BlurredHorizon - I appreciate the kind words, friend! You're great!

Chapter 21 - January 19 - 20, 1980

"I still can't believe you went. What if he killed you?"

Sandy raised her face up off of the pillow that she had been burying it into to frown at Di. "What's the matter with everyone? I lived with Ray for over a year." The two of them were stowed away in Sandy's room, not wanting to listen to Will as he tried to teach Jenny breathing exercises in the living room.

"Yeah, what if but maybe he didn't want to when you guys were—you know, that part doesn't really matter," Di interrupted herself as Sandy dropped her face back into the pillow and groaned. "The point is, I'm not sure what you were expecting when you went. What did you think would happen?"

"I don't know," Sandy said, muffled by the pillow. She turned her head to the side and continued, "I guess I wanted to see how he was doing. Maybe that was stupid. I don't know what I wanted to see. I don't think he did, either."

"... which generally makes for a pretty great dinner date. Look, you invited me over to hear what I thought of all this," Di said, shrugging as Sandy grimaced at her. "Did you tell Bah?"

Sandy shook her head. "Not yet," she said, "but—"

"Oh my Christ." Di cut her off, rolling off the bed and onto the floor with a thud. Sandy peered over the edge of the bed at her friend, who was lying on her back with her hands over her face.

"What?"

Di dropped her hands to the floor. "Try to explain to me why you haven't talked to him about this. Please. Try."

Sandy sat up and considered it. "Well," she said, "it's just hard to give him bad news right now. He's out on the road, and they're not going to be back until tomorrow—"

"It isn't really bad news, though, is it? You just met up with Ray for dinner and he was kind of a cock to you. Other than that, what's the bad news?"

"If I talk to him about seeing Ray, I think the conversation about us—Bah and I—will just sort of naturally come from that," Sandy explained. "And I'm worried about having to explain how I've been feeling to him. Especially since I've waited so long to tell him. I just let things pile up."

Di reached out a hand for Sandy to grab and pulled herself into a sitting position. "Okay, so, how exactly are you feeling?"

Sandy wrinkled her nose. "I feel—I feel terrible again. I feel guilty. Like this has all been one big secret I've been keeping from Bah and the longer I wait to say something, the worse it gets."

"Sure," Di said, drawing her legs up underneath her. "And you're definitely right. But you know what? The reason why you feel so guilty is because you know you should be talking to him about it, but you're not. It's just gonna keep eating at you until you suck it up and have the conversation."

Di was, of course, correct. Sandy didn't see it as much of a credit to her character when she admitted this to herself.

Telling Bah that she had seen Ray was not what concerned Sandy. Really, all that boiled down to was that she probably shouldn't have gone at all. Not because she wasn't allowed to see Ray, but she recognized that seeing him had only confused her. She also knew, however, that if she was telling Bah about having seen Ray, there was no reason not to come clean about the rest of the issues that had been weighing on her—that she was feeling doubtful, and about her conversation with Gayle that had left her feeling like Bah had deceived her. The obvious solution to these problems was, and always had been, to just talk to him about it. She had just avoided doing so for months, under the pretence of waiting for the right moment.

Sandy had made plans to pick Bah up at the arena when he got home the following evening. She didn't know whether this was a good thing or not, but she spent the rest of the day steeling herself.

Bah was waiting for her on the sidewalk when she pulled up to the rink. "Hi," he said, tossing his bag into the back seat as he climbed inside. "Pav said not to wait—a bunch of guys are going to get something to eat."

Sandy, who had forgotten all about Pav and how she would have normally driven him back to the apartment as well, said, "oh, didn't you want to go with them?" She grimaced, annoyed at herself for immediately trying to torpedo their conversation.

But Bah shook his head. "No, not really. I just feel like going home and relaxing with you for a while." He grinned. "Why, did you want to go out with the boys?"

"No," she said quickly, and he laughed. "I actually—" Sandy paused and took a deep breath before continuing, "I actually really need to talk to you about a few things."

She could see him studying her face out of the corner of her eye as she drove. "Sure," he said. "Is everything all right?"

She shook her head and then, thinking that this was maybe a little melodramatic, said, "I'm not sure." Sandy took another deep breath, slowing the car to stop for a red light. "While you were gone, Ray called. He was in St. Paul for work and we went out for dinner. Him and I. Me and Ray."

Bah didn't respond until long after the light had turned green and Sandy had started driving again. "Well," he said eventually, "how did it go?"

She wasn't sure what reaction she had been expecting. "Oh—it was fine, I guess. He seemed kind of sad, but other than that I think he just wanted to see how I was doing. We just talked. He said—well, he did say that he might have to move here for work."

He surprised her by clapping a hand over his eyes and snorting with laughter. "Of course he said that," he said. Bah took his hand away from his face and grinned over at her. "Sorry, it's just—he shows up after all this time and he suddenly has to move here for work? Is he for real?"

