Chapter 17
Roxanne
I march into the Guardians’ offices like a woman possessed, clutching the newspaper in my hand with a tight grip, serving as a poor substitute for Trent’s traitorous neck. I walk up to Brigitte, her sunny smile slipping off her face the minute she sees the rage plastered all over my face.
“Is he here?” I ask, furious.
“Ah… yes… Do you want me to announce you, Dr. Seymour?” Brigitte stammers, not used to seeing this side of me.
“No need,” I state in a clipped tone before charging into Trent’s office without so much as a knock on the door.
Trent’s head lifts up off his tablet screen to greet me, his welcoming smile also vanishing the second he sees my menacing gaze.
“Mind explaining what this is about?” I demand, plopping the newspaper on his desk and pointing to the headline.
Caleb Donovan suspended.
What will become of the Donovan legacy now?
“Ah, yes. I knew I should have called you beforehand, but things escalated so quickly that I must have forgotten.”
“You forgot?” I raise my eyebrows so far up on my forehead that it’s a miracle they remain on my face. “You forgot to tell me that you have been planning to suspend the very player you begged me not so long ago to take on as a client?”
“First, I don’t beg,” he retorts just as threateningly. “And secondly, I disapprove of your tone, Dr. Seymour. I am still your boss.”
“Oh, fuck off with that boss crap, Trent,” I snarl, his eyes widening at hearing me cursing so brazenly. “I’m here for answers. So start talking.”
“I’m really starting to resent this kid.” He lets out a puff of air before running his fingers through his raven head. “Somehow, he’s managed to turn all the women in my life against me. First Piper, and now you,” he grumbles, getting up from his seat and walking over to the minibar at the corner of his office. He pours himself a whiskey on the rocks and looks over his shoulder to ask, “Do you want one?”
“It’s nine o’clock in the morning,” I remind him, still fuming.
“I’m well aware. Do you want one or not, Roxanne?”
I nod.
“I figured as much. It seems that it’s going to be one of those days.”
After making me a drink, Trent hands me the glass and walks over to stand in front of his floor-to-ceiling window to stare at the Boston skyline.
“Now, before you make any further insulting accusations against my character, let me be clear that it was never my intention to suspend Donovan. I can promise you that much. But even you can appreciate the precarious predicament he has put the team in with his latest outburst at Saturday’s game. Preston has been itching at the seams to assert his authority over the team since he bought it, so it was just bad luck that Donovan was all too eager to give him the excuse he needed. It was out of my hands the minute the media showcased a live feed of him assaulting one of his teammates.”
“I don’t believe that. Nothing is ever out of your hands. If you wanted to do something to spare him, you would have.”
He goes silent for a moment, running the pad of his finger around the brim of his glass.
“You’re right. I could have stood up for the kid. But I chose not to.”
“I knew it,” I fume, taking a large sip of the whiskey to help me swallow the bitter pill. “I don’t understand. I really don’t. You were genuinely concerned about Caleb not a week ago, and now you’ve fed him to the wolves. What changed?”
“Like I’ve been trying to explain to Piper all weekend, my loyalties will always lie within the team, not the individual player. Caleb has become too much of a liability. And that’s on you, Roxanne. Not me.”
“On me?” I ask, appalled he would try to place the blame for his poor actions on me.
“Yes, on you,” he repeats sternly. “I sent the kid your way so you could help him, but he’s somehow gotten worse!”
“I told you that would happen!” I shout back. “I told you how volatile he was. How frail and lost he is. Against my better judgment, I confided in you and warned you that this might happen. You don’t just snap your fingers and get better, Trent. That’s not what therapy is. These things take time.”
“Yes, well, time is a commodity that Caleb no longer has. We are just a couple of games away from winning the Eastern Conference and, after that, the Stanley Cup. How could I, in good conscience, let just one player ruin our chances because I felt sorry for him?”
“Caleb doesn’t need your pity, Trent. What he needed was your support.”
“Well, he’ll just have to find it somewhere else.”
“Is that so? Where, pray tell, since you seem to have all the answers.”
“You. He can depend on you.”
My chest feels like a boulder just smashed into it.
