Chapter 15
I managed to avoid seeing Henry again, though it wasn’t easy with our bedrooms just a hallway apart. I’d time my practice sessions for when he was at hockey training. Started taking meals in my room, just in case.
Melody sent me his Instagram post – a perfectly filtered photo of him and Gianna at some rooftop party, his caption announcing they were official. I deleted the notification without opening it, but not before catching a glimpse of the likes piling up. All our mutual friends, already accepting this new
reality.
I went through my social media with surgical precision, blocking anyone connected to him. His teammates, his hockey buddies, even his little cousin who used to watch me practice violin. There was no point keeping any windows into his life open anymore. Some doors need to stay firmly shut.
But the universe has a twisted sense of humor – we ran into them at airport. Gianna was there, of course, looking like she’d stepped out of a hockey girlfriend’s handbook in her Minnesota Gophers gear and designer sweats. Her carefully curated airport look made my concert blacks and violin
case feel suddenly out of place.
Henry barely managed a stiff “Hello” to my mom before storming off. He looked right through me like I was just another stranger in the crowded terminal.
We quickly scattered in different directions, everyone pretending this wasn’t painfully awkward. No. one looking back, because looking back meant acknowledging what we’d all lost.
–
At the security checkpoint, I caught one last glimpse of him heading to his gate the one for Minneapolis–bound flights. He must have felt my gaze because he turned, just for a moment. One final cold look before he disappeared through the doors, Gianna’s hand tucked perfectly in his.
Just like that, the stepbrother who’d been there for every major moment since our parents married – my first recital at the new school, my conservatory auditions, graduation – was walking toward a
different future.
The boy who knew all my secrets, all my fears, all my dreams. Or at least, the dreams I’d had before I learned to dream bigger than just being his.
Our paths were finally diverging.
“Good luck with your life,” I thought silently, watching his retreating back. Some family stories don’t
16:11
Offside with My Step Brother: Hockey Star Refuses to Accept My Goodbye
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Chapter 15
get happy endings. Some step–siblings turn out to be just boys who never learned to see beyond
themselves.
I turned toward my own gate, ticket to New York clutched in my hand. Juilliard was waiting, and for the first time in my life, I was writing my own musical score – no co–composer needed.
Chapter 16
Chapter 16