"I don't know," she said. "It seems odd."

Bah laughed again. "For sure it does."

Sandy drove in silence for a while, trying to decide how she felt about how Bah had processed this news. She hadn't wanted him to be upset, but the fact that he was so understanding made her feel less sure about the rest of what she needed to tell him. Maybe it wasn't such a big deal after all. "So, you're not mad?"

"Well, no," Bah said. "What do I have to be mad about? Should I be worried about him? I mean, now that he's apparently moving here?"

"No."

He shrugged. "Then why would I be angry that you saw him? You don't feel the same way about him as you did before, and we're—you know—together, in whatever way that we are—"

Seeing an opportunity, Sandy cut him off. "I want to talk about that, too."

"About what?"

Sandy pulled the car into a parking spot outside of Bah's apartment complex and cut the ignition. "About this," she said, gesturing at the two of them. "About us."

Bah nodded, looking almost excited at the prospect, and reached into the back seat for his bag. "Of course. Why don't we talk inside?"

Bah's tone made Sandy worry that he had more optimistic feelings about this conversation than she did, but she followed him up the stairs and into the building. Once they were inside and seated at the kitchen table, Bah held an open hand out to Sandy. "Go ahead."

There was a long pause before Sandy spoke. Finally, she took a deep breath and said, "what do you think we're doing in the fall?"

"Oh," Bah said. He seemed surprised at the question. "Well, I don't really know. We haven't talked about it all that much. Why, what do you think we're doing in the fall?"

"God." Sandy immediately felt ridiculous. Of course Bah hadn't assumed that she'd go with him wherever he went. The idea of it suddenly seemed outrageous to her. She put her forehead in her hands. "Oh, God. I'm really sorry, Bah."

"What? Why?"

"I'm just being an idiot," she said in the direction of the table. "Gayle said something to me that really messed—"

"What did she say?" Bah's tone was a little sharper; Sandy lifted her head at the sound of it.

"She thought—do you remember when we were all out for drinks on the night when you found out you made the team?" She paused for Bah to nod before continuing, "do you remember saying something about not knowing where the two of us would be next year?"

Bah frowned. "No. When did I say that?"

Sandy felt her stomach drop about a foot further. Bah's reaction made it perfectly clear that she had nothing to worry about, and that she never had. She put her head back into her hands and groaned. "I'm sorry, Bah. This is so stupid."

"Well, no, it's not," Bah said, and she heard him lean back in his chair. "This was obviously bothering you—you were worried enough to at least have a conversation with Gayle about it."

"She talked to me about it," Sandy said, looking up. "I wasn't worried until she mentioned it."

"And then what, you decided she must be right and that I must be trying to control you?" Bah crossed his arms. "That's what the issue is, right? That me saying this thing meant that I was just going to force you to come with me without actually talking to you about it? How was that going to work?"

Hearing him say it out loud caused Sandy's cheeks to suddenly become warm. "Not—not exactly that," she said. He held a hand out across the table and she took it, her own hand creeping towards his, uncertain.

He squeezed gently. "The idea that I could force you to do anything that you didn't one-hundred percent want to do," he said, "is ridiculous to me. And I mean that in the most positive way."

Sandy looked up and grimaced. "I know. I'm sorry."

Bah had an odd look on his face as he shrugged, and then shrugged again, as if trying to repeat the motion in an attempt to get it right. He looked across the table at her for a long moment and then, abruptly, he let go of her hand, got to his feet, and walked back into the kitchen. "Are you hungry?"

She shook her head. "Not really."

"I am," he said. Bah opened the fridge and pulled out a whole pork chop. He stood there, leaning against the wall, and gnawed on it.

"How long has that been in there?" Sandy asked. The boys had just gotten back from a week-long trip to Oklahoma and Texas. Nobody had been there to cook in days.

Bah swallowed the bite he had been chewing with some difficulty. "A while." He continued to stand there, still watching her. His ears had turned red.

She stared back, unsure of how to track this change in mood. "Are you—"

He turned away from her suddenly and braced his hands on the kitchen counter. "I've been trying to be, you know, supportive, and good to you and all that stuff. You know?"

"I know," Sandy said. "You are. You have been."

"I think I have been," he said, starting to speak more quickly. "And I'll tell you something—it bothers me that you didn't think you could talk to me about this before today. You know, it's been weeks since that night. You've been stewing about this since then and you just didn't say anything. Why not?"

Sandy opened her mouth and closed it. "I don't know," she said. "It just hasn't felt like the right time to bring it up."

"Sure. Fine. Sure. But what is the right time, really? If you're worried about something, I'd rather you just said it than waiting until you can't stand it anymore." He started walking back towards the table. "This doesn't work if we don't talk."

