Chapter 4

“Really Sid, I’m OK. Don’t worry about it.” “But you have to have surgery.” He was practically whispering again. “Come on, we barely know each other and you’re freaking out because I have to have surgery. Not you’re fault.” He turned his hazel eyes to look at me and nodded. “I feel so bad for some reason, like I can help or something…” Once again, this boy’s sincerity made me want to cry. I fiddled with my purse with my one free hand to keep myself from tearing up. Sid was still holding my other one in a death grip. I couldn’t understand why he was so worried about me, a girl who just happened to almost tackle him in the student rush line. “I, I don’t know why I feel like that”, he said. “There’s just something about you. I feel like you need someone to protect you.” My recent injuries flashed through my mind and actually, that wasn’t a bad idea. “I have hurt myself a lot playing basketball. Last year I had a high ankle sprain and was out for a few weeks. The year before that I had a concussion and couldn’t play for almost a month…” I trailed off at the look of disbelief on his face. “What are you playing?! Rugby-basketball?!” I smiled and laughed. Everyone who knew me, knew how physical I was. “No, I just get very into it.” He laughed his cute boyish laugh and said, “You need to be more careful with yourself or you’ll end up in a full body cast.” Considering it was a possibility, I just shrugged and smiled. I’m assuming he took that as an ‘OK, I will’ because he seemed to be satisfied after that. His grip on my hand loosened a little and I asked again, “Why do you care what happens to me, you’ll never see me again after tonight?” The grip re-tightened as he said, “Not if I can help it. There’s something about you that just draws me to you. I don’t know what it is, almost like a magnet. I feel you have something to offer, and that you’re different. I like different.” He smiled a huge grin at me, and all I could do to keep myself from jumping on him at that very moment was look at my recently cut curly blonde hair, smile and say “Thanks.”
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We pulled up to the Blue Talon Bistro, apparently one of the best in town. I had never been considering I’m kind of short on cash at almost all times and this place was known to be pretty pricey. Sid finally released my hand to get out of the car. He walked ahead of me into the restaurant, and as soon as I walked in, I felt out of place. Everyone had on Dolce & Gabbana, Louis Vuitton, or Coco Chanel. I had on a pair of American Eagle jeans and a Pitt shirt with a black jacket on overtop. I’m a college student and, comfort’s more my style. The only thing I had with me that was remotely high fashion was my Kathy Van Zeeland bag, and even then, that isn’t really high fashion. “Sid, I look ridiculous here. Can we go somewhere else?” I hissed at him. “You look fine. I thought I was the one with a bad sense of fashion.” That remark made me feel a little better, and the fact that I was with Sidney Crosby made me feel even better. I decided I had to suck it up and show off my bag as much as possible. Everyone in here seemed to know Sid, and not just like, ‘That’s Sidney Crosby!’ but more along the lines of ‘Hey man what’s happening? Who’s this?’ and he was seated immediately after introducing me as Jess Spade basketball extraordinaire. I laughed at my introduction and hit him playfully on the arm. I still could not get over how easy it was to be around him. We sat down and began talking about anything but my knee. He told me he’s from Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, and I told him I was from Yorktown, Virginia and had always wanted to go to Pitt ever since I was a little girl. “Oh, isn’t that where the American civil war was ended?” “You know about that?” “Yeah, when I went to boarding school in Minnesota we brushed over it in American History. It always sounded like an amazing battle.” “Eh, it was OK. Once you live there and you’ve seen everything at least six times, it gets old.” I laughed and looked up at him. ‘Why is he so amazingly sexy?’ I asked myself. We discussed his team and how their outlook on the season was, and just as he looked like he was about to say something, our waiter walked up and asked us what we wanted. For me? Grilled salmon with garlic potatoes and a Sprite. I was obviously not watching what I was eating. For him? Some crazy health nut dish that wasn’t even on the menu, oh and water. I stared at him in gross disbelief. “You eat that?!” I half screamed it. “I could say the same to you!” he said with a laugh. We argued about our food for a good twenty minutes until a waiter came and told us the exact things we were arguing about would be out in a few minutes. I calmed down a little bit and took a sip of my unhealthy Sprite. “I was right about you”, he said. “What?” “You are different“, he said as a small smile crept across his face. “What is that supposed to mean?” “Well, every other girl I’ve ever been out with does the same ‘I’m not hungry, I’ll have a salad and water’ routine. It’s nice to finally go out with someone who has a healthy appetite and knows what sport I play.” His smile was from ear to ear now and his eyes seemed to sparkle. “Oh, and don’t forget, I’m as tall as you, if not taller.” A laughed escaped his lips as he said, “Of course. Most girls are five feet tall, and you’re almost a foot taller than that. I like that, it’s a nice change.” The eyes were sparkling again. I could tell he genuinely meant that it was a nice change.
