Chapter 79 – Call

AN: Yay the caps won tonight!! I apologize again for not updating as frequently as before. My new job doesn't really give me the freedom during the day to work on this story so it takes a little longer to get chapters finished.


Nef’s POV


The first day of my last semester of classes was a lot like any other day; classes, syllabus, reading, homework, assignments, the usual. I had finished my morning classes and I was in the Student Union having lunch when my phone rang. It was Sasha’s home number. That’s weird, I thought. He shouldn’t be back from practice just yet and he hardly ever called me from his home number.

“Hello,” I said into the phone.

”Nefertiti, it's Tatiana.” I never expected that.

I didn’t want to talk to this woman. I didn’t want anything to do with her.

”Do you have a few minutes to talk?” she asked.

”I don’t really have anything to say to you.”

”I can understand that but I wanted to talk to you about Sasha. Things have been really hard the past few weeks.” Really? No shit, Sherlock.

”You called me for a reason. What do you want from me? I don’t have time for small talk.”

”I was hoping that we could get to know each other. Sasha has made it clear that he loves you and that you two want to be together.”

”I can’t say that I’m ready to do that. I’ve been kind, and patient, and understanding, and respectful of you since I met you last year and you’ve been none of that to me. I don’t know you and I can’t say that I want to know you right now. The past few weeks have been so unbelievably painful and I blame you. Probably more than I should but I do. Until I’m no longer angry I don’t want to see or speak to you for fear of saying something that would hurt Sasha. I don’t want to hurt him any more than he’s already been hurt.” I hung up the phone.

I wasn’t ready to make peace with her. I knew I might regret this one day. She is after all the mother of the man I love. But this past year has been difficult and these past few weeks have been more than I can take. I didn’t know how we were supposed to exist peacefully in each other’s lives. I knew that we needed to find a way so that Sasha wouldn’t suffer. He is so very close to his parents. I’m just not sure if I can mentally and emotionally handle it. Every time I thought of this woman I thought of how I tried so hard to get her to accept me, to be okay with Sasha and I being together. Every time I thought of her I thought of the baby that I’d lost.

I don’t think she meant for anything bad to happen to me. I don’t think she’s that cold or callous but that didn’t make the outcome any better. It was her actions that brought about the situation. No, she wasn’t responsible for our behavior but she was directly responsible for creating the situation.

My phone rang again. This time it was Sasha. He’d just come off the ice.

“Did you call me so you wouldn’t have to talk to reporters?”

”No, I would never do something like that.” Yeah, right. Sasha’s solution to avoiding reporters was to pretend he was on the phone or to call me so that he would actually be on the phone. It’s such a simple trick but it works.

“Liar.”

”Can you be ready at 6 instead of 7 tonight? There somewhere I want to take you.”

”Where?”

”Don’t worry, just be ready at 6.”


Sasha’s POV


After dinner at the Source I took Nef out to Kettler to skate. I had managed to talk one of the custodians into letting us use one of the two rinks for a private skate in the evening. I knew that Nef knew how to skate but we’d never had the time to do it. She kept her skates in the back of her closet and I grabbed a pair of black spandex shorts for her to wear under her dress.

”Come skate with me?” I asked as I stepped out onto the ice.

She was actually really good at it. We chased each other around the ice playing tag. I was faster than her but she was incredibly agile. There were several times I reached out to grab her only to bring in a handful of air as she slipped through my fingers.

“Get back here!” I shouted at her as she danced across the ice.

“Catch me if you can!”

When I did finally catch her I lifted her into my arms and spun her around. She hated that. She hated when I picked her up because it most likely meant I was going to throw her somewhere; in a pool, in a lake, on the bed, on the couch. She was always afraid I would unintentionally drop her.

“Put me down!”

“No. I catch you and now I get to keep you.”

I sat her down on the wall and leaned in to kiss her. She turned her lips away from mine.

“Not turn away.”

I grabbed her sides and made like I was going to tickle her and she flinched. She plastered her lips against mine in a searing kiss. The past few weeks had been so heavy and heart breaking it was nice to be able to relax and be carefree for a little while.

Our next game wasn’t until February 1st , after the AllStars, so I was using these few days to spend as much time with Nef as I could. At first I had been disappointed that I had missed the AllStars yet again, but now I was more than happen to have the time to get my life back in order.

My phone rang so I slipped over to grab it. It was my mother.

”Yes, ma’am?”

”I’m just calling to see if you’ll be home tonight.”

”I don’t know. I’ll probably go home with Nef.” There wasn’t actually much "I don’t know in" it. I was going home with Nef.

”We need to finish our conversation from earlier today.”

”I know and we will when I’m ready. I’m trying to get my life with Nef back on track, mom. ”

I knew that I’d been pulling away from her recently. I hadn’t been home in about three weeks and she was trying to make peace. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go home or that I was afraid to go home. I just wanted to be with Nef. I didn’t want to be away from her anymore than I had to be. She wasn’t ready to go back to my house. She wasn’t ready to face my mom. I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable

”What can I do to make this right?” my mom asked.

The truth was I didn’t know. I know my mom had called Nef earlier today. I knew because my dad had told me. I guessed that it didn’t go well and that Nef wanted nothing to do with her just yet. I know that Nef’s not cruel and didn’t say anything to intentionally upset my mom but I also knew that Nef ran away from things that were painful. I’ve seen it so many times in our relationship. When she’s reached her breaking point rather than breakdown or scream or argue or fight she simply walks away from whatever was causing her pain. She came back more often than not but only when she was able to mentally and emotionally do so. It was one of the reasons why I found arguing with her so aggravating. She would quite literally walked away from me in the middle of an argument. I wasn’t going to push her to do this for me or for my mother. I wasn’t going to force her to push her feelings aside.