Crystal Frost's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

Crystal arrived at the arena an hour early, her season ticket folded in her coat pocket like a talisman. She had worked a double shift the day before to start paying down Aunt Matty's treatment bills, and her legs ached from standing. But Gerard had said he'd see her at the next game, and she wasn't going to miss it. She was halfway to the entrance when she saw him waiting by the equipment door, a bright duffel bag at his feet and a folded paper in his hand. Gerard waved when he spotted her, and her heart kicked hard against her ribs. He walked toward her with the easy confidence of someone who expected to be welcomed. When he held out the paper, she saw it was a game schedule with certain dates circled in red ink. "I need someone to travel with the team," he said. "Road games. Paid position. You'd be perfect." The offer hung in the air between them, and Crystal's wrist suddenly felt heavy with the weight of the alert bracelet she wore for Aunt Matty's sake. The schedule showed three games a week for the next two months, all of them out of town. Crystal tried to imagine leaving Aunt Matty with a neighbor for days at a time, tried to picture herself on a team bus with Gerard while her phone lit up with emergency calls she couldn't answer. She looked at Gerard's face, hopeful and certain, and felt something inside her crack open. "I can't," she said, and the words tasted like ash. "I have someone who needs me here." Gerard's expression shifted to confusion, then concern, but Crystal was already stepping back, already protecting the careful distance she'd built between them. Gerard didn't argue or ask questions. He just nodded slowly and picked up his duffel bag, the schedule still in his other hand. "If things change," he said quietly, and left the rest unfinished. Crystal watched him walk back toward the arena, and for the first time in two years, she understood that wanting Gerard and having him were two entirely different things. She had chosen Aunt Matty over the fantasy, and the choice had turned Gerard from a dream into a real person she'd just hurt. Tomorrow she would sit in her seat and watch him play, but everything between them had already changed.