Chapter 4
LIAM
The shoulder was fucked.
I didn't need the MRI results sitting on Dr. Harrison's desk to tell me that. I had played hockey long enough to know the difference between a bruise and a tear, between something that needed ice and something that needed surgery.
This needed surgery.
"Torn rotator cuff," Dr. Harrison said, confirming what I already knew.
He pulled up the scan on his computer screen, pointing to the white area that looked like someone had taken a knife to my shoulder joint.
"See this? Complete tear of the supraspinatus tendon.
Partial tears in the infraspinatus and subscapularis. "
I stared at the screen, at the physical evidence of the hit that had taken me out three weeks ago. Detroit's defenseman—a two-hundred-and-twenty-pound wall of muscle named Kowalski—had caught me wrong against the boards. I had felt something pop. Heard it, even over the crowd noise.
"Surgery?" I asked, even though I knew the answer.
"Eventually, yes. But we want to try conservative treatment first. Eight to twelve weeks of intensive physical therapy. If that doesn't restore function, then we go surgical."
Eight to twelve weeks.
The playoffs started in sixteen.
"I need to be back for playoffs," I said.
Dr. Harrison gave me the look—the one every team doctor mastered, the one that said I've heard this from every player, and you're not special.
"That's the goal," he said. "Which is why we're bringing in a specialist. Someone with experience in hockey-specific rotator cuff injuries. She's worked with Olympic-level athletes, NHL players, the works."
"She?"
"Anne Mitchell. Out of Chicago. Works for Midwest Elite Sports Medicine." He pulled up her credentials on another screen. "She's the best in the Midwest at this kind of injury. If anyone can get you back on ice in eight weeks, it's her."
I stared at the name on the screen.
Anne Mitchell.
Common name. Had to be thousands of them. Maybe tens of thousands.
But my stomach twisted anyway, because years ago, I had known an Anne Mitchell. Six years ago, I had loved an Anne Mitchell. I had left an Anne Mitchell standing in a Chicago apartment while I flew to Sweden to chase a dream that was supposed to be ours.
"When does she start?" I heard myself ask.
"Tomorrow morning at the training facility. She's driving in from Chicago tonight."
Tomorrow.
I left Dr. Harrison's office with a prescription for anti-inflammatories I wasn't going to take and exercises I was already doing, and drove back to my apartment in Clayton with my thoughts spinning in directions they hadn't gone in years.
It wasn't her. It couldn't be her.
Anne Mitchell from Chicago who worked in sports PT—yeah, that tracked. That had always been her plan. But she'd be working with some prestigious agency, not freelancing to random NHL teams for eight-week contracts.
Except Midwest Elite Sports Medicine was prestigious. It was exactly the kind of place she had said she wanted to work.
I pulled into my parking garage and sat in my car for ten minutes, staring at nothing.
I hadn't thought about her—really thought about her—in at least three.
I had dated. Nothing serious, nothing that lasted more than a few months, but I had moved on.
I was twenty-nine years old, finally in the NHL after grinding through four years in Sweden and two years proving myself worthy of a real contract. I had a life here. A good life.
Anne Mitchell was part of my past.
A past I had left in Chicago when I chose Sweden.
A past that had chosen her career over us just as much as I had chosen mine.
I finally got out of my car and took the elevator up to my apartment—a corner unit with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Forest Park.
It was nice. Really nice. The kind of place I had dreamed about when I was sleeping on air mattresses in Swedish team housing, eating grocery store sandwiches to save money.
I had earned this.
I had worked for this.
And I didn't need Anne Mitchell to get here.
My phone buzzed as I was unlocking my door. Text from Jonesy—Harrison Jones, our starting center and the closest thing I had to a best friend on this team.
Delaney's. 7pm. Team's buying you pity beers for your fucked shoulder.
I texted back: Not fucked. Just needs PT.
So fucked. See you at 7.
Delaney's was packed by the time I arrived at 7:15, but the guys had claimed our usual corner booth. Half the team was there—the ones who weren't married with kids, plus a few who were but whose wives had given them a hall pass for "team bonding."
"There he is!" Jonesy raised his beer as I slid into the booth. "The injured warrior. How's the wing, bird boy?"
"It's a shoulder, not a wing."
"You're a winger with a fucked wing. It's poetic." He signaled the waitress for another beer. "What'd the doc say?"
"Eight weeks of PT, then we reassess."
"Eight weeks." Kirby—our backup goalie—whistled low. "That puts you at what, two weeks before playoffs?"
"If I'm lucky."
"And if you're not lucky?" This from Sanchez, our veteran defenseman who had seen enough injuries to know how this usually went.
"Surgery. Six months recovery. Miss playoffs entirely."
The table went quiet for a beat. In hockey, missing playoffs was like missing Christmas.
Especially for a guy like me—first-line winger on a team that actually had a shot at the Cup this year.
This was supposed to be my year. My chance to prove that four years in Sweden wasn't wasted time, that I had made the right choice when I-
I cut that thought off before it could finish.
"Who's doing your PT?" Jonesy asked, changing the subject with the kind of tactical awareness that made him good at face-offs.
