“If you want to stay in Chicago so badly, you know what you need to do. And you only have a couple of weeks left to do it.”
If it weren’t against regulation for me to reach out to the Raptors’ upper management myself, instead of going through my agent, I’d call them right now and ask what the fuck is going on. But unfortunately, for legality reasons, I can’t.
“I need to go so I can deal with this mess.” Rich hangs up the phone with that.
The anxiety buzzes through my body as I take a seat on the couch next to my dog. Rosie buries her head under my arm, dropping on my lap, but my knees won’t stop bouncing, so she immediately gets off and instead lays on the couch next to me.
The websites I spent hours on last night are the same ones that pop up first again today.
The notorious photo, the one that’s plastered online, is the back of Stevie and me, racing up the stairs of my building. My face is turned over my shoulder, looking like a child who just got caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to. Stevie’s chestnut curls are bouncing the way they typically are, and her long coat covers her button-down shirt and uniform skirt. But the jacket still outlines her shape.
The comments won’t stop flooding in. It’s endless. It’s cruel.
The words they use to describe her are ones you wouldn’t want your worst enemy to read, let alone the person you care about the most.
It’s all out of jealousy and hate. I know this, but I don’t know if Stevie does. She couldn’t even see that her own mother was jealous of Stevie’s life. How the hell is she going to decipher that from strangers online? And there aren’t just a few comments. There are thousands on thousands shaming her, calling her names, ridiculing her.
All because she’s with me. People have always talked shit about me, and now that she’s associated, it’s as if people think they have the right to do it to her as well.
This photo is just the back of her. It’s just a figure in a coat. They can’t see her blue-green eyes that make me weak in the knees every time the corners of them crinkle from her laughter. They can’t see the freckles that decorate her cheeks, the same ones that create patterns and shapes I’ve memorized. They can’t see her smile that melts me every time it beams.
On top of that, no photo will ever show her wit. Her sense of humor. Her wild charm or her overwhelmingly open and kind heart. No picture will ever show how sweet she is.
But it doesn’t matter because the endless hate thrown her way is because she’s with me. I watched her light dim this morning because she’s with me.
She shouldn’t have to experience this.
Shifting my attention to the other comments of concern, my stomach drops just from reading them. They’re exponentially worse than they were last night. Initially, it was only speculation in the comment section, wondering if this is where I’ve been all season, commenting on the change they’ve noticed.
But of course, internet trolls feed off one another, and the things they’re saying have gone from bad to worse.
“No wonder Zanders is so soft this season. He’s busy playing fucking house.”
“The only thing I liked about him was seeing what hot girl he was fucking, but nope. I’m good now.”
“No wonder Chicago hasn’t resigned him. This comment section is speaking the truth. He’s old news.”
“Such a little bitch.”
“Chicago isn’t going to re-sign him, but I don’t want him coming onto my home team either.”
I was wrong. I thought I could have it all. I thought I could play both ends, being the asshole the hockey world expected while being my authentic self behind doors. But it didn’t work, and now I’m going to lose my contract because of it.
I knew deep down fans didn’t want the real me. They wanted the showman, the extravagant, the fighter, the playboy, but even though I thought I was doing a good job at continuing to wear that mask in public, I clearly wasn’t. No one was buying it. No one believed my lie.
This reputation is going to follow me for my entire life. It’s who I am. It’s who I’ve always been, and I made the mistake of thinking maybe I could change it. I thought as soon as my contract was extended, I could drop the act. But no one wants the real me. No one is paying to support the real me.
I used to thrive off the hate. I used to crave it, but now it’s like a heavy burden on my shoulders, stunting me. And this time, it’s not just me and my name getting dragged through the mud.
Ryan’s warnings flood my mind.
“I don’t want Vee wrapped up in your reputation.”
“My sister cannot handle the type of attention you get.”
He was right. Why am I doing this to her?
There’s no out for me, but there can be an out for her.
No one is ever going to love me for me, and at this point, I may as well be the man they love to hate.
42
STEVIE
My heart aches for Zanders. The things people have been saying about him are so hard to read. Just because he’s a famous athlete doesn’t mean he’s not human. It doesn’t mean he can’t get hurt.
All day, the internet has been criticizing him and reenforcing his biggest fear—that his fans won’t love him once they learn there’s more to him than the notorious troublemaker.
Thankfully, by now, I think he knows that’s not true.
While the comments are hurtful towards Zanders as an athlete, the comments directed at me are disgustingly cruel but solely about my body.
These people don’t know me. They don’t even know what I look like. All they saw was my shape, hidden behind a coat, but because my boyfriend is well-known, they think they can shame my body for not being the same as the women they were accustomed to seeing him with before.
I’m not going to lie. It hurts.
The words are ones that I’ve said to myself for years. They’re ones that my passive-aggressive mother and shallow friends have thought but never voiced. But when tens of thousands of strangers reinforce the negative thoughts you’ve been working so hard to clear from your mind, those words become cement, finding every crevice, settling in, and affecting every thought.
I have a famous brother, and I hid from his spotlight for years because I knew I couldn’t handle the attention. But the spotlight found me, and as much as the comments hurt, I’ve grown enough over the last six months to compartmentalize them to a certain extent. Hurt people hurt people, and a lot of what they’re saying really isn’t about me.
Don’t get me wrong, they’ve been echoing and repeating in my head all day, but at this point, there’s nothing I can do but try to move forward.
“Any luck?” Ryan asks from the couch opposite me. His laptop is open, fingers typing and scrolling away.
“There’s nothing local.” I squint at my own computer screen. “There are companies based in Boston and Seattle, but that’s about it for flying.”