41. Lilah
LILAH
During my three years in college, the illusion of control had been vital to my survival.
I always had a plan. A way to work out problems. An emotional escape hatch.
Who said you had to stop playing make-believe when you grew up? I played pretend every day. I pretended I wasn’t alone. Wasn’t hurt. Wasn’t broken.
See? So easy. Three years after high school graduation, I kept working The Plan.
I was one class from finishing my BS in Business Management.
Ninety percent of premed students were bio-chem majors, but choosing bio-chem would’ve meant completing my prerequisites too early.
It would’ve meant leaving campus for the summers and finding someplace to go, because the one word ripped from my vocabulary was “home.”
Instead, I’d done the not-smart-if-you-wanted-to-avoid-burnout thing of taking a full course load every summer, fall, and spring semester for the past three years. And I was doing just fine. So, so easy.
With half a cookie still in my mouth, I checked my phone for the time and ran the last block to class. Dr. Alcott detested lateness almost as much as he hated eating in class.
I stuffed the last piece into my mouth, wrenched open the door and ducked to keep out of his sight. Maybe he wouldn’t know I’d only been three minutes early, instead of his preferred five, while still chewing my study snack.
“You’re all in luck. And I expect you to take this opportunity seriously.
” Dr. Alcott, a bushy-eyebrowed, gray-haired orthopedic surgeon, had been tasked with overseeing this portion of our summer program along with the two doctors of PT.
He surveyed the premed interns and skipped right over me.
“And that opportunity might help Ms. Byrd put a little more effort into being on time.”
I cringed. Nope, hadn’t gotten away with anything at all.
Not that I ever did. “Sorry, Dr. Alcott. Won’t happen again.
” I wedged myself in beside Violet. We all stood in front of the padded green physiotherapy tables laid out in the room that was stocked with way more equipment than had been there during our practical course walk-through a week earlier.
He huffed as if his warning had now rewritten my DNA to the cellular level. “Four weeks is not a lot of time and I expect you all to treat this program with the seriousness it deserves.” His pointed stare needled straight at me.
“They’ll be bringing in more equipment to handle the newest batch of patients you’ll be observing and getting some hands-on experience with during this course.
The situation is highly unusual and little last minute, so we’ll all have to be flexible.
” He said the last word like it ran razor blades across his tongue.
“You’d think an orthopedic surgeon would want us to be flexible,” Violet said, super-secret soft.
“Did you have a question, Ms. Pratchett?”
“No, only excited to get started.”
The double doors behind them swung open, and men and women with hand trucks brought in even more equipment. Ultrasounds, ice packs by the crate, and enough sports tape to wrap a whole arena of fans.
A woman in a branded polo walked into the room. Not one of us. She got closer and the logo took shape. A nauseous tug gripped my stomach.
Sweat beaded on my forehead and an intense sense of foreboding drummed in my chest. Under the large F embroidered on her polo were two crossed hockey sticks.
All this was for a hockey team. We’d be working with—or worse, on—a hockey team.
A full IV flush of ice water flooded my veins.
“Who the hell shipped in all this stuff?” Violet leaned over and whispered.
A man walked in and joined the woman. “Happy to see so many eager faces. I’m Dr. Rogers and this is Dr. Fiona. I’m the head physician for Florida Force Hockey.”
A couple of gasps from the twelve of us. My whole body snapped straight. They were excited about seeing their hockey player faves. I was trying not to have a panic attack. There are no tigers lurking around the corner, Lilah. Breathe in. Breathe out.
“We’re not going to let a pesky little thing like a hurricane keep us from training camp. And the university was kind enough to let us train all the way over here.” Dr. Rogers bounced on his heels like he hated standing still.
“You okay?” Vi whispered out of the side of her mouth.
I played pretend. “Just a little dizzy. Lunch was a cookie.”
She plucked a cookie crumb from my shirt and smirked. Her complete unfazedness helped me to not freak out. “Sugar crash, incoming.”
I hadn’t heard if Mason had gone pro. But deep in my gut, I knew he had. My mental lockdown on anything hockey-related was coming home to bite me in the butt. I had no idea where he was.
But that invisible thread between us had somehow let me know all his dreams had come true, even if we were thousands of miles apart.
Surely I’d have known if he was in the vicinity.
There were over thirty pro hockey teams in the country.
He was probably playing for New York or California. Not Florida.
Dr. Rogers had been speaking this whole time, but beneath the whoosh of my heartbeat in my ears, it had all disappeared.
I pressed my hands against the sides of my legs. Calm, Lilah. Calm.
“We will meet the players, the patients you will treat in your four-week program.” He led us through the double doors and down a hallway.
With each step, I tried to convince myself it would all be fine. Over thirty teams with over twenty-something guys, if my hockey knowledge by osmosis was still correct. There were over 600 players in the league.
He wasn’t here. He wasn’t here.
This internship was my final prerequisite for my fall semester medical school program’s official beginning. I had to do this.
Everyone around me buzzed with excitement.
Professional hockey players. We’d all been expecting to work with knee- or hip-replacement patients, throw in a bad back or two, maybe an interesting compound fracture recovery.
But peak performance athletes made their summer a whole lot more interesting and mine a shit-ton more terrifying.
Dr. Rogers held open another door to a small amphitheater classroom with seating that rose up to meet the back wall. He waved us all through with a jolly, almost infectious, disposition.
And if I hadn’t been reminding myself how my legs and feet worked, I’d be relieved to be working with him over Dr. Alcott any day. But his Florida Force polo continued to pump cold dread straight into my stomach.
Dr. Rogers approached a stern man in a matching polo and gray pants. “Sorry to interrupt, Coach, but I wanted to get these fine additions to the training camp team introduced before you started, so we could get them on their way.”
“Listen up,” the coach called to his audience, “these are the physiotherapy interns who will be assisting our team for the duration of training camp.”
I scanned the seats, eyes jumping from one face to another. There were a lot more than twenty players in here.
Each scan of their faces was a game of Russian roulette. But as I moved from one to the next, the knife’s edge of panic lessened bit by bit until it was only a dull buzz in the back of my head, probably from oxygen deprivation. Then I took in the whole room. He wasn’t here.
I laughed—out loud. Vi turned to me with a what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you look.
I shrugged. Nothing. Absolutely nothing was wrong. I unclenched my fists. My shoulders dropped a whole four inches and I was swamped with so much relief that I got dizzy.
Then the doors at the top of the room swung open and three other players stepped through.
Everything slowed down. I stepped back, crushing the toes of the guy behind me. But I couldn’t say sorry. I couldn’t say anything.
An ache throbbed in my chest.
I was plunged into the depths of churning, inky waters threatening to drown me all over again.
“Mason.”
Lilah and Mason’s story continues in The Love That Burned Us! Grab the preorder now, so you don’t miss their intense reunion. More Mason, more Lilah, more Galen, more Erik, more Calder and yes, even more Rye
The story continues with
The Love That Burned Us