“On me? That’s your answer?” I shake my head, astounded that he expects me to clean up after him.
“You are still his doctor, Roxanne,” Trent starts, his voice no longer holding that authoritarian hint. “And by the way you barged into my office to tear me a new one, tells me you’re more than invested in his well-being. That alone tells me that Caleb still has a shot out of the chaos he’s created for himself and a chance to play on the team again. You wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Don’t even try to manipulate me with flattery,” I scoff before standing by his side, facing the cityscape. “It won’t work. I’m still too angry at you.”
“Fair enough. Be angry with me all you want. Lord knows my girlfriend is.” He gives a rueful chuckle at his own expense. “All I need you to do is not take your eye off the ball. If anyone can pull the kid from that deep hole he’s dug for himself, it’s you. When he’s proven himself not to be a liability anymore, I’ll deal with Preston.”
“And what if I can’t?” I mutter, a sense of uneasiness starting to claw inside me.
Trent frowns.
“Then I’m afraid Preston will sell him off to another team. And there won’t be a thing I can do to stop him.”
It’s with Trent’s foreboding threat still ringing in my ears that I decide to walk back to my office instead of taking an Uber or taxi. I do my best thinking when I’m walking, but as much as I try to come up with a solution for Caleb’s problems, I fear that I don’t have one.
Trent is right.
In Caleb’s quest for self-sabotage, he made himself too much of a liability.
Putting his whole future into question.
And worse still, he did it willingly.
I know Trent still holds out hope that, somehow, I will pull a miracle out of my hat and have Caleb doing a one-eighty.
But how can I help him when he hasn’t even shown up to any of our sessions?
When he doesn’t call or even send a simple text or email?
How can I be his saving grace when he refuses to see me?
And why am I hurt by his sudden absence?
When I finally arrive back at my office, the disparaging thoughts swirling through my mind evaporate into thin air after finding the man himself sitting in one of the chairs in the waiting lounge.
“Caleb?” I choke out, not believing my own eyes.
“Hi, Doc,” he says, forlorn, rising to his feet.
“I was starting to think you wouldn’t come back.”
“Yeah, sorry about that.” He bows his head, kicking the air in front of his foot. “I… um… wasn’t the best person to be around with last week. Thought I’d spare you.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
He lifts his head off the floor and nods.
“Yeah. I would really like that.”
“Very well. Shall we head inside then?” I say and smile warmly, doing my best to ignore the racing of my heart.
Caleb silently follows behind and decides to sit on the chair in front of my desk rather than on the couch or the floor as usual.
I remove my coat and store my bag before picking up my yellow pad and the recorder. I place the recorder in front of us and click it on, reciting all the usual verbiage that Caleb knows by heart now.
“I don’t know where to start,” he says nervously, staring at the recorder as if it could grow teeth and bite him.
“How about you tell me why you came here this morning?”
“I… got suspended,” he admits, and when I don’t have a reaction, his shoulders slump. “But you already knew that.”
I nod instead of telling him that you can’t turn on a TV or pick up a newspaper without being aware of the news.
I also don’t tell him that the first thing I did before coming to work today was pay the GM a visit and let him know just how upset I am about his suspension.
“I fucked up, Roxie,” he confesses, his faint voice creating a crack inside my ribcage. “Really fucked up.”
“I know this is all very upsetting for you, but I’m going to need you to clarify how you messed up,” I say patiently while avoiding his terminology of recent events.
“I… I fucking punched Bellamy.”
“And why did you punch him?”
“Because… because I don’t want him on the team.”
“And why is that?” I insist, wanting to push him a little further.
“Fuck, I don’t know,” he says, jumping out of his seat and pacing the room.
“Yes, you do, Caleb. Tell me why you don’t want Bellamy on the team.”
“I… I…”
“Come on, Caleb. Say it. Just say once and for all what you are truly feeling.”
“I’m trying!” he belts out, pulling strands of hair out of his head.
“Try harder!” I yell back, needing him to make sense of his complex feelings.
“Because I don’t want people to forget my brother!” he shouts, going to the crux of his pain.
I lean back in my chair as he assimilates what he just said.
