A/N: Okay, so more than one person told me I should tell Connie's side of 'Off the Ice' so I decided I would. This is what I came up with. Be warned, it was written in the wee hours of a Sunday morning and edited in the wee hours of a Monday morning, so it's probably not as coherent as I'd like it to be. Still, I like it and I hope you all do too.
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Julie's watching me again. I can feel it. I can always tell when she's looking at me. I get that prickly sensation between my shoulder blades and my muscles tense up as though anticipating a touch that never comes. It drives me crazy sometimes; my body is always hyper-aware when she looks at me, and when she doesn't do anything I get this tension headache that makes it impossible for me to focus. And it's happening again, during a game, the final game of this season. Julie's eyes boring holes in my back and making me lose my concentration.
This is why I'm almost glad when that giant from the other team slams me into the wall. Sure it hurts, but it breaks Julie's stare (though I can hear her angry shouts as I slowly pick myself up from the ice) and clears my head enough for me to finish the game. We win, of course. The other team didn't stand a chance against us; I mean, we're and Olympic team, those guys were small potatoes for us. I'm just glad the season is over and I don't have to suffer any more body-checks until Coach starts practices again.
Coming out of the rink I find Julie beside me almost instantaneously asking me if I'm alright. Briefly I wonder why Guy, my boyfriend, isn't the one checking on me but I let the thought slip away. I assure Julie that I'm fine and after she looks into my eyes for an extra long moment she accepts that answer and heads for the locker room behind the rest of the team. She's been behaving a little oddly lately, but she's my best friend and I'm sure she'd tell me if something were wrong. I could do without the burning stares but I'll live with them, I know she's only worried for me. I'm smaller than everyone on the ice, including her, and the other teams love to take advantage of that fact and toss me around. She's always been a little protective of me anyway, what with the 'we're the only two girls in our league, we've got to stick together' thing, but she's been taking that into overdrive lately. Coach had to break up a fight she started with another team last week after a guy tried to high-stick me. The ref threw her out of the game when she bloodied the guy's nose. Coach was pretty mad at the time, but after the game half the team (including Coach and myself) congratulated her for doing what they'd wanted to. I was a little stunned that none of them thought I could handle myself but I appreciated that they were all willing to fight for me so I didn't say anything. It wouldn't have served any purpose anyway, I'll always be the team's doll to take care of.
And now, this week, I'm just looking forward to my date with Guy. Between classes and practices there have been precious few opportunities for us to go out since we came to this school, and I'm glad that we've both found the time tonight. I get ready in the room I share with Julie. She's giving me advice on what to wear and telling me I look great when I fret over my hair or make-up, she's always doing things like that for me. Eventually I'm finished getting ready, so I say bye to Julie and leave to meet Guy in front of the dorm building.
He takes me out to dinner and acts the perfect gentleman. Holding open doors for me, telling me how hot I look tonight, and paying for our meal (even going so far as to order an extra dessert for me, knowing I cannot resist the siren call of good chocolate). I should have known something was wrong then, he never acts this way, but I thought he was being extra romantic. After all, our anniversary was coming up and I knew he was hoping to get laid (not that I would sleep with him, I love him, but I'm totally not ready for that. We've talked about it a lot actually, and he keeps pushing). So I thought he was being really sweet, going the extra mile before our anniversary actually hit. I could feel myself falling a little bit more in love with him as the night wore on. After dinner he took me for a walk in a nearby park, jokingly telling me it was to work off the calories from that dessert. Then he sat me down on a park bench and started talking.
"Con, you know I love you right?" His tone is hollow and he has this weird and startlingly intent look on his face. It's completely disconcerting. He looks like he's about to tell me my mother died.
"I know. I love you, too, Guy." I smile at him, hoping he'd go back to his normal fun-loving self. No such luck.
"See, that's the thing, you don't." There's anger in his voice and fire in his eyes.
What is he talking about? Of course I do. Of course I love him, I have since I was thirteen! What the hell is going on here? "What! Of course I do! Guy…"
"Then why won't you have sex with me? If you really loved me you'd sleep with me!" He's angry, shouting, frightening in his intensity. Sex doesn't equal love, and love doesn't invariably lead to sex.
"You know I'm not ready for that Guy! I've told you so a thousand times! Sex isn't something I take lightly. I wasn't my first time to be special, with someone I love and-"
He cuts me off with another shout, "You just said that you love me! But you won't sleep with me, you fucking prude. So that can't be your reason! What's the real reason, huh? You sexing up someone else and laughing at 'poor stupid Guy' behind my back?! Huh?" He's standing, shouting in my face. He looks ready to hit me. I've never seen this temper from him, when did he get so angry?
"I may love you Guy, but I'm not ready to sleep with you, or with anyone else. Sex is a big commitment for me and I'm not ready for it. Not even with you. Especially not with you, I feel like I don't even know you anymore." I'm trying to keep a level head, but he's making it extremely difficult. I want to shout back at him.
