Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Hamish
Dr. Jelshi's office smells like antiseptic and anticipated disappointment.
It's not a scent I enjoy. Happiness smells like sun on grass and Amy's hair, and I'd much rather bury my nose in her, but instead I'm taking a seat on a white plastic chair that chills the backs of my thighs.
Everything is bright. White walls, stainless fixtures, and a waiting room that must have been designed in 2009, the year of peak shiplap. Even the magazines are arranged with precision, as if a crooked People could cause a malpractice suit.
Amy is not here.
She's in Chicago for work and although she tried to reschedule the trip, I told her no. Not because I'm selfless, but because if she sits beside me and I get bad news, I'll spend the entire appointment trying to protect her from my reaction.
Vince is here, though. He's wedged into a chair that looks like it was built for an average-sized accountant, not a human tank with tattoos and a long black braid the size of a cruise ship rope.
His arms are folded. His expression says I'd rather be lifting.
"Ye're scowlin'," I tell him.
"I am not scowling. This is my face when I am forced to sit down and listen to medical professionals."
"Ye respect no one."
"I respect strength. Most of them are just fancy guessers with good hair."
An assistant escorts us into Exam Room #3, where Vince finds an even smaller plastic chair to cram himself into, while I hop onto the exam table. We wait.
The door opens. Dr. Jelshi walks in with a tablet and the calm of a man who delivers shattered dreams before lunch yet maintains a healthy appetite.
"Hamish! My favorite striker. I heard about the Str1kecast Sports deal—good for you! Having backup career plans is important."
My stomach drops.
He shakes my hand and nods at Vince, who grunts.
"All right," he says, tapping the screen. "We're a little over eight months post-op now. Let's talk about where we are and what that means."
Eight months.
Eight months of rehab, ice, strengthening, balance drills, and learning new ways to hate stairs. Eight months of my knee being the main character of my life story.
Jelshi brings up images on the monitor. My knee, in cross-sections, the inside of me displayed like gray-scale deli meat.
"This is your meniscus repair," he says.
"Structurally, it looks good. The surgery did what it was supposed to do.
The meniscus has healed. ACL looks decent.
We augmented with BMAC and did everything possible for you, stretching the bounds of what we know.
You chose to take the longer route, with more interventions, to get back as much function as possible.
That was smart. Your knee is beautiful."
Beautiful.
That word should feel like a win, and it does, for half a second.
"But healing and elite performance are not the same thing."
Vince makes a little sound, like a judge agreeing with an argument.
"What we're seeing now is a plateau. You have strength gains, but your neuromuscular control, reaction timing, and load tolerance are not returning to pre-injury levels at the rate we need for an in-season return.
If you were cleared, the risk of re-injury or compensation injuries is too high at your level of match intensity.
Even a moderate hit could destroy the progress. "
I nod thoughtfully, because that's what I do. I nod and pretend I'm made of granite. The words go in my ear and down into my rapidly free-falling stomach.
"So I canna get on the pitch this season, but next? And long term?" I ask.
He pauses. Not long, but long enough. Vince averts his eyes.
"I'm going to be direct. A full return to sustained elite performance is unlikely."
Unlikely.
Not impossible. But also not something I can will into existence. Not something you can grind into submission with hard work and reps and stubborn rage.
I stare at the knee on the screen. It looks fine—boring, even. So bland and flat, it has no right to change the shape of my future.
Jelshi keeps going. Percentages, timelines, risk, all words that make my career sound like a database.
He describes my meniscal allograft transplantation surgery in detail, how it's a success beyond measure, but a success in terms of a fully functional knee.
Not for someone who needs to use it the way I do, in play on the pitch.
"You could play again," he says, but I hear the real tone underneath.
"You could return in a limited role. But the odds that you regain the same explosiveness, the same confidence on cut-and-pivot movements, and the same tolerance for repeated high-load matches are not strong.
We can keep pushing rehab. But it's my job to be realistic. "
Vince leans forward and stares at me, eye to eye.
"Your fucked-up knee healed, but not enough to play the way you know you want to play, Hamish. You can go out there and be one of those guys who just can't let go. And you know what everyone calls them."
"Pussies?"
"Losers. Has-beens."
"Fuck if I'll be a has-been. Has-beens ruin it for the team, and I'm no' a liability!"
"Exactly," Jelshi and Vince say in unison.
