Chapter 5
Pain Makes People Change
Wyatt
“Lopez!” The door to the changing rooms shuts behind the Aspen Snowdogs’ right forward as Paxton shoulders his hockey bag and points at me. “You back, man?”
“Nope.” I slap Paxton’s outstretched hand and shake my head as he nods to the drinks machine.
Shrugging, he pulls out a Red Bull and leans a shoulder against the machine. “Tell me,” he says, taking a gulp and winking at our team psychologist as she walks past with a reserved grin. He’s the only one who would do something like that. I mean, dude, it’s the team psychologist.
“What are you doing here?”
“PT.”
“Oh, right. The whole program.”
Yeah. The whole program. Paxton’s eyes dart to my left arm while taking another gulp of his energy drink. He doesn’t say anything, and every second that passes makes me feel worse. There’s a lot unsaid between us—things he doesn’t want to say and questions I don’t want to answer.
What happened?
I heard some things. Are they true?
Is it all your fault, man?
I take a deep breath and bury my hands in my hockey jacket. “Gray really played like shit yesterday, huh?”
“Is that a joke?” Paxton downs the rest of his drink, crushes the can, and tosses it over my head into the trash.
“That dude’s a catastrophe! No idea how Coach Jefferson could accept him.
Xander almost let loose on him after the game in the locker room.
No shit. If Owen and Caden hadn’t held him back, he would’ve torn the dude’s teeth out in response to that shit out on the ice. ”
I laugh. “Did he stay for the party?”
“Nope. Didn’t dare. You’ve got to get better, Wyatt, for real. Without you, we can forget this season.”
“It won’t be much longer now.” What a fucking liar I am.
As if I had any idea how long it was still going to take.
I haven’t made any improvements in months.
And for months now my little sister has been working on top of going to school so that we can pay the bills.
For months I’ve hated myself more than ever.
“Right on.” Paxton pushes off from the drinks machine, straightens his big hockey jacket, and runs a hand through his hair.
Female readers of Sports Illustrated elected Paxton the Aspen Snowdogs hottest player.
My sister’s got a thing for him. She didn’t tell me, but I know because at some point or another I just couldn’t take it anymore and cleaned up that room of hers.
She’d scribbled his name next to a bunch of little hearts and flowers in her spiral notebook, probably when spacing out in class or whatever.
I had no idea she did that kind of thing.
Drew little hearts and flowers, I mean. She’s usually so cold and just done with the world, goes to any and every party and drinks, drinks, drinks to forget.
She often looks so destroyed that I overlook the little girl who’s still there inside wanting to draw little hearts instead of letting dudes stick dollar bills into her underwear and waking up in the hospital after getting her stomach pumped.
I wish I could help her somehow, but I can’t even help myself. So, come on, let’s be real, what can I do? The truth is, I’m no model whatsoever. I’m just shit. The dude who cheated on his girlfriend. The guy who showed his little sister how to booze.
The dude who ruins lives.
“So, Lopez.” Paxton is punching his open palm in a steady rhythm. “Day after tomorrow there’s a press conference. You going to be there?”
“Of course.”
“They want to talk about your state of health.” He says this with a look as if he’s weighing whether I’m up to it. Which confirms that he knows what happened back in early summer.
“No big deal, right? I’ll be there.”
“Solid. Then see you there. Hit it.”
“Yo. See you.”
He lifts his arm to pat my shoulder before catching himself—my muscles are in the shitter—and deciding to snap his fingers and point at me instead.
I hear his footsteps move down the hall.
A few seconds later, I hear the backdoor of the training center shut.
I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and make my way upstairs to the PT rooms. I’ve been here so often over the last few months that my feet know the way by heart.
Straight through the lobby, past reception, through the doors to the stairwell, and up to the second floor, where everything smells like baby cream, cleaning agents, and foam couches.
My physical therapist is just picking yoga mats up off the floor and putting foam rollers back onto the shelf when I walk in.
He’s my sixth therapist in three months.
Soon I’ll have gone through every one of our physical therapists—and then?
If things continue like they have till now, will they kick me out?
I can picture the press conference where they’ll say, “Wyatt Lopez is no longer treatable. He’s no longer a member of the Aspen Snowdogs. Forget him.”
I knock on the door. The lanky, blond therapist dude turns around and smiles. “Oh, hey, Wyatt. I’m Mike. You can go ahead and shut the door.”
