Chapter 15 - Elias
Elias
I was not a man who asked for help.
Needing help was a weakness. Men did not show weakness to anyone. Not to their family, or their teammates, or their opponents. They suffered in silence, projecting their strength.
I had always been better at silence. Words never came easily, and when they did, they rarely landed the way I intended.
Back home in ?rebro, my father used to say that goalies were born with quiet hearts.
Because noise was what killed you in the crease.
I’d taken that to heart early. I learned to live inside the stillness, to coat myself with it like armor.
To breathe slow while the world around me was chaos.
To trust that the calmness would save me, even when it felt like it was hollowing me out.
This season, that calm had become something heavier. The pain in my side began as a whisper, just another dull ache in the mess of bruises that came with this job. But now it screamed every time I dropped down into the butterfly position, and woke me whenever I rolled over at night.
I told myself it was fine. That pain was merely proof I still cared. If I ignored it long enough, maybe it would forget about me. And maybe everyone else would, too.
I’d learned to hide everything from the world.
I wrapped things in stoicism, sealing them behind a glare or a growl.
It was how I had kept anyone from learning about what had happened in ?rebro ten years ago—everyone but Coach Jay.
That was the good part about being the quiet one: people stopped expecting answers and filled in the blanks for you.
June was different.
While watching from the training room window, she noticed things that others missed.
I saw her see the hesitation in my stride, the split-second delay when I twisted to my left.
She confronted me about it once already in the parking lot but had not called me out in front of the team or Coach Jay yet.
Though I could feel her waiting. Watching with what seemed like genuine concern, the most dangerous kind of all.
I told myself I wouldn’t let her in. I never let Andy in, not even after three years on the team. I didn’t need another person knowing what was broken inside me, the weakness that I tried so desperately to hide. Eventually, my injury would heal.
Except it didn’t. It only got worse. I played the first two periods tonight with my side on fire before getting pulled from the game. It was a wake-up call.
I didn’t have the strength to pretend anymore.
And so, when June returned to her office and found me waiting for her, I said the words that I swore I would never say.
“Will you help me?”
The shame of asking for help washed over me like a film of filth, and I thought I would be sick. But June did not throw it in my face.
She calmly put on a pair of latex gloves and examined me.
I tensed as she touched my ribs. “Relax,” she purred, her breath whispering across my bare skin.
Somehow, her presence helped me, and I did relax.
“How long?” she asked while running her fingertip across my muscles.
“Four weeks,” I replied. “October fourth.”
“Did it happen during a game, or practice?”
“Bar fight,” I said.
June’s eyes darted up to meet mine. Like she was trying to decide if I was joking or not.
She sighed and shook her head. “You hockey players and your fights.”
“He started it.”
“Sure.”
It was true. I was sitting at my favorite bar, enjoying a beer while watching a soccer match, when a man came in.
The bar was mostly empty, but he sat on the stool right next to me.
He ordered a beer, took a single sip, then started shouting at me.
Insisting that I had looked at him wrong.
Before I could ask what his problem was, he was throwing punches.
I won the fight, but not without cost.
It sounded unbelievable, even though it was the truth. So I didn’t elaborate to June.
She made me move around, twisting one way, then the other. Poking and prodding me while I raised my hands above my head.
“I’ve got good news: it’s not a cracked rib,” she said while removing her gloves. “It’s a strained oblique muscle.”
I stared at June, waiting for her to tell me the next part. I could tell she didn’t want to.
“You should go on the IR list,” she said slowly. “Two weeks, minimum.”
“No,” I immediately said.
“Can I ask why not?”
I was terrified of losing the starting goalie position. I had worked my entire life to get there, and I knew it could be taken away from me in the blink of an eye.
But what I told her was, “Johnson is our backup. He is already on the injury list. Our third-string goalie would have to play. He is not good.”
“I saw that tonight after Jay pulled you,” she muttered while bending over her desk to type something into her laptop. My gaze automatically went to her ass, pressed tight in her khaki pants, but I tore my eyes away.
Hockey was my life. I had no room for other things.
“If I go to Coach Jay with this, he’ll force you onto the IR,” she said, turning back around.
I stared at her.
“My job is to do what’s best for the team,” she explained, crossing her arms under her breasts.
“But I also have to build trust among the players. That trust is important, because it means you’ll come to me whenever something is wrong, rather than trying to hide it.
I’m glad you came to me, Elias. I’ll help you. ”
The tension in my chest lessened. “Yes?”
“A cortisone shot will help with the pain and reduce inflammation,” she explained. “That, paired with a rehab program of resistance exercises and stretching, should keep you on the ice.”
I was not a man who smiled, but I very nearly did. “Thank you.”
“No,” she snapped. “I’m not done yet. I have some demands.”
I stared at her.
“You have to do everything on the rehab program. No shortcuts, no half-assing it, no excuses.”
I stiffened. “I do not take shortcuts.”
“You also need to tell me everything. No more hiding your injuries or trying to play through them. When something is wrong, I want to hear about it immediately. The minute you try hiding something from me again, I’m going straight to Jay.”
“Yes,” I said. “Is that all?”
She pursed her lips and hesitated before her final demand. “I want an apology.”
I felt my teeth clenching.
“You were an asshole to me in the parking lot, and it really upset me,” she explained. “I was just trying to do my job, and you threatened to try to get me fired. That was fucked up. If I’m going to help you, I need to hear you apologize.”
No. I did not apologize. Where I came from, men did not admit they were wrong. It was a sign of weakness, just as severe as admitting you were injured.
But I needed June’s help. My season, and my career, was now in her hands. And it was becoming clear that I could not push her around. The look in her big eyes told me that she would not be intimidated.
That look penetrated all of my armor.
I walked toward June until I was standing right in front of her. She leaned away from me slightly but did not step back. She gazed up at me defiantly.
“I am sorry,” I whispered. The words would not come out at a higher volume. “For hiding my injury, and for threatening your job.”
She nodded once, then slipped by me and went to the cabinets. She put on another pair of latex gloves, then fished around in a drawer full of glass vials.
“Thank you,” she said. “Now let’s get to work.”
I glanced at the clock. “Now?”
“If you want to stay on the ice, yeah. I have a routine that will help strengthen the rest of your core to take some pressure off your strained oblique. And I’m going to send you home with a yoga routine.
You have to do it every single night. I recommend doing it while watching TV. It will make the time go by faster.”
Yoga? I let out a small growl. Where I came from, men did not do yoga.
“But first, your cortisone shot.” June turned around and smiled brightly while holding up a needle. “I bet you’ve been sleeping horribly. This will help. You’ll thank me in the morning.”
I did not like needles. But that was a weakness I could never confess.
I sat on the table and looked away while she wiped my ribs with an alcohol swab. I very much hated having my career, and my life, in someone else’s hands.
But if they had to be in anyone’s hands? I was glad they were June’s.