"Fine," he said in a dangerously cold tone, "If that's how you really feel. You won't sleep with me; I'll find someone who will. Someone with a better body than you. Someone who won't be such a bitch about it. We're through. You're aren't worth all this shit. Fucking ugly bitch." He walks away, leaving me stunned. His words, though said in anger, hurt more than I thought they could, striking me to the core.
How could I have just been a conquest to him? We met when we were eleven, he couldn't have been planning to sleep with me for that long. Sure we didn't start dating until we were thirteen, but sex still shouldn't have been his motive. But maybe he's right, maybe I am being a prude, maybe I am ugly, maybe I'm not worth the wait. Heartbroken and in shock, I run back to the dorms with tears streaming down my face. I don't care if anyone sees me, as I'm sure they do. I had loved him and he obviously had never loved me.
I register the look of startlement that crosses Julie's face as I burst through the door, but I don't have the heart to reassure her, so I throw myself facedown on my bed and sob into my pillow.
"Connie!" I hear shock and worry in Julie's voice, but I'm in no mood to attend. "Connie, sweetie, what happened? What's wrong?"
I feel the bed sink as Julie sits down beside me but I don't answer her. I fear that her sympathy is as false as Guy's love proved to be. An irrational fear, I know, but still one that plagues me. When Julie realizes I won't answer her, she contents herself with rubbing my back and combing her fingers through my hair trying to soothe me.
She's patient. More patient than I've ever seen her. She doesn't pressure me for answers or tell me I should get over it. She just lets me cry, moving to lay beside me, offering the comfort of her nearness and warmth. She doesn't say anything when I turn and put myself in her embrace, she just hold me and lets me cry into her shoulder, soaking her shirt.
I fall asleep there, on top of her. When I wake I find her still beneath me, but she must have gotten up at some point because I'm in pajamas now and the blankets are over us both, and I know I didn't change my clothes so she must have. She must have taken care of me after I fell asleep, changed my clothes and cleaned my face with the washcloth I see on the bedside table, and then fallen asleep in the bed with me when she'd finished. She does look tired though, like she'd stayed up really late, and I know she must have stayed awake to watch over me and make sure I was okay, keeping me safe like she always does. The bags under her eyes and the fact that I'm in different clothes oddly reassure me of Julie's affection for me, she wouldn't take such good care of me if she weren't concerned about me. Her affection obviously isn't false like Guy's was.
Thinking of him starts me crying again, and that wakes Julie. I feel regret for waking her, but I can't stop the tears. She looks up at me with the saddest face in the world, with so much sympathy and caring that I cry harder just for seeing it, and she tightens her hold on me. I sink back into her arms and cry myself out. When my tears eventually stop she tells me to take a shower while gets us both something to eat, obviously sensing that I'm not up to face the world yet. I comply, not really knowing what else to do with myself. Guy and I had been together for three years, I don't know who I am without him.
It takes a week, and Julie's most doting care, before I'm ready to be out in public again and leave our room. Julie, thankfully, had helped me keep up on homework telling the teachers I was sick and bringing the work back for me to complete. She's been really great to me about all of this, never pushing me too hard, and always willing to help me out when I need it. I know I wake her up with my nightmares, I don't even remember them most of the time, but I usually wake up with Julie's arms around me and feeling safer than ever I have before. Sometimes she anticipates my needs better than I do. Many a time is when I'll be working on something, sitting at my desk, and I'll feel her arms slide around me to hold me by my shoulders in a hug from behind. Until that moment I hadn't known I'd needed a hug, but she obviously knew better than I did. I must look terribly pathetic if she's giving me surprise hugs. Sometimes I know I look awful because I've been crying after seeing Guy with his blonde bimbos. And knowing he's having sex with them and knowing I'll never look as good as they do and no one will ever want me because I'm ugly and that just makes me cry more and always, always Julie catches me in an embrace before my thoughts can get me down anymore and tells me that Guy isn't worth any of this grief.
I listen to her, but I wonder how true it is. I feel as though at any moment I could fall apart, except that Julie is there holding me together. She watches me, I know. I catch her at it all the time and I wonder what she sees. Does she think I'm ugly, like Guy does? Or is she waiting for me to collapse again so she can pick me up? Or is she looking for some reason I can't even fathom?
After a few months of thoughts like that plaguing my mind, of Julie holding me late into the night whenever I'd cry, of seeing Guy week after week with a new floozy on his arm, of pitying looks from most of the team even after Guy moved away, and of generally driving myself crazy, I finally ask her why.
"Julie, why do I catch you looking at me sometimes?" I just need to know. I need to know what she sees, what she thinks, what it means.
She pauses like a deer caught in the headlights "uh…"
Her lack of intelligible response makes me want to fill the silence and before I know it my insecurities pop out "It doesn't bother me; I just wonder sometimes why you look. I mean, it's not like you're leering at me like some guys do. You're just looking, like you're contemplating a sculpture or something and it makes me want to know what you're thinking…I mean, I'm not very pretty and-" And I don't get any farther because she's talking, finally galvanized into speech.