"Some specialist from Chicago. Starts tomorrow."
"Chicago?" Kirby grinned. "Storm territory. Think she's a spy?"
"Pretty sure the Blaze's training staff vetted her before bringing her in to work on their star winger," I said, taking a long drink of the beer that had just appeared in front of me.
"Star winger." Sanchez smirked. "Someone's confident."
"Someone's realistic. I led the team in goals this season."
"Before you got destroyed by Kowalski."
"Before I had an unfortunate collision with the boards."
"Destroyed."
I flipped him off, and the table dissolved into the kind of good-natured shit-talking that made road trips bearable and long seasons feel less lonely.
We were three beers in when Jonesy leaned back and gave me the look—the one that meant he was about to ask something he knew I wouldn't want to answer.
"You seeing anyone?"
I should've seen this coming. Jonesy had been happily married for five years, had two kids and a third on the way, and had made it his personal mission to see everyone else equally settled.
"No."
"No as in no one serious, or no as in not dating at all?"
"No as in mind your own business."
"So not dating at all." He exchanged looks with Kirby. "Dude, you're twenty-nine. You're in the NHL. You're objectively good-looking?—"
"Objectively?" I raised an eyebrow.
"My wife's words, not mine. Point is, you could have your pick. But every time any of us try to set you up, you ghost after like two dates. What's the deal?"
"Maybe I don't want to be set up."
"Or maybe you're still hung up on that girl from Chicago."
My hand tightened on my beer bottle. "What girl?"
"The one you never talk about. The one whose name you don't say when you've had too many and we're all sharing war stories about exes." Jonesy leaned forward. "Come on, man. We've all been there. The one that got away. The one you think about at 2 AM when you can't sleep."
"I don't think about her."
It wasn't entirely a lie. I didn't think about her every day. Not even every week.
Just... sometimes. When I was alone in my apartment that was too big for one person. When I saw couples at restaurants, sharing food and finishing each other's sentences. When I watched Jonesy FaceTime his kids before games and felt something twist in my chest that I couldn't quite name.
"Sure you don't." Jonesy didn't push further, which I appreciated. "But for the record, whatever happened back then? It's been years. Maybe it's time to stop letting it define your present."
Had it really been many years since I had left Anne standing in that apartment, since I had chosen Sweden over us, since I had convinced myself I was making the right choice?
Four years in Sweden. Two years back in North America, first with the AHL affiliate, then finally getting called up to the Blaze. Six years of building exactly the career I wanted.
And what did I have to show for it besides a nice apartment and a torn rotator cuff?
"Thanks for the therapy session, Dr. Jones," I said, keeping my tone light. "Send me a bill."
He laughed, letting it drop, and the conversation shifted to safer topics—upcoming games, trade rumors, Kirby's disastrous attempt at cooking a romantic dinner for his girlfriend.
I participated enough to not be weird about it, but my mind was elsewhere.
Anne Mitchell from Chicago.
It wasn't her. It couldn't be.
But the knot in my stomach said otherwise.
I got home around eleven, just sober enough to know I should drink water and eat something before bed. I heated up leftover Thai food and sat at my kitchen island—granite countertops, high-end appliances, everything I had thought would make me happy—scrolling mindlessly through my phone.
I could search for her. Anne Mitchell, Midwest Elite Sports Medicine, Chicago. See if it was the same person.
My thumb hovered over the search bar.
I didn't do it.
Instead, I set my phone down and finished my food in silence, telling myself that it didn't matter. That it couldn't be her. That even if it was, it was years too late.
Tomorrow I'd meet my PT, find out it was some other Anne Mitchell, and get back to the business of fixing my shoulder and winning a Stanley Cup.
Tomorrow I'd get my second chance.
But tonight, alone in my apartment that was too big and too quiet, I let myself remember.
I remembered the first day I met her. The way she had called me stupid without flinching.
The way she had taped my ankle with competent, precise hands.
The way she had looked at me in that training room like she could see past the BMOC bullshit to the guy underneath who just wanted someone to see him as more than a hockey player.
I remembered our first kiss. The pizza getting cold on my couch because I couldn't stop kissing her. The way she had fit perfectly against my side when we lay tangled together in my dorm bed.
I remembered the moment I knew I was going to propose to her. The moment I realized that hockey wasn't my whole life anymore. That maybe I could have both—the game I loved and the woman I loved.
I remembered choosing Sweden instead.
And I remembered exactly how much that had cost me.
Tomorrow, 8 AM. The Enterprise Center training facility.
A PT specialist named Anne Mitchell.
Most likely not the same Anne Mitchell I had spent six years trying to forget.
But as I finally went to bed around midnight, I couldn't shake the feeling that my entire life was about to change again.
Just like the first day I walked into that training room at Cornell and met a girl who called me stupid and made me believe in forever.
Just like the day I left her behind for a dream I thought mattered more.
Tomorrow I'd find out if the universe had a sense of irony or mercy.
Tomorrow I'd find out if second chances were real.
Tomorrow I'd meet my physical therapist.
And tomorrow, I was terrified it was going to be her.