“I don’t want people to forget,” he whispers, walking back to his chair and plopping down on it.
“And you think Bellamy taking your brother’s place on the team will somehow do that? Erase your brother from people’s memories,” I add sympathetically.
“I do,” he says. “And it will.”
“How can you be so certain?”
“Because people are fucking fickle, Roxie. They all say that they care, but they don’t. They cease to care when it no longer suits them. It’s like how people react when a war breaks out in the world, or… fuck… when a school shooting happens,” he adds hesitantly, gauging my reaction, but proceeds when I don’t give him one. “Initially, everyone is in an uproar, eager to express their outrage and make a big deal about it, but after a few weeks, they go back to their lives and just forget it ever happened. So, whenever they’re reminded of it on the news or on their feed, they just change the channel or scroll past the related post, not wanting to constantly dwell on such tragedies,” he laments with a pained breath. “The same goes for Jack. Everyone was ready to send their condolences and prayers in the beginning, but now, with Bellamy here, Jack will become just another afterthought to them. And my brother is no fucking afterthought. Not to me.”
“You’re right. Your brother shouldn’t be so easily forgotten. But who do you think he actually wants to be remembered by? Some stranger he’s never met in his life or the people who actually mean something to him? His family. His friends.”
Caleb’s frown deepens at my statement.
“How do you think he would feel, knowing it was because of him that you got suspended?”
“Disappointed.”
“And you don’t like disappointing him, do you?”
“No, though it does seem like a recurring theme with us. I always find ways to break his heart.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Well, it’s fucking true,” he says, crestfallen, bowing his head down low, trapped in his own debilitating mind.
After he stays silent for a few moments, I decide to broach the subject differently.
“Why did you come to see me today, Caleb?”
“I already told you. Because I got suspended.”
“No, you didn’t come here to share the news with me. Deep down, you knew that I must have already found out about your suspension. So I’m going to ask you again. Why did you come to see me today, Caleb? And this time, I want you to be truthful, not only to me but to yourself.”
“Because…” he falters. “Because… I need you to fix… fix me.”
“You’re not broken, Caleb.”
He lets out a sarcastic chuckle.
“Yeah, I am.”
“No, you’re not,” I assure him. “But it’s completely normal for you to believe that you are, considering all the things you have endured lately. But you’re not broken. And you don’t need fixing. You are only a little worse for wear, that’s all.”
He lifts his eyes to meet mine and stares into me with odd curiosity.
“Why are you being so nice to me?”
“I’m not being nice.” I smile. “I’m just merely doing my job.”
“No. You’ve been trying to do your job since the day we first met. This… isn’t that.”
My forehead creases at his remark.
He straightens before me, his green eyes staring into mine as if he wanted to crack my head open to see what’s lurking inside.
“I’ve been nothing but a nuisance to you since the beginning,” he says without dropping his gaze off me.
“You have,” I interject with a soft smile.
“You could have told me to fuck off a million times, and rightfully so. So why continue to want to help when all I do is fuck shit up?”
“Because I believe you will persevere. And I want to be there when you do. Isn’t that enough?”
His gaze continues scrutinizing, making it almost impossible for me not to squirm in my chair.
“Persevere, huh? It’s a pretty word,” he says, relief accosting me when he leans back in his chair, his emerald gaze no longer as intrusive as it was a second ago.
“It’s more than just a word, Caleb. It’s hope.”
“Hope. I like that word, too.” He smiles meekly. “I’m starting to see why I like you so much.”
“Oh?” I clear my throat.
“Yeah. You remind me a little bit of him. Of Jack. He believed that I could persevere, too. He never lost hope either.”
“Then how about we prove to Jack just how right he was all along,” I say softly, holding out my hand for him to take.
He doesn’t hesitate and grabs it as if it were the lifeline he was praying for.
“Yeah, okay. So how do we do this? Make my brother proud, I mean?”
“First, I want you to admit what you want. For yourself. Not for Jack or me.”
He thinks long and hard before saying the words I already knew would leave his mouth.
“I want back on the team.”
“Then that will be our goal. Are you ready to start?”
“Yeah, Roxie. I’m ready.”