"Yes you are!" Her exclamation startles me, loud enough to make me glad we're in our room. "You are very pretty Connie." She looks like she wants to cry, her eyes speaking of an anguish I had no idea she was going though because I'd been so wrapped up in myself, she's trying to make me believe with just her eyes. "You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. Don't ever think you're not pretty! You're downright gorgeous!"
She had stood from her desk and taken my shoulders in either hand, shaking me a little to emphasize her point. She really thinks that. She believes, and wants me to believe it too. She's trying to make me believe that I'm pretty. I've spent these last few months wondering what's wrong with me and she's here telling me I'm gorgeous. And she's being so sincere that I really do believe her. I feel tears prick my eyes as I respond to her "…Thank you…Julie." To my horror those tears spill hotly down my cheeks but I smile anyway.
"Why are you crying?" She asks in a near panic, obviously fearing she'd said something wrong. I forgot she couldn't see my face because I'd looked to the floor the first time she'd said I was pretty.
I raise my head and give her a weak smile. "Because you just made me very happy." She has too. Her words mean more to me than Guy's ever did, and I'm wondering why it took me so long to figure that out.
I hear her speak softly, confused, "Connie…"
Before she can say anything else I explain myself, "No one has called me pretty in a long time, and hearing it from you means a lot to me." And it's true. No one has called me pretty, sure I'd heard 'hot' and 'sexy' but not simple 'pretty' and sometimes it's a lot better to be 'pretty' than to be 'hot'.
"I didn't know it would mean so much…" Her voice is soft with wonder.
I give a sardonic little laugh, "Neither did I. But I haven't been happy, truly happy, in a long time and you just took away a lot of the hurt I've been feeling." I realize as I say it, that it's true. I haven't been happy since before I started dating Guy, I'd just been fooling myself.
Julie makes a sympathetic little noise and starts talking. "If I had known that telling you that would have made you feel better I'd have been telling you things like that everyday. I'd be telling you just what I've been thinking about you for the last three years!" Three years? Has she really thought me beautiful for three years?
"Connie," I hear her say, "You're the most beautiful person I've ever known. Do you really want to know why you catch me looking at you sometimes?" I nod, entranced by the passion, the fervor in her voice.
"It's because I can hardly keep my eyes off of you. You're so perfect that sometimes I feel like I'm looking at a sculpture, an artists' master work. I don't know how you could possibly think you aren't pretty." She sounds genuinely puzzled about that and I know I could never explain to her exactly why I was so insecure about myself. "I think about just how beautiful you are everyday. And not just in looks. You're so kind, and thoughtful, and helpful, and sweet, and smart, and funny, and…and perfect! And I just don't see how you or anyone else could think otherwise. I mean, you're just so…magnificent. I don't know why dozens of people aren't in love with you like I am but-"
"You're in love with me?!" Did she just say that? Did I hear her right? She looks pretty mystified, so I guess I must have heard correctly. I smile at her, somehow knowing she hadn't meant to say that makes me believe it even more, it's how she really feels.
She takes a deep breath and looks me directly in the eyes, completely serious. "I am," she confirms, "I'm in love with you. I love you, Connie Moreau, and I have for a long time now." She looks like she'd just walked to the gallows, prepared for me pronounce something dire in reply to her confession.
Hearing her say those things, and mean them, makes me ecstatic. I squeal and tackle her onto her bed, my arms tight around her neck. "Oh god, Julie! I love you, too." And as I say it, I know that it's true. That it's always been true. That it's the reason I never slept with Guy. That it's the reason I'd never sleep with any guy. I hadn't known it until she'd said it, hadn't even considered it really, but I know now that I love her with all my heart. How could I not? She's been there for me during one of the darkest periods of my life, holding me together and helping me to fall in love with her without even realizing it. The strength of the revelation demands action. So I kiss her, hard, and repeat those wonderful words over and over again, refreshing and confirming the truth in them with each repetition, "I love you, I love you, I love you…"
I feel her kiss the top of my head and I bury my face against her neck, feeling her skin with my lips, scenting her. Her arms wrap around my back, holding me secure against her body. I never want her to let go.
It's almost too much. I have to see her face, to look into her eyes and validate the truth of this beautiful moment, to make sure it's actually happening. I raise my head, smiling, moving to support myself above her. She catches my eyes with her own and holds them in her gaze. Love, acceptance, joy, all shine from her eyes as she looks into mine and tells me "I love you" in a voice so laden with the emotion that I have to close my eyes and feel the words wash over me, making me shiver, making my whole body tingle as goose bumps rise all along my arms.
I feel her right hand move from my back to cup my cheek, her thumb brushing away the tears falling down, and I tilt my head towards the warmth of her palm. "I love you, too, Julie. I love you, too." I kiss her softly, over and over and over, I never want to stop kissing her. It feels so right, so much better than any kiss I'd ever had from Guy, it's absolutely perfect.
When I break the kiss I look into her eyes and see more love than I thought could exist in the world pouring out of them, all for me. I realize that she's made me happy again. She gave me my smile back, my life back, and I'm more than willing to share it with her.
I think I'll start the sharing with some more kisses. Perfect.
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A/N: Alright, there you have it. So, leave a review. Let me know what you think of it.