"I know." Sandy looked down at the table. "And I know I should have talked to you about all of this stuff, but—"

Bah paused, halfway through the motion of sitting back down. "Wait, hold on," he said. "What do you mean, 'all of this stuff?' What else is there? Is there more that you haven't mentioned?"

There was a long moment of silence while Sandy and Bah stared at each other. Sandy felt trapped. She also understood that she had set that trap for herself and that she didn't have to look far, really, when it came to finding someone to blame for what happened next. Nevertheless, her voice still shook when she finally said, "do you really want to find out about it this way?"

Bah scoffed. "Well, better to find out like this than not find out at all and think everything is fine, I guess." He sighed. "Please," he said, "just be honest. Just be completely honest with me and we can figure it out. Whatever it is, let's just talk about it. Just tell me—I won't interrupt."

Another moment passed while Sandy worked up the nerve to do what she had, unfortunately, never really done with Bah: be absolutely transparent. She realized in that moment that it had been a lot easier to be the girl who had met Bah at the end of the summer—the girl who had just moved to town and had a secret that she didn't want to talk about. She had gotten used to having that level of accepted secrecy and never moved away from it. And that wasn't fair to Bah, she thought. It wasn't really fair to herself, either.

"Okay," she said. "I've been thinking a lot since I saw Ray. Our conversation made me question things."

Bah, unable to avoid breaking his rule about not interrupting, looked up. "Question what? Me? What did he say?"

"He said a lot, but the thing that stuck with me was him saying that he didn't think it was like me to wait for someone else to decide what I'm doing next. He told me to think about where I wanted to be in five years." Sandy paused, glanced up at Bah, and then immediately looked back down at the table when she saw the expression on his face. "And—I don't know, it made me realize that maybe I haven't thought at all about the future. The long term future, I mean. Part of that comes from not feeling like I've had enough time with you. And I know that's not your fault," she said, when he opened his mouth to interject. "I get that you're here for hockey. But how could you expect me to be all right going with you in the fall when I haven't spent a whole week with you in the entire time we've been seeing each other? I've been driving myself nuts since probably November because I don't feel like it's been long enough, and the one time I tried to bring it up, it didn't seem like it was a big deal to you."

Bah had put his face into his hands. He breathed heavily into them and then looked up again. "If you'd have said it was a big deal, I would have known. If it mattered this much, you should have brought it up every chance you got. And I never said I expected you to come with me in the fall. You've felt this way since November?"

Sandy swallowed hard and continued speaking. "I don't know. I guess so. I hung that calendar up in my room and every time I look at it I just feel sick. I don't know what to do. And Gayle said—" she paused as Bah let out a deep sigh. "Gayle really scared me, too. She made it seem like I needed to decide what I wanted to do and stick with it for the rest of my life and I don't think I'm ready to do that."

She stopped talking again, this time because Bah's head bobbed up and he was looking at her directly, clearly about to speak. It took him a long moment to cobble together a thought, but when he did, his voice wavered a little. "I don't understand why you couldn't have just talked to me about this. You talked to everybody but me—Gayle, probably Di, even your ex—can you tell me why?"

It occurred to Sandy that she didn't know why she had gone out of her way to keep things from Bah. She had self-sabotaged, maybe subconsciously, maybe not, for months, against the advice of others who almost certainly knew better and had her best interests at heart. She shook her head.

Bah sighed. "Was that everything you had to say, at least?"

"No," Sandy said, slowly shaking her head again. "There was one other thing."

"Oh, great," he said.

"Do you remember when we talked about what would have happened if you didn't make the team? Just before the last cuts?" She paused for Bah to nod before continuing, "you said you might have stayed here until September. And I thought—"

Bah put a hand up. "Wait," he said.

But Sandy had started and was worried that if she didn't get this off her chest at that moment, she might never be in a position to do so again. "I felt like I didn't know if I even wanted you to make this team because that would have meant that you got to stay here and we would have had more time to figure this out without having to go through this until the summer," she said. "I just wanted us to have more time, you know? And I felt awful for feeling that way because it's the complete opposite of what you want. I didn't know how to tell you. I didn't know how to tell you any of this."

While Sandy spoke, Bah had put both hands over his face again, and once she had fallen silent he let out a low, muffled groan into them. "Well," he said, raising his head to look over at her. "I guess I can understand why you didn't want to tell me that."

The apartment door suddenly opened and Mark Pavelich came in, hauling his luggage through. "Oh, hi," he said, noticing them at the kitchen table.

"Hey, Pav," Bah said, looking over his shoulder at his roommate. He sounded so incredibly tired. "Do you think you could give us the room, buddy? We're right in the middle of something."

A look passed between the two men, and Mark straightened up. "Of course," he said, and hustled back into the bedroom, accidentally whacking his suitcase on the wall on his way down the hallway.