My soles squeak on the shiny gray linoleum, and my heart begins to beat more quickly.
I hate it here. I don’t want to admit it, but I am so afraid of the next few hours that I can hardly breathe.
Like a kind of panic attack or something.
I’ve heard about those. Regardless, it sucks.
I can feel beads of sweat forming on my neck.
I can feel them in my collar and sliding down my back.
My fingers are trembling, but Mike is still smiling, and I wonder, How can he do that?
How can he smile as if this was all easy?
As if this was something fun we were doing, so much fun that we can laugh through all of it, easy peasy?
He sits down on the edge of the massage table, swinging his legs back and forth. Really cool.
“How you doing?”
What a question, really. Ha ha, nice one, dude. I could puke.
“Good.”
He points at my arm. “My colleague Jeanette said that things just didn’t seem to want to work out between the two of you.”
I nod.
“Why not?”
“No idea.”
Mike’s quiet for a few seconds, then he sighs. “If you want to get back out on the ice, you’re going to have to trust me.”
Now I’m the one who almost has to laugh.
Trust. Right. As if trusting people were that easy.
What’s he thinking? Nothing, probably. Mike’s probably one of those guys who has had the same girlfriend for ten years and nothing ever goes wrong.
He goes home every day at five, the two have dinner, watch a series, and then have sex, and that’s that, and the next day’s exactly the same.
There’s never any reason not to trust anyone, never any reason to feel bad. That’s Mike, I bet.
“She says you cramped up and broke things off.”
I shrug. “Could be.”
Mike tilts his head and tugs at his training pants. “We’re not going to get very far like this, Wyatt.”
I hold his stare. I don’t like him with his five-o’-clock-time-to-go-home-dinner-TV-sex life.
“With all due respect, Mike, you’re my physiotherapist, not my therapist. The Snowdogs are paying you to take care of my muscles. I’m not going to lie down and tell you what’s going on in my head, dig?”
Mike looks at me exactly like I thought he would. Like I’m an arrogant piece of shit, but I don’t care. I am just so done. I have no interest in politeness just to be liked. I say what I think, and if people find me arrogant, whatever, I just don’t care.
“Nice.” It sounds bitter. Mike stands up and points to the table. “Sit down here with your back to me and let your arm hang down, relaxed.”
I spend the next two minutes pulling off my sweater. It’s stressful, and that frustrates me. I just want to be able to function again. I want my life back.
Mike rubs his hands with oil and follows me with a reproachful glance. I sit down. My body is flowing with electricity. Or it feels that way at least. Everything is prickling with fear about what’s about to happen.
But maybe not, I think. Maybe today will work out.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
“I read your file,” Mike says. He comes up next to me and drives a finger into my spine to get me to sit up straight.
“According to examinations, you had a tear in the levator scapulae muscle, which elevates your shoulder blade. That tear also put the neighboring muscle groups under tension, and the reason why you can no longer use your arm properly is probably due to the pain from the trigger points, which is radiating outward.”
“Yeah.” Please put me back together. Please.
“That’s the first thing I’m going to look at. Don’t be alarmed; my hands are cold.”
“No problem.” My heart is, too.
When he traces the affected muscles, I feel an intense pain from my fingertips all the way up through my head. But I’m familiar with that already. That’s not why I’m squinting. Pressing my teeth together. Holding my breath.
I’m waiting. Waiting for the moment that will make this impossible. My recovery. I’m waiting for it to come and waiting for it not to come.
Mike lasts longer than all the other therapists did.
He manages to stroke my muscles for three whole minutes while I feel like my skull is going to explode with the pain.
Three minutes of hope. Three minutes in which I believe I may actually recover—until my pulse begins to race and all I can think is, Fuck, it’s happening again. Why?
I’m starting to grow dizzy. My fingers are tingling. From this point on, Mike is far away, real far away, and I can’t feel his hands. It’s like I’m no longer in the treatment room.
It’s like I’d never been here at all.
A bloodcurdling scream rings in my ears. For a second I think I’m going deaf; really, everything’s gone. And then I smell smoke—smoke and something metallic, like iron.
I stick my hand out and grab something damp. I can feel something sticky on my skin. I realize that it’s blood before I see it, and my head is empty, nothing there but the word BLOOD. BLOOD, BLOOD, BLOOD.