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By the time I finished eating my salmon and he his healthy dish, it was nearly 11:00 at night, and I had an 8:00 AM class tomorrow, but at the moment that wasn’t really important to me. I picked up my bag, making sure to flash it around a little before Sidney grabbed my hand. Him holding my hand was all I needed to draw attention to myself, and make it look like I wasn’t as big of a bum as I felt. We left the restaurant, got in his Range Rover and headed in the direction of the Pitt campus. We were still talking and he still had my hand in his. There was a comfortable sense of belonging in the car and I never wanted it to end, but I knew that this dream-like day was going to the moment I stepped out of the car and walked up the stairs to my dorm room and an anxiously waiting Melissa. I directed him to my building; a run-down, dirty building that looked like it could be condemned at any moment. He took one look at it and said, “You really live here? This isn’t a joke?” “Yupp. Home sweet home. It’s really not as bad on the inside. They’ve renovated the inside, but not the out. Do you want to see?” I was trying to extend this night as long as possible. “Sure. I guess it can’t be that bad”, he chuckled. I shot Melissa a text telling her to wait in the bathroom until I told her to come out and that Sid was coming up. Her reply, “Ok.” I was in the clear, so I took his hand and led him towards the pathetic excuse for a building. There were a few drunks milling around on the lawn outside. Some looked up when we passed only to think they recognized Sidney Crosby, but then they realized they were too wasted to tell and fell back down onto the damp grass. Sid looked amazed at everything happening around him. I had forgotten he had never been to college. “Is it always like this? People out and everything this late? Are there always drunks on your lawn?” “Most nights”, I replied. He looked absolutely shocked at being in this environment. “It’s not so bad”, I repeated. We got into the fluorescently lit lobby and I gave him a quick tour; the bulletin board, the water fountain, oh and the beat up old couch drunks sleep on sometimes; because dorms are so exciting. He asked me where my room was. “Oh, up on the 3rd floor, do you want to see that?” “If I could.” The slightest of smiles pulled at the corners of his lips. “Right this way Mr. Crosby.” At the exact time I said that, a girl was walking out of the elevator we were beginning to enter. She did a 360 and practically shouted, “SIDNEY CROSBY!?” At this, people all along the hall stuck their heads out of their creatively decorated dorm doors to see what was happening. The words Sidney Crosby? were echoing down the hall as we scrambled into the elevator and punched the close button as many times as is humanly possible before any of the people in the hall got into the elevator. The doors closed as people came running at the doors in an attempt to get a glimpse of the great Sidney Crosby. We breathed a sigh of relief and he reached for my hand as I adjusted my purse on my shoulder. “Well Mr. Superstar, you sure are popular tonight”, I smirked. He shrugged and said in a playful tone, “Happens all the time, all the time.” The doors opened and, to our great pleasure, mostly his, this hall was quiet. We shuffled down the hall trying to make as little noise as possible. I pointed out landmarks along the way, like the hole in the wall where a guy got drunk, of course, and punched the wall, or the stain on the carpet from when Melissa’s dog that she wasn’t supposed to have in the dorm totally threw up all over the place. I dragged him past the bathrooms, hoping Melissa was still in there, and to my room. The door read, ‘Melissa and Jenna! Knock if you need us!’ “Oh, you share with your friend Melissa?” He sounded disappointed. “Yeah, but she hasn’t gotten back yet, so no one has to know you were ever here, except for the 30 or so students downstairs…” He smiled his toothy grin and his grip tightened on my hand as I fished through my purse for my keys. I had to let go of him in order to find them. They were, of course, at the bottom. This purse just seemed to eat everything I owned. I once found a water bottle and some cereal that had been in there God knows how long. I opened the door to a mess of clothes, papers and books that I had yet to clean up. I hadn’t even made my bed this morning. I walked in and threw my purse on my bed with Sidney following my every move. “See? Not so bad.” I laughed at how dumb that must have sounded. “Your room looks like a devastated third world country.” That got me laughing, hard, since no one had ever thought to compare this mess to a country. He sat down next to me and once again, took my hand, but this time, started drawing circles with his thumb on the back of my palm. The sensation he was creating felt so calming and relaxing. “Jess, I know I’ve only known you for a few hours, and I’ve already said this, but I’ll say it again. There’s something about you that I like. I like you.” His baby-face blushed and I smiled and said, “I like you too.”
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I walked him back out to his car, careful to make sure that all the crazy fans were gone and that we were in the clear. We stepped out of the elevator and instead of grabbing my hand, he pulled me to him and put his arm around my waist. He smelled amazing, like one of those cologne ads in the magazines. We walked down the stairs onto the lawn and once again, the drunks thought they recognized him but then passed out. We walked over to his Range Rover parked a few feet away, and he got in the drivers seat, but before doing so, gave me a quick kiss on my lips. He leaned away and said, “I want you to come to my next game. I’ll have a pass there for you. Just tell them your name.” I nodded, unable to speak for about the eighth time today. “I hope I made your day better than it started”, he smiled as he said it. I nodded again and smiled. He smiled once more before he pulled away, and I smiled at him, with my fingers on my lips. My lips were tingling where his had been. I walked back up to my room in a daze, preparing myself for the questions I would be hit with.