ale

“Please stop saying his name. Every time you do, I’m reminded of just exactly who he is beyond being a famous hockey player. Please come back to Halifax and get me out of it. I beg you,” Sorcha pleaded into the phone. “I couldn’t say no to him, Vic.”

“Why not? If you keep being reminded of who he was before he became a famous hockey player, then why couldn’t you say no?”

“Because he was so stupidly nice about it!” Sorcha was in pure agony. “How can a guy who was complicit in my bullying for so many years be so…nice?!”

“Beats the shit out of me,” Victoria said. “You have to tell me every single detail of what happens. You know that, right? Like I’m half way to telling you to record the entire dinner as a voice note on your phone so you can send it to me and I can listen to it like a podcast.”

Sorcha rolled her eyes but couldn’t help but laugh at her best friend’s overdramatic and comedic nature. “Yeah, I’m gonna go ahead and say I’m not going to do that, but I’m definitely calling when it’s over,” she agreed. “Never in a million years did I think this would be happening. A billion years – a trillion years! The universe could have collapsed and regenerated itself and I still wouldn’t think this could happen.”

“Do you know what you’re wearing?” Victoria asked suddenly.

“Sort of. Want to help?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely.”

***

Sorcha walked to 2 Doors Down on Barrington Street confident as ever. She was wearing a dark blue floral dress Victoria had helped pick out over FaceTime, semi-opaque tights, a pair of heeled ankle boots, and a leather jacket. Her hair was curled, as it always was these days, with a side part. Her winged liner looked killer. She knew she looked good. It was a confidence she didn’t have in her before, back when she and Nate went to school together. It would be new to him, she thought, seeing her in makeup, in dresses, embracing her curly hair (and actually knowing how to take care of it and style it). He saw glimpses of it in their previous meetings, sure, but Sorcha felt like the more he saw of it, the more it would hammer home that she wasn’t the same person he went to school with, and that if he thought he was reconnecting with that person from all those years ago, he was sorely wrong.

Just like with lunch, Nate was already there. He hadn’t been waiting long – five minutes at most – and when she was led to his table (at the back, of course, in a pretty discreet corner where someone had to go looking for him), she tried not to smile when she saw him smile when he saw her. Nate thought she looked great. Everything just worked. “You’re always early,” she said, draping her cross-body purse over the back of her chair.

Nate shrugged his shoulders playfully. “You’re always late.”

“You said reservations were for 7. It’s…” she stopped, looking at her watch as she sat down in her seat across from him. “It’s 6:58, on the dot.”

“Can I get you two a drink?” the waitress asked.

“I’ll have anything you have from Propeller,” Nate said, referring to the famous craft beer brewed locally.

“I’ll take a jungle bird,” Sorcha ordered a cocktail.

When the waitress walked away, Nate smiled again at Sorcha. He couldn’t believe she was here. Neither could she, if she was being honest. And now that they were alone, with no waitress prying them for drinks, they could get started on whatever this was going to be. “Thanks for coming,” he said.

“Thanks for pestering, I guess,” she joked.

Conversation turned to her work. Sorcha explained what was keeping her busy. The waiter brought them their drinks, and they ordered their dinner – the bone-in pork chop for him, and the rainbow trout noodle bowl for her. Nate spoke to her about his workouts, but it wasn’t nearly as exciting as what she was doing. She encouraged him to take time off – like actual time off. He let her know that wasn’t possible. Nobody makes Team Canada’s Olympic roster by slacking or taking time off.

Sorcha rolled her eyes as she took a bite of her rainbow trout. “Give me a break. I think besides Sidney Crosby you’re the only other shoe-in for Team Canada.”

“McDavid.”

“Okay, so you’re the third shoe-in.”

Nate shook his head. “Nothing is guaranteed. I mean, Sid is Sid.”

“Whatever you say, Nate.”