Once he had gone, Bah sat with his hands folded in front of him, not speaking, for a long time. Sandy watched him, a sinking feeling in her stomach, not daring to break the silence.

Finally, he looked up. "Well, what do you figure we should do now?"

"I don't know," Sandy said.

He gave her a pained look. "I mean, what would you do? If you were in my position, how would you move forward? How do I plan a future with you in it, knowing what you've just told me?"

There didn't seem to be any one correct answer to this question, and so Sandy didn't offer one.

"Let's start with this," Bah said. "Do you even want to be with me? I guess that's my fault for not checking in and seeing where you were at with that."

"I do," Sandy said, "it's just—I don't know what to do now. I feel like it's kind of up to you."

"Oh, it definitely is," he replied. "I'm just, you know, trying to get a dialogue going here. But it's hard to trust you now. No—it's impossible for me to trust you now. I don't trust you. Is this going to be how it goes for us? You'll keep trying to find reasons to leave and I'll keep trying to make you stay? I don't understand why I have to be the only one fighting."

Sandy looked down. "I know. I'm sorry."

"I know you are." He also looked down, at his own hands clenched together on the table.

Sandy searched for something, anything to say to make the situation better. She knew, though, that the solution could be found months prior to that moment, when she first felt anxious about the time she had left with Bah. Weeks prior, after her conversation with Gayle. At that particular moment, sitting and looking at the hurt and disappointed look on Bah's face, Sandy knew that there was nothing she could do.

"I think—you know, I think maybe you'd better just go," Bah said after another long stretch of silence. He looked up from his hands and nodded. "That's probably for the best."

Sandy obediently started to push her chair out from the table and paused. "Is this—are we—I mean, am I leaving for good?"

Bah scoffed. "I don't know. I just—I'm exhausted, Sandy. It shouldn't be this hard. It just shouldn't be. I mean, I'm going to the goddamn Olympic Games in a few weeks. That should be the most stressful thing in my life right now, but it's not, and I can't do this anymore. I have no idea how I'm supposed to love you. You make it really hard. Yeah," he added, as Sandy twitched a little at the word "love." He gave her a sad smile. "Surprise."

With leaden legs, Sandy made her way out of Bah's apartment. When she walked out the front door of the building, she saw that it had started to snow again.

"Minnesota," she said, to no one in particular.

Hardly noticing the cold, Sandy sank down onto the front steps of the building. She put her face into her hands and took a deep breath.

She sat there for an indeterminate amount of time, allowing a fair pile of snow to accumulate on her back. When the door opened and Bah came out, she wasn't startled. It wasn't really a surprise. He brushed the snow off and sat down heavily next to her.

"You gotta go home, Sandy. You're gonna freeze out here."

"I know," Sandy said, but she didn't move. Neither did he.

He propped his elbows on his knees and rested his chin in his palm. "For what it's worth, I don't regret getting to know you. Maybe that's just me being sentimental, but I'm grateful for it."

"I wasted so much of your time," she said into her hands.

Bah snorted. "Well, I mean, I made the team in the end anyway. You couldn't have done that much damage." In a somewhat softer voice, he continued, "it wasn't a waste of time. Please don't think that."

Sandy turned her head to the side, peering over at him. "Thanks. For saying that you—you know."

"I wasn't just saying it. I do love you—and I think you feel the same way, honestly, which is why this is pretty terrible. And also—just know that I didn't mean that you're hard to love. You're pretty easy to love, actually. That's the problem, I think."

"I'm so sorry, Bah."

"Yeah."

Sandy recalled, just over six months ago, having a similar conversation with Ray that ended in the same manner. She got to her feet. "I should go."

He looked up at her and she noticed suddenly that there was a mug sitting next to him on the step. He saw her looking and picked it up. "Okay. This is for you."

She accepted the mug and turned it over in her hands. It was bright red with "DALLAS, TEXAS" printed on it, along with a picture of a cowboy's somber face. "Thank you," she said, not quite knowing what to say.

"You're welcome," he said. "I figured you'd want to have it. They sell some really ugly stuff down there. Can't imagine why anyone would ever want that for real."

"Well, thanks," she said again, and started to back away from him. "See you."

"Yeah. Maybe I'll see you around some time." It didn't sound like a statement that held much hope.

"Maybe. Good luck in Lake Placid. I'm sure you guys will do great."

Bah smiled thinly at her. "Sure. Keep an eye out for me on TV, okay?"

They looked at each other for a long moment. Maybe this is how things will always end, Sandy thought. Maybe this is just how it works for me. Eventually she turned to go, walking back towards her car. Maybe I'm only capable of disappointing people.

It was a truly negative thought, but as Sandy started her car and drove away, leaving Bah sitting on the front step, she found it hard to think of evidence to the contrary.