Chapter 9
nine
Jeremy
Ithought that being home would make things better. I thought I would be happier once I got here, but honestly, all it’s done is force reality to sink in.
I wake up every morning, and for just a minute, I forget. I forget that I’ll never get a chance to play hockey professionally. I forget that I can’t take a shower while standing up. I forget that things aren’t the way they used to be.
And then the pain hits.
A pain I didn’t realize I would feel again.
A pain that’s ten times worse than it was when I was pushing myself on the ice to play hockey, because at least then I was working for something.
I remember the first time I woke up and felt this pain.
It was a mixture of burning and stabbing pain, and it was the first thing I felt in my legs in weeks.
I was stupid. I was excited and na?ve, thinking that it meant something; it took Dr. Franklin explaining it to me repeatedly for me to realize it meant nothing.
It wasn’t a sign that I was getting feeling back in my legs.
It was a trick.
A fucking sick trick that my own body was playing on me.
And now it’s my reminder every morning.
Every morning, I have just a moment of hope, and then I remember what Dr. Franklin said. He told me it’s just nerve damage, and my spinal cord injury disrupts the signals and causes the pain. Or something like that.
All I know is I hate it.
I pop open my pill bottle and toss one into my mouth, then take a gulp of water to wash it down.
“There you are.” A hand lands on my shoulder, and I look back to see Zeke standing behind me. “How long have you been up?”
“A couple of hours.”
“A couple of hours?” He scoffs. “It’s 7:30 in the morning.”
“Yup.”
Every morning, I wake up at 4:30, the same time I used to wake up to train. And once reality sets in, the option to go back to sleep disappears, so I get out of bed and come outside and watch the sunrise.
“You want breakfast? I was going to make some pancakes, eggs, and a full breakfast spread.”
“You cook breakfast now?”
I slide my pill bottle into the pocket of my pants.
“What can I say? Brinley’s a good teacher, and Avalon puts up with me, so she deserves a man who can cook. Honestly, she deserves better than just that, so I’m just trying to show her that I deserve her.”
It’s wild to see Zeke in a relationship, but it’s also nice.
I’ve never seen him happier. It was also nice to know he had someone to help him get through the loss of his mom.
Obviously, he had the guys and me, and I used to wonder why he didn’t talk to us about what was going on more often, but recently, I understand it.
I get why he could confide in her and didn’t want to confide in us. It’s the same reason I keep everything I’m feeling about this to myself. It’s the reason I don’t tell them how angry I am. How much pain I’m fucking in all the time.
“So, breakfast?”
“Sure, man. Thanks.”
He pats me on the back and heads back inside. I stay outside for a few minutes before heading back to my room. Thankfully, none of the guys are up and in the kitchen yet, so I don’t have to make small talk.
Another thing I’ve hated about being home.
The guys don’t treat me like I’m fragile.
They let me do things on my own and never overstep.
If I needed help, they knew I’d come to them.
But when it comes to hockey, it’s become an avoidable subject.
They don’t mention going to practice, they don’t talk about the Tampa Bay Lightning winning the Stanley Cup, and they haven’t played NHL 17 since I got home.
I don’t want to talk about hockey, honestly. It’s a part of my life I’d like to leave behind, but I’m not sure how.
Everywhere I go, I’m reminded of the one thing I can never have again.
The medals on my walls, the trophies, and all the pictures. Every time I come into my room, they’re the first things I see.
I wheel over to my dresser, where my MOP award is sitting. It’s crazy to think I won this only a few months ago, and barely two months later, I was in a hospital bed, finding out I’d never get to play hockey again.
I pick up the award and run my thumb along the base, where my name is engraved.
This was the best day of my life. Winning the championship with my best friends and earning Most Outstanding Player honors. And now the thought of it makes me sick.
It’s not fair.
I gave up everything for hockey.
I trained every day. I studied hard. I gave up playing in the NHL right after college to make sure I was set in the long run, and what good did that do me, huh? Being stuck in this chair?
Every waking moment of my life was dedicated to this sport. Not in the same way Declan’s life was dedicated to hockey, but in my own way. And now I can’t help but wonder what I missed out on because of my laser focus. A focus that just led me to lose the sport anyway.
I squeeze the award so hard that my knuckles turn white.
This is exactly why I don’t like to think about hockey, why I’m happy the guys don’t bring it up; it makes me angry.
It makes all those feelings I had in the hospital rush back.
My hands start to shake, my heart begins to race, and suddenly it feels like I have no control of my own body… in more ways than one.
“Fuck!” I scream, chucking the award at my wall, causing it to break apart, but not before leaving a giant hole in the wall above my desk.
But it’s not enough. I swipe away at my dresser, every hockey-related award crashing to the ground, and the ones that don’t fall off the dresser end up crashing into the wall at full speed.
It’s almost as if I can’t stop; my hands have a mind of their own, and they won’t stop until every hockey-related item in my room is destroyed.
I grab a picture of me with the team from just a few months ago and smash the frame into my dresser, the wooden frame breaking in half as the glass shatters around it.
And then, once everything is broken and shattered on the floor, I cry.
I cry over the loss of something that was everything to me. I cry over the loss of a dream I’ll never experience. I cry because there’s nothing left in my room to destroy, and the anger has to turn into something.
And then I see it.
Not the annihilation of my room and my walls and everything I worked so hard for, but my open bedroom door.
The open bedroom door that exposes me and this moment to the group of people I’ve been bottling this up from. They don’t say anything.
Avalon is the first to break away from the group, and the last person I’d expect to approach me first. I’ve only known her for a couple of months.
She grabs my hand, observing it, and then my eyes find what she sees—
Blood.
“We should get this cleaned up.” She gives me a soft smile. “Zeke, baby, could you get me the first aid kit from the hall closet?”
Zeke doesn’t say anything, just does as he’s told. He fills the space beside Avalon moments later. We sit in silence as Avalon cleans up the cuts on my hand, picking out a few pieces of glass along the way, and then once my hand is clean and bandaged, she looks at me.
Avalon brushes the tears off my cheeks, and then she hugs me. She doesn’t say a single thing as she does; instead, she lets me take in the quiet. Slowly, the hug grows. I feel more arms wrap around us, and the space becomes safer and safer.
No one says anything.
And as I sit wrapped up in the arms of some of the most important people in my life, I begin to cry again.
But this time it’s for a whole different reason.