He took a bite of pork chop and watched as she took another bite of noodle and trout. He felt like he was having dinner with a different person. This wasn’t the Sorcha he remembered at all. She’d made a point when he showed up at the art gallery that he didn’t know her, and she was right – he didn’t. But he at least remembered what she was like. And this Sorcha, sitting across from him, was not the same Sorcha Saint-Coeur from elementary or high school. “You—I…” he didn’t know how to word what he wanted to say. “You’re so different from how I remember you. You’re so…confident.”

“It’s been like, eight years Nate. Obviously people change,” she said.

“No no, I know that. It’s—it’s not coming out right,” he shook his head at himself for not being more articulate. “I mean, like, when I remember you in elementary school and high school, you would like clam up if someone even spoke to you. You wouldn’t say a word to anybody besides Victoria. You’ve gone through, like, a whole transformation. You’ve just become a completely different person.”

Sorcha knew what he was trying to say, however inarticulate he thought he was. “I think I had to,” she admitted, in a voice softer than she’d spoken with before. “I had two options when I left high school – I could have let all the bullying stay with me and keep me how I was, and how you remember me, for the rest of my life…or I could do something about it. I could shed it all off, embrace people who didn’t judge me, take every opportunity that came my way, and live my life the way I wanted to. I obviously chose the latter. And that changed me into the person I am today.

“Why couldn’t that happen in high school though?” he asked.

“Because nobody let me. Everyone who bullied me kept me in a box. More importantly, I didn’t let myself, because of that bullying. It was like a vicious cycle. I thought that the first thing people saw about me was my weight, because that’s all anyone every brought up in high school. They made me so self-conscious about it that it paralyzed me. Imagine my shock when I got to college and people wanted to actually get to know me and didn’t call me Sorcha the Orca once they saw me.”

“That…that could have happened in high school,” he said, but his voice sounded so unconfident that even he didn’t believe what he was saying. Sorcha gave him a stern look, and it said everything that needed to be said. “Okay. You’re right. But still. You never, like, went out in high school. I mean you had Victoria. Victoria would be out but you’d never be with her.”

“I never went out because I was always in therapy.”

There was a pause as Nate digested her words. “You—you were in therapy?”

“Of course I was. The most popular people at school were making my life a living hell and bullying me so bad that I was developing disordered eating.”

Nate had to bite his tongue. The repercussions and the tolls of what had been done to her in high school were finally being revealed. He could have cursed every single soul that did anything mean to her, but he knew that he’d curse himself in that. “Are you still in therapy?”

“Yeah,” Sorcha nodded her head. “Not as much and not as often, obviously. But yeah, I still see someone. It’s helped me a lot.”

“Is it someone who works with your step-dad?”

“My step-dad is a pediatric neurologist, so that’s a no.”

Nate remembered in elementary school when Sorcha and Aidan’s mom remarried Dr. Dagar Ibrahim. Sorcha’s mom and dad divorced when she was one, and although Aidan remembered him, Sorcha didn’t. After the divorce he was never around, but Aidan and Sorcha kept his last name. From what Nate had heard, Dr. Dagar was a better dad to them than their actual dad ever was – at least, that’s what he overheard his parents and other parents talking about in the school yard or on the phone with one another. In grade seven there was a vicious rumour that Sorcha’s mom had married a doctor to put Sorcha on a diet so she could lose weight. A girl in their class had spread it, and even added that he was going to perform liposuction on her at their house. In reality, Dr. Dagar was one of the best pediatric neurologists in the country, and worked at IWK Hospital. He helped treat congenital defects of the brain and spinal cord and neurological problems associated with brain tumours on kids from all over the Atlantic provinces, yet people were making rumours about liposuction.

“The therapy…were you able to just, like, I don’t know, forget what people said to you?” he asked.

Sorcha shook her head. “I never forgot it. I learned to cope and I learned that other people’s perception of me wasn’t reality. That was my problem – I had made it my reality and I felt powerless because other people were defining me. I created my own reality and learned that I had a right to be happy, and to enjoy things the exact same way skinny girls did. But like, I still remember everything – every name, ever rumour, every mean thing. I can’t just forget what you and your buddies would call me and say about me.”

“But it wasn’t me saying those things,” Nate tried to defend himself.

“No…” Sorcha began, “but you didn’t exactly tell them to stop, and sometimes that’s just as bad. Maybe even worse.”