"There are also adjunct options," Jelshi adds. "Some athletes pursue biologic therapies or newer procedures as supplements to standard rehab. Mixed evidence. Some benefit, some don't."
My brain grabs onto that word, benefit, like a starving man grabbing a crust of bread. Or Amy grabbing my boaby lately.
"Such as?" I ask.
Jelshi's tone gets careful.
"We really have done as much as possible, but there are—"
"What about washing Tom Brady's semen and injecting it into the meniscus?" Vince asks.
I know I'm overwhelmed, but did he just say —
"You have direct access to Tom Brady's semen?" Jelshi asks, deadpan.
"I can find a way."
"Consensual access to Tom Brady's semen?" Jelshi clarifies.
Neither of us likes the way Vince hesitates.
"I dinna like this line o' experimental treatment," I declare. "Ma own semen is more than enough, thank ye verra much. No need to inject someone else's."
"Okay." Vince shrugs. "What about Ilona Maher? She—"
"Dear God, man, what body fluid of hers are ye proposin' fer ma knee?"
Jelshi's mouth twitches. "Also no."
I laugh, short and sharp, because if I don't, I might start screaming and never stop.
Vince starts to say something again.
"If ye mention Alyssa Liu, Vince, so help me God..."
Vince is looking at me, but he's all chagrin and disappointment. I truly believe he was relishing the Tom Brady bit, and I will never, ever view him quite the same way again.
"Hamish," Jelshi says. "You did what you were supposed to do. You took surgery seriously. You rehabbed diligently. This is not a failure of effort."
It feels like one, but I nod anyway.
"We'll continue rehab," he says. "We'll keep strengthening and monitoring. You can still have a strong functional outcome and live an athletic life. Play for fun. Just not as a pro. Vince is an asset."
Vince nods as if that's a given.
"Elite football at your prior level is such a longshot, I can't continue to tell you it's not. You need to begin making the psychological transition to full acceptance of that. I cannot let you continue chasing a dream that isn't realistic."
Psychological transition. Chasing a dream.
Realistic is not what you're chasing when you're a striker. You're chasing goals, moments, the thin line between glory and disaster, and hoping like hell you catch it. Then you do it again, and again, over and over, until you're cut from the team or too injured to be an asset.
Taking risks is the job. Playing it safe is a death sentence for the game.
He wraps up with next steps that are really just more of the same. More work. More patience. Then he stands, shakes my hand, and leaves.
The door clicks shut.
Vince exhales.
"You okay?" he asks in a casual voice but with serious eyes.
"I'm fine. I'm no' surprised."
"That's not okay," Vince says. "That's numb."
"I'm no' numb."
"You're doing the thing. The tough guy thing, the athlete thing. The 'if I don't talk about it, it doesn't hurt' thing."
I look down at my leg. The brace. The scars I don't talk about.
"I've got Str1kecast," I say, and the words taste strange. "I'm lucky."
"You are lucky. But you're also allowed to be pissed."
"I havena had a drop of alcohol today."
"I mean angry."
"Aye. But I dinna want ta talk about it now, Vince."
We walk out together, past the cheerful receptionist who has no idea my identity just got disqualified.
Outside, the air is cold and dry. Homesickness hits me hard.
Vince turns toward the gym. I stop.
"I need a run," I say.
"You get stupid, you get hurt."
"I'm no' going ta get stupid."
"That's what stupid says." He studies me. "Fine. But you feel pain, you stop."
"Aye."
"And text me when you're done."
"I'm no' twelve."
"Text me anyway," he snaps, and walks off.
I start running. Not sprinting, not pushing. Just moving.
At first, it feels good, cold air in my lungs, finding the rhythm where my bones and muscles align so I can glide a bit. The simple truth of my body doing something purposeful.
Then the knee reminds me that it is not the knee I used to have.
It's not sharp pain. It's a stubborn, resistant feeling, a tactile sense that my knee is my friend but I can no longer take it for granted. My knee has a performance ceiling and it will not rise above.
All my life, I've lived with the assumption that if I pushed harder than anyone else, I could achieve anything, and that my body was one hundred percent all-in. That's not true anymore. When you've spent your entire life relying on that steadfast ability, having it disappear is an earthquake.
My stride shortens without permission. My body is making decisions without me.
I hate that. I keep running anyway.
Because I have been a striker for so long, my entire sense of self is built on moving forward fast, on being decisive, on being the one who finishes.
And now I am a man with a knee that has a list of caveats.