Same Time Next Year

by Tessa Bailey

The fact that Britta is four million miles out of my league hasn’t stopped me from threatening my teammates with certain death if they ever asked her out again, however. Call it a moment of weakness. My mother raised me to be an unholy terror on the ice but a gentleman as soon as I take off my skates. Like a fucking Canadian should be, she’d say.

You can’t forgo the risk when the potential reward is so great. That’s why people do it. Fall in love and get married. Because if you get it right, you end up with forty pictures on your wall of the same woman. You have a person.”

“Can you please try and piece together what you’re feeling and communicate it to me?”

I know the real deal when I see it. And I wonder . . . what if Britta never does?

Heat presses in behind my eyes, and I let the phone drop into my lap as I stare off into space. I’m a little ashamed of the way I feel. Let down. Depressed. Frustrated. They are the ones with sick children to cure. They have it much harder than me right this very moment. Meanwhile, I can still go to the concert if I want to, right? Alone?

It’s just that lately I feel a little left behind. Like everyone is checking off the boxes of life, and my pencil is broken. Or I didn’t bring one to class at all.

Can you not see that I’m starving to death for you? Can’t you tell I missed you so horribly that my family couldn’t even make me smile?