All Chapters of The Hockey Star Regret : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

HAYDENI knew the second she disappeared that something was wrong and it had to do with me. I didn’t know what I did but I was determined to find out.One moment, Coleen was across the room, her eyes scanning the kitchen, landing on me, and the next, she was gone. Like someone had pulled the floor out from under her and she’d chosen flight over fight.I barely heard what Kendall was saying after that. Her hand was still on my arm, but it didn’t matter because I wasn’t listening. I wasn’t even really standing there anymore.My eyes were already at the door and my mind was on the woman who just hightailed it out of the party like her life depended on it.She saw us and whatever she thought she saw… she wasn’t going to stick around for clarification. I on the other hand, was not about to let this misunderstanding fester for long.Coleen was just slowly getting around to trusting me and I was on very thin ice with her. I didn’t want to lose all the progress I’d made with her.I didn’t eve

HAYDENI was in a shitty mood and it was affecting the flow at practice.We had barely won our last game, no thanks to me and I knew my team mates were bidding their time before the staged an intervention.It had been over a week and it was still radio silence from, Coleen. I hated to admit that it had affected me more than I thought it would.I was pretty much a pain to be around lately and I knew that. Alicia even told me to get my shit together. No, she didn’t say it as a joke, she was fucking serious when she said it, that’s how I knew that it had gotten pretty bad.I needed to do something about this and fast because, even though coach was yet to say anything, I knew he was just bidding time to see if I would come to my senses on my own or if he would need to intervene. Coach had so much faith in me when he recruited me for this program and it would break me if I let him down.Still, I didn’t know what to do with myself when the one person I wanted to talk to wasn’t speaking to

HAYDENThere was something about seeing her smile that made everything else feel inconsequential.Even now, a few days later, I could still picture the exact way her lips curled at the corners, soft and hesitant like she wasn’t sure if she had permission to be happy. And that laugh, the one she let slip when I made some lame comment about how much of a bookworm she was, that one had rewired something in me. Something that made me feel very hopeful and I was holding onto that for as long as I can.We hadn’t labeled anything. It was too soon to put a label on our relationship and it was partly because I didn’t want to spook her but I was still stuck on the fact that she had come to me. She sought me out and sat across from me in that awful diner booth with its sticky menus and flickering light and told me that she wasn’t done yet.That had to mean something.I sat on the bleachers at the far end of the rink, watching as the Zamboni carved smooth lines across the ice. My gear was alread

COLEENI sat on the floor of my bedroom, my back pressed against the side of the bed, knees drawn up, phone balanced between both hands. The call log was still open.Unknown Number. Called once. Didn’t leave a message.And yet it left a crater in my chest.It had been two days, and I hadn’t told Hayden. I hadn’t told Dad either. I kept replaying the moment in my head, like I could go back in time and change the events of that day so it would be like she never called.I wanted to forget it happened. I wanted her to stay buried where she belonged, in the past.But now I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t think straight, and I couldn’t pretend anymore because this news was weighing down on me more than I’d love to admit.With a sigh, I tapped my father’s contact.It rang three times before his voice came through.“Hey, Pumpkin?” he said.He sounded tired. Like he had been working a double shift.I closed my eyes. “Hey, Dad.”“Is everything okay?” he asked“Yeah. I just…” I paused. “ I missed you a

COLEEN I told myself I wouldn’t cry. I’d repeated that line like a mantra since I left the music room. Not in public, not in front of Mark, not when Alicia made that offhand joke about my resting bitch face, and especially not when Hayden looked at me like he was trying to solve a puzzle he didn’t have all the pieces to. But the thing about bottling things up is that eventually, the pressure makes you shake like you were about to explode. And I was shaking. I didn’t want him to see me like this and I hated how much I still left her affect me until this day. Why couldn’t I just be a cold-hearted bitch who didn’t give a damn about anyone or anything. I knew for sure that my life would have been so much easier if I was that way. Which was exactly why I couldn’t stop staring at his contact on my screen even though I couldn’t summon up the courage to actually reach out to him. He deserved more better than this. He’d been patient, too patient, and I was starting to hate mys