Nate was ashamed of himself. Completely. Here he was, one of the most successful hockey players in the world, a multi-millionaire, and he hated himself, even just for a brief moment. Well, his past self, at least – the self that never said anything, that never stood up for Sorcha, that never told anybody to stop. And now, looking at her in the eye after staying silent for so long accepting her words, he resolved to never be silent again. “I’m sorry, Sorcha,” he said softly, for the first time ever. “I really am.”

“I forgive you, Nate,” Sorcha said easily. Because it was for her. “I did a long time ago. But I don’t forgive Shane. I never have and I never will.”

“Yeah…” he nodded slowly, his mind running a mile a minute with all the things Shane would call her and say to her. They were gross – like, absolutely gross – and that was just the stuff he was remembering at the moment. He bet that if he really thought back, he’d be able to remember even more and be even more disgusted. “Yeah, I get that.”

It was Sorcha’s turn to stay silent. Neither were even eating anymore – they were just staring at each other as their food got cold. This was much more serious, anyway, and much for filling, at least for the soul. It nourished both of them in ways they didn’t think possible. But Sorcha wasn’t done. “He’s the worst kind of person, you know. Like, the absolute worst,” she said.

“Because of the bullying.”

Sorcha nodded, but looked away. She debated even telling him. But he had to know. Nate had to know what she went through if they were really going to resolve things, to start a new chapter, to do…whatever it was that they were doing. “You know, when you left for Colorado, and all of us here had graduated and were moving on to university and college and whatever…he would be horrible to me at school, but then would be messaging me at night begging for us to hook up.”

Nate’s jaw dropped. “What?”

Sorcha nodded her head. Now that she’d said it out loud, she felt like a weight had lifted off her shoulders. She finally felt at peace. The only other person who knew was Victoria. Now that one of Shane’s friends knew, things were different – the information was all the more lethal. At least Nate would finally know how much of a piece of shit Shane was. “He didn’t want to go to university a virgin, and because he’d spent his entire life making sure I hated myself and my body, he thought I’d be an easy yes to have sex with him. I rejected him, of course. I would have spit in his face if I could, honestly. And I wanted to when I saw him at the café with you.”

Nate couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He knew Shane was a bit of a dick, but this took it to a whole new level. “Holy shit,” he shook his head absent-mindedly. “What a fucking asshole.”

“You’re telling me,” Sorcha’s tone was sarcastic.

“No no, I don’t—” he stuttered out, still speechless at what Sorcha just told him. “I just feel sick.”

“Yeah, well…you should. That’s the kind of person he is. Scum of the earth. That’s why I’ll never forgive him.”

“You have no reason to,” Nate said, completely meaning it. “And he’s never apologized?”

Sorcha snorted. “Please,” she rolled her eyes. “He’s not capable of empathy. Actually, between you and me, he’s not capable of much, if you know what I mean.”

Nate couldn’t help the smile that crept on his face. When Sorcha caught him smiling, she shared one with him. “I’m glad you’re where you are, Sorcha. It’s nice seeing you like this.”

“I think I’m gonna need another drink,” she joked, finishing the last of her jungle bird.

***

Nate and Sorcha somehow finished dinner despite all their talking and their food getting cold. They even ordered dessert, because what was more time together when you couldn’t stop catching up with each other? Sorcha spoke more about Florence and Toronto; she and Nathan compared restaurants they’d been to in the city, and neighbourhoods they hung out in. He, of course, knew so many of the King West hot spots. She begged him to try something better than overpriced cocktails and steak.

Nate paid again, because he was the one who suggested dinner in the first place, even though Sorcha was more persistent than last time about paying her half. He watched as she put her leather jacket back on and hung her bag on her shoulder. He allowed her to lead the way out. The restaurant had gotten really busy, and they had to squeeze through groups of people to make their way to the door. Sorcha wasn’t intimidated at all, looking behind her to make sure he was still following her.

“You wanna go walk down by the harbour?” Nate asked suddenly the second they got outside.

