Chapter Fifteen
Declan
“...Was legal…”
“Bullshit… college level...”
“...aggressive, but…”
“...Look at him…”
“...career…over…”
The voices scrape in and out, clear one second, muffled the next, just the snatches of a broken, angry conversation.
The rest? Static, fragments of words, sneakers scuffing the floor, the incessant beep from somewhere near my ear.
I try to lift my lashes, but they won’t move.
Can’t move. Everything’s dark, heavy… Too heavy.
I’m awake. I think I’m awake. My brain is trying to swim to a surface that’s just out of reach.
“…clean hit...”
“Bad luck…”
Bad luck? No. No, that’s not—
My heart slams so hard, I swear I feel it in my teeth, but I can’t feel anything else. It’s like floating and sinking at the same time, trapped in a body covered in wet cement.
Trying to lick my impossibly dry lips, I can’t. My body doesn’t listen.
“...NHL dreams are over…”
What? No. No, that can’t—
Panic flares bright and instant, like a spark igniting. I try to open my eyes, to sit up, to do something, but I’m locked in place, screaming in a room that won’t answer me.
“...Tell the kid…”
“...Full recovery…”
Dad’s voice cuts through, distant, like he’s talking through a tunnel. “Call me…awake…”
I am awake, goddamnit!
The voices fade, or melt, or smear together.
Maybe I pass out. Maybe I’m caught in a nightmare that won’t let go.
The next time I surface, the world lurches, blurry lights slamming into my eyelids as they crack open.
Everything hurts. Everything spins, making me dizzy.
My throat’s like sandpaper, my tongue glued to the roof of my mouth.
I try to breathe, and it catches, because whatever nightmare this is… it’s real.
Coach Grayson’s slumped by the window, Assistant Coach Young glued to his phone.
“Ah, you’re awake,” a nurse in green scrubs says softly, her smile warm as she glances over me. “Let me grab the doctor, okay, sweetie?”
I manage a nod, trying to shift in bed as she slips out of the room.
Young’s phone starts to ring, the high-pitch sound making me wince.
“Dec? You awake, bud?” Dad asks from the speaker. “I’m on the flight out in the morning, okay.”
My chest tightens, and I shut my eyes.
“Talk to me, Declan,” Dad says in that too-calm tone parents use when they’re trying not to worry. “How’s the pain? What are you feeling?”
“Like I’ve taken a whole team’s worth of hits into the boards,” I croak.
A dull ache slices up my leg as Coach passes me a plastic cup, my stomach pinching as I lean to grab the straw with my lips.
My gaze falls to my leg, half of it swallowed by thick bandages, swollen even through the padding. “What’s the damage?”
Coach glances at Young, a silent conversation passing between them.
“What is it? Grade-two sprain? Couple months of rehab, miss the Frozen Four, but back by fall training?”
My mouth dries, nausea rolling in quickly as Coach’s face blanches, his throat working on a swallow as he avoids my eyes.
“Declan—”
“Shit,” I mutter. “Don’t tell me after all that, we didn’t make it to Nationals?”
“Son—” Dad’s voice is cut off as the door to my room swings open. A doctor carrying a clipboard steps in with the kind of calm that makes my stomach twist.
“Declan, how are we feeling?”
“Like I could skate another three periods,” I rasp, trying to grin, only it dies as soon as it reaches my lips.
He doesn’t crack a smile, not even close, just glances down at his notes. “Surgery went as planned. Reconstruction within the optimal window for this type of injury… Swelling manageable… Successful repair and re-stabilization of your knee.”
My gaze drops to the bandages again. Not a sprain…but, stabilized. That’s good. That means fixed, right?
“There was extensive damage.” He continues, flipping the page. “Multiple ligament tears. The ACL and PCL were fully ruptured along with a partial tear to your MCL.”
The words clang around my skull like stray pucks. Blinking, I try to rearrange them into something less catastrophic.
“O-kaaay,” I breathe out, clinging to the only explanation that doesn’t end my life as I know it. “So rehab, right? A few months of heavy reconditioning, and I’ll be back in time for next season?”
I look around the room, waiting for someone to say something. A muscle in Coach’s cheek tics, his face growing progressively redder. Young looks away, scuffing his toe against the linoleum. The doctor just exhales slowly through his nose.
But…no one answers.
“Declan,” the doctor says carefully, lowering the clipboard. “With the level of damage to your knee, the chances of returning to competitive play are…extremely low. It’s not about healing; it’s about what your body can no longer take. Any hit, any wrong angle, and it could go again.”
The nauseating sensation swirling in the pit of my stomach lurches, and I draw my eyebrows together. “You’re saying…what? The season’s done?”
The air leaves the room. I feel like someone opened a door and let everything I’ve ever wanted bleed out into the hallway.
From Young’s phone, my dad’s voice crackles through, low and broken, making me flinch. Hell, I forgot he was even on the line.
“Can I speak to the doctor alone for a minute?” he asks, and Young passes the phone over before moving away.
Coach swears under his breath, scrubbing a hand roughly over his bald head. And all I can do is stare at the too-crisp sheets tucked around one leg, my toes peeking out at the bottom like they belong to someone else.
“They’re wrong,” I whisper, the words tasting like acid. “I’ll rehab. Harder than anyone. I’ll prove it.”
Still nothing. No one says a thing, just the dull buzz of the hospital lights and rhythmic beeps of my heartbeat rattling in my ears.
This can’t be happening. I worked for this.
So hard. Every extra hour in the gym, every five a.m. skate, double sessions, nights watching tape until my eyes blurred.
I’ve seen players crawl back from injuries way worse.
Some of them didn’t, sure, but I’m not them.
I’ve never taken a shortcut, never coasted, never let myself want anything else.
I can beat this. I have to.
But the silence keeps stretching, keeps tightening, until it feels like it’s pressing a bruise right into my ribs. And somewhere, deep under the numbness and rage, a single truth I don’t want to accept or acknowledge claws its way up, cold and certain.
It’s over.