The Girl Next Door Chapter 17

To Kate’s delight, her team won again, and they were now 5-0. They were doing really well, beating every team by at least two goals. Their practices were running smoothly, school was going well, everything with Sidney was going well. But Sidney was upset because Maxime had been sent down, the team wasn’t doing well at all, and although they were still getting good crowds at the games, the bandwagon fans were bashing the team. They were under a lot of pressure to perform well, and they lost five games in a row after that Florida loss, including a 0-5 loss to the Wild.
The day after the loss to the Wild, Kate got a letter in the mail she had been waiting for for an extremely long time.
“Mom!” Kate yelled upstairs. “I just got a letter from Minnesota!”
Her mom came downstairs, and stood with Kate as she opened it. Kate read the first few words, and then started jumping up and down.
“I got in!!!” she screamed.
Her mom hugged her, and ran off to call Tom and Neal. Neal was coming home from Ohio State that day for Winter Break, since he had already finished up his finals. Kate ran upstairs to her room to grab her cell so she could call Sidney.
“Sid!” she yelled into the phone. “I got in!”
“Minnesota?” he asked her.
“Ya!!” she cheered.
“Congrats, Katie!” he told her. “Tomorrow night, after the game, we’ll go out to celebrate, even though we won’t be able to stay out for so long.”
“Curfew,” they said together, and they laughed.
They talked for a little while longer, and then Kate had to go, her mom needed to talk to her. Sidney was going out with some of the guys on the team tonight, a “guys-only” thing, so it would have to be tomorrow night, because after that it was a two-game road trip.
“So, Kate,” Sarah began. “You’ve gotten into your top two schools now, where are you going to go?”
“I don’t know Mom,” she said. “I’ve got awhile to decide.”
“There’s an issue out on the table that needs to come out right away Katie,” Sarah told her.
“What’s that?” she asked her mom.
“Sidney,” she told Kate.
“What about him?” she asked.
“You’ve been dating for about, what, two months now?” Sarah asked.
Kate nodded her head in agreement.
“Well,” Sarah began, “I know that’s not a long time, but I can see that you really like him Katie.”
“I do Mom,” she said. “I really like him, I care about him.”
“I never told you, or your father this,” Sarah started, “but it’s something you need to know about, so you can make your decision about where to go.”
“What’s that Mom?” Kate asked again.
“Before I met your father when we were seniors in college,” Sarah began in a serious voice, “I was head-over-heels in love with a boy named Scott Anderson. We began dating our senior year of high school, and dated through our sophomore year of college.”
“What happened?” Kate asked her mom.
“I was down at the U,” Sarah said, “and he was up at UMD.”
The “U” is the University of Minnesota (main campus), and UMD is University of Minnesota-Duluth.
“As much as I loved Scott,” her mother said, “and I did love him, we even talked about marriage at one point! But the distance just got to be too much. Even though we’d see each other as much as we could, it got to be too much, and we drifted apart.”
Kate looked at her mom, and saw the pained look on her face, and Kate could tell this was incredibly hard to talk about.
“Now Kate,” her mom began, “imagine Sidney staying here, and you going off to the U. That’s not a three hour drive away, like the Cities up to Duluth, that’s a sixteen hour drive. To see him, you’d have to hop on a plane, and that gets expensive. The Pens only play the Wild in Minnesota every other year. Next year happens to be when they play in Minnesota. But Kate, sometimes even love isn’t enough. If you chose to go to the U, by the time you leave, your relationship may be strong enough to stand the distance. I know you trust Sidney, but with all of the girls that throw themselves at him now, especially since they think he’s single, you never know.”
“Mom,” Kate said, “Sidney wouldn’t do that.”
“I know Katie,” her mother said. “But just think about the distance that would be between you. You live next door to each other now, but imagine being halfway across the country. I know Minnesota’s always been where you’ve wanted to go. It’s always been Minnesota and Pitt for you. You know you’ve gotten into both, and you’ve got until May to decide where you want to go. Do not do this lightly, Katie, you’re deciding your future. You know we’ll support your decision, no matter where you go. But remember my story, and although we’re two different people, take it into account. I love your father will all my heart, don’t think I don’t, and now I know that I’m happier with him than I ever would have been with Scott. I knew that the moment your father and I started dating. But, sometimes to know what’ll happen, Katie, you have to take risks for the unknown.”
With that, Sarah stood up from where she had been sitting, and walked out of the room. Kate sat there, still trying to understand what had just happened.