Before Sorcha could second-guess anything; before she could make some smart-aleck remark or ask him why he wanted to go walk down by the harbour with her, or think about Juno curled up on the couch alone, she was nodding her head. “Yeah, sure.”

Their pair walked down Salter Street together, continuing their conversation which had pivoted to how much Nathan had traveled thanks to hockey. He talked of the first time he stepped onto a chartered team flight and how he felt so out of his element because of how fancy it was. He spoke of the practical jokes the team would play on each other on the plane and at the hotel. He spoke of hearing so many interesting things about certain cities like Chicago or Dallas or Vancouver, but not really being able to check anything out, unless they had a day off in the city.

“What’s your favourite road city then?” Sorcha asked as they walked along the harbour. Despite it being dusk, and chilly enough that Sorcha’s leather jacket was warranted, there were enough people surrounding them along the harbourfront – there were quite a few people walking around, and some people on the outdoor patios, eating and drinking and having a great time on a nice, cool night.

“Chicago, I think. I love the vibe there,” Nate admitted.

Sorcha nodded. Though she’d never been to Chicago, she’d heard nothing but good things about it. It was definitely on her list of cities to go to when she saved up enough money. “I’ve always wanted to go to the Art Institute of Chicago,” she mentioned.

“Oh yeah? I’ve never been,” Nate said.

Sorcha stopped dead in her tracks. “What?”

“What?”

“You’ve been to Chicago how many times and you’ve never thought to spend a day or even just an afternoon at the Art Institute?” she demanded.

“…No?”

“Nathan!” she chastised, smacking him against his arm which caused him to laugh at her. It probably just made her angrier. “But the Seurat! The Picasso! Nighthawks! American Gothic! How dare you not go!”

“What are those?” he teased, playing with her, though if he was being honest, the only name he recognized was Picasso. He didn’t know what a Seurat was or what American Gothic was or why she was so excited about them.

Sorcha’s eyes went wide before she let out a long, exasperated “Uuuurrrrgggggghhhhh!” in complete dismay of the man standing across from her. “I’m going to kill you. I’m seriously going to kill you.”

“That’s harsh, Sorcha.”

“It’s warranted, Nathan.”

Nate couldn’t help but laugh again, his smile spreading from ear to ear. He liked this. He liked being with her. He liked how funny she was, and how riled up she got about art. He liked her confidence and how she showcased it every chance she got. He liked how her curls moved in the wind. He liked the feel of her hand on his bicep, even though she was meant to be hitting him and even though it was supposed to hurt (it didn’t). If she did it again it would take some serious willpower not to raise his own hand to grab hers.

They continued their walk in silence, both with smiles trying to be hidden on their faces, before Sorcha broke it. “You know how we were in the restaurant and you told me you liked seeing me like this?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, it’s nice seeing you like this. Not on TV. Not on the ice. Just, like…here in Halifax. Normal, you know.”

“I’m always normal.”

Sorcha rolled her eyes playfully. “You know what I mean, Nate.”

Nate shook his head slightly. “I think you have this idea of me in your head that because I became some big hockey star that I got too big for my head,” he said. “And that, like, right now, or when we’ve been together, I’m putting on an act or something. Like I’m pretending to be normal. This isn’t an act. This is just me. I’m not like that at all, Sorcha. What you’re getting is who I am. It’s not more complicated than that.”

Sorcha knew in her heart of hearts that he was right. She’s had her guard up based on their history, and what had happened in the past between them, and she needed to let go. It was unhealthy to hold on to preconceived notions of others – she, more than anyone, should have understood that. “I’m sorry, Nate,” she apologized sincerely.

“It’s alright,” he said, forgiving her easily. “I just don’t want you thinking I’m some big shot who thinks he’s too good for people. I’m the furthest from that.”

She nodded her head in understanding. “I see that now.”

When Nate looked at Sorcha, he saw an authenticity and sincerity in her that couldn’t be faked. What she had just said came from the heart; it was genuine. And in that sincerity, in that look in her eye, Nate admitted to himself that he wanted to spend more time with her; that he liked being around her more than anything; that he was falling hard for her.