been surprised. However, because I was currently dealing with a normally sensible and level headed girl, I really wished that it was anyone other than Sidney Crosby that I was being forced to deal with. Apparently the idiot was actually worth crying over.

I didn't see it but then again, I had also married someone who I had once before cursed for being an idiot. I still cursed him for being an idiot.

As I sat for the second night in a row wiping away Emma's tears of frustration and sadness, I wished that one of them would just break down already and call each other. That would save both of them a whole lot of frustration and misery and it would save me a hell of a lot of tissues.

If I had learned anything from love over the years, it was that you should never let your pride get in the way of your happiness.

"I'm sorry" Emma said coming up for air and gasping for her breath. "I didn't mean to break down like that, I'm just so stupid." She broke down again and the amounts of water leaking from her eyes was enough to make me wonder just how much moisture a person could secrete before becoming truly dehydrated.

"I mean, how could I not see it coming?" she asked again. I safely assumed that she wasn't actually looking for a response because she continued to talk and let me rub her back soothingly. Now wouldn't really be the time to remind her that Vero and I had warned her to speak up earlier about Sid's behaviors in the relationship. Not only was that just cruel at this point but it was just extra information that she didn't need.

"I'm so stupid. I should have stood my ground and never let him leave!"

"Okay, STOP" I said forcefully finally prompting her to look at me quietly. "You didn't do anything wrong so stop calling yourself stupid. Love makes all of us stupid." I grinned trying to lighten the mood and force a smile out of the usually happy Emma. "Look at how I turned out, I'm married to a hairy Frenchman who keeps knocking me up!"

Thankfully, the joke worked and a tiny smile appeared at the corner of her mouth. "Shut up" she said playfully. "Max treats you like a queen, even if he is hairy." The joke reassured me that the same old Emma was somehow inside of the snivelling mess in front of me.

"So what are you going to do?" I asked her holding out the trashcan so that she could throw away her small pile of tissues.

"Well for starters, I should probably go home. I've been crying more than the baby has."

"You don't have to go anywhere" I reminded her. She had called me immediately after Sid had left and I had told her to come over asap and stay with us until she felt better. I remembered what I had felt like when I thought that Max and I were over and I hadn't wanted her to be alone. Especially when she didn't have the shoulder of a family member to lean on like I had too.

"Yeah, actually I do" she said wiping beneath her eyes. "Look at me, I haven't gone to work in two days, I've been raiding your fridge like a hobo and poor Max is probably terrified by the noises that have been coming from this room. I seriously just need to go home and get it together."

"Are you sure?" I asked watching her get up and pick up her cell phone dejectedly. "You know that you can stay with me or Vero for as long as you need to."

She smiled again, a real smile this time and shook her head. "You've been great, but no. I need to go home and be human again." She leaned in and kissed me on the cheek in thanks. "Thank you again. I'm sorry that I did nothing but act pathetic for the past 48 hours."

I nodded even though her self-deprecating humor worried me a little. After having her heart unexpectedly stomped on, why shouldn't she be allowed to cry a little (or a lot)? Every woman had that right simply because it was us versus the men. We were bound to shed a tear or a thousand tears over a man at some point in our lifetimes but it was almost like Emma held herself to other, unrelenting standards. I wasn't sure what those standards were exactly but to me it seemed like she actually believed that she deserved what had happened and now it was time to sweep it all under the rug.

"So what are you going to do for the rest of the night?" I asked her as we walked downstairs to the door.

"Oh, you know. Check my emails, get caught up on work stuff" she shrugged nonchalantly.

"Are you going to call him?" I asked before she escaped out the door to her car. An unsettled look passed over her face before she resumed her 'over it' attitude.

"I don't know yet. I guess I'll figure that out eventually. Tonight I just need to go home and mentally prepare myself for dinner with my parents this weekend. I don't think I can handle both Sidney and my parents right now" she said shuddering. The familiar look of sadness that she had been sporting this week passed quickly over her face before it was gone. It was the same look that had made me want to bitch slap Sidney Crosby this entire week just for making my friend so miserable. This was a time that he should be with her and her parents supporting her against their onslaught of crazy. Instead, she was being fed to the vampires alone and miserable after everything else that she had been through this week.

Max popped his head in as he arrived home from a team dinner with the guys. He had promised to say something to Sid today during practice and since I had been swamped at work all day, I hadn't had the chance to talk to him about it yet.

"Hey, are you going somewhere?" he asked her, coming over to peck me on the cheek in greeting. The simple gesture warmed me up from a day of manhating on Crosby. He was my solid rock of support and even though he was wearing a shirt that I hated and begged him not to buy, and a tacky Gucci hat, my heart swelled with adoration for him.

Max charmed another smile out of her before she slipped out the door, thanking us again for our hospitality.

"Is she okay?" Max asked coming around me to slip his arms around my waist.

"She's trying to be" I said running my hands up his biceps to his shoulders. "How's Sidney?"

"Same old, same old. He wouldn't talk about it today but he looked like hell. So that's a good sign right?"

I nodded wishing that we could do something about the situation. It was just so stupid for two obviously smart people like Sid and Emma to be acting this way.

"Do you think we should do something?"

"I don't know" I sighed. "It would be wrong to meddle in the relationship of two adults, wouldn't it?"

He nodded even though he was grinning down at me. Max was always up for doing something that he shouldn't be doing.

"I think that we should let it go" I told him, trying to remain stern. The smile he was giving me was the same one that had me, my mother and Max's mom convinced that there would eventually be enough little Talbot boys running around to start our own hockey team.

"They'll work it out" he nodded, apparently giving up hope of us meddling. I started to agree with him when suddenly I remembered something that Emma had mentioned earlier. Maybe there was a way to meddle and put them both back on the right path without any of us meddling too much or too obviously.