Chapter Twelve
West
The waiting room’s empty, and the silence only amplifies the distance between me and Blue. There’s a seat between us where she’s placed her purse, and with the tension piling up against us, separating herself from me is clearly intentional.
Her body language says a lot, too—legs crossed away from me, foot bouncing impatiently, eyes glued to her phone.
She doesn’t want to be here, which in turn makes me wish she wasn’t.
It’s stressful enough dealing with this shit, waiting to hear what the orthopedic surgeon has to say about my shoulder.
Meanwhile, my wife would rather be anyplace else.
“Mr. Golden?”
I tear my eyes away from Blue and meet the smile of the nurse. I try to match her energy, but don’t have it in me.
Before I can tell Blue she doesn’t have to come to the exam room, she’s out of her seat, tucking her phone into the back pocket of her jeans.
More silence as we follow the nurse into a room. The space is so cold and sterile it makes my nerves even worse.
“Have a seat,” the nurse says warmly, pushing gray curls behind her ear as she looks over my chart.
I climb onto the table and take a deep breath, trying not to think the worst.
“Any changes since your last visit? An increase in pain? Any numbness or tingling?”
I shake my head. “Pain’s about the same, but it’s pretty stiff in the morning.”
“That’s not unusual. Dr. Graham may want to check your range of motion again, just to see if there’s anything to note, so he’ll probably need you out of the sling for a bit.”
“Okay.”
“He’ll be in shortly to go over your images. Hang tight.” She smiles, then leaves me and Blue in silence again.
Ten minutes pass before there’s a light knock at the door. Then, Dr. Graham enters the room, clutching a black tablet to his chest with one hand, and shaking my hand with the other.
“Good afternoon to you both.”
“Hi, Dr. Graham,” Blue and I both echo back.
He nods at my arm in the sling as he lowers onto the stool beside me. “Hope you haven’t been too uncomfortable.”
I shrug. “About as much as expected, I guess.”
He nods again. “Well, I’ve got your images here, and I’ll be honest with you, West. It wasn’t quite what we were hoping for.”
He clicks and swipes around on his tablet, leaving me to wonder what the fuck that means until he angles the screen toward me and Blue.
“We’re looking at quite a bit of inflammation.” He pauses to point to an area of the image, tapping it with the stylus on the end of his pen. “Now, it’s possible this is only inflammation, which would heal on its own with a bit of rest.”
“Is that what you think is going on?” Blue asks, and for some reason I’m surprised she’s chiming in, showing concern.
Dr. Graham sighs, staring at the screen. “I believe in full disclosure when explaining a prognosis to my patients, Mrs. Golden. So, with that being said, I believe a more likely scenario is that what we’re seeing is a re-tearing of the rotator cuff.”
With those words, Blue’s face goes slack, and she doesn’t speak. A wave of heat rushes through me, and I’m flooded with memories. Memories of the last time I was in this position, wondering if I’d make a full recovery.
It was hell.
And here I am, right back in the same situation.
“So, in that same spirit of full disclosure,” Dr. Graham says, “we need to be realistic about what this means moving forward. For your health, your career.”
He pauses, and I take a deep breath, terrified to hear what he’ll say next.
“This injury could either be a minor setback, or… you may be facing more permanent circumstances.”
Permanent…
I don’t take another breath. It feels like all the air has been sucked right out of the room. The only thing I feel is fear. It’s as real as any one of us seated in this room. A living, breathing thing.
“Are you… are you sure?” Blue stammers. I don’t have words. As far as worst case scenarios go, this is it.
My worst nightmare.
“Nothing is written in stone either way at this moment. We’ll need to continue letting the shoulder heal, continue letting the swelling reduce. Then, we’ll be able to have a clearer scope of the situation.”
Blue takes an audible breath, slow and deep, then nods. “Okay, well, whatever we have to do to make sure he heals, we’ll do it.”
Her eyes flit toward me for one brief second, then shift back toward the doctor.
“And I intend to do everything in my power to make sure that happens. Before I let you go, let’s take a look at you. I’d like to check your mobility, whether it’s improved since your last visit or gotten worse.”
He’s careful as he helps me out of my sling. Then, with one hand on my elbow and the other bracing my shoulder, he lifts my arm and rotates it until I wince, unable to take the pain. He makes a note on my chart but doesn’t say what I already know.
That I’m noticeably less flexible now than I was when I first came to see him, which means I haven’t improved any in the last ten days.
“How long until we follow up?” Blue asks.
“My receptionist will get you scheduled to come back in two weeks. By then, we should be able to see how much the swelling has reduced and decide whether another round of surgery is in our future. We may be looking at a full revision, West. That could mean a more invasive procedure, a longer recovery time, but you have my word. I’m going to do everything I can to avoid that.
But if that’s our road to travel, I promise you’re in good hands. ”
He offers a tight smile, then leaves us with news I could’ve gone my entire life without hearing. And while he doesn’t know one way or the other whether I’ll be going back under the knife, there’s one thing that’s abundantly clear.
I won’t be going near the football field anytime soon.
***
Blue
It’s like walking a tightrope.
I’m scared to move left or right for fear of slipping, losing control.
That’s what our marriage has become. All tension and anxiety, terrified to make a move because our relationship is almost unrecognizable to me.
I never know what to expect from one moment to the next.
News from the doctor only made things worse, now we’re lying in bed in total darkness, staring at the ceiling because we’ve somehow forgotten how to talk to one another without things going bad.
And considering the hole in our wall where West drove his fist through it, I think it’s safe to say things are already bad.
West’s phone rings for about the tenth time in the last twenty minutes, and he ignores it like all the times before. His team won tonight. Without him. And I can only imagine how it feels for him to be on the outside looking in.
In a perfect world, I’d get to comfort him, listen to him vent, so he doesn’t have to hold everything in. But it feels like every time I open my mouth, my words and intentions are misunderstood. Something I say sets him off, or draws a snarky remark out of him, so I’ve resorted to this.
Complete silence.
His phone rings again, and he puffs a hard sigh. But this time, he reaches toward his nightstand and answers.
“Yeah.”
I can hear a voice on the other end, and it’s either Sterling or Dane. All three triplets sound too much alike to distinguish most days.
“Hey. Get your ass over to Ricky’s. Dane and I are here with the rest of the guys and Ricky’s covering the tab to celebrate,” Sterling says.
Another sigh leaves West, and I can guess he didn’t call to update his brothers after his visit with Dr. Graham. If he had, no way they would’ve called to invite him out, rubbing the win in his face. They give each other shit, but they’re never cruel.
And this feels cruel. Even if unintentional.
“Nah, I’ll pass. I’m already in bed.”
“What the fuck? It’s not even midnight. Are you ninety?”
West laughs a bit, but it’s a heavy sound. A sound filled with grief.
“Shit, it feels like it lately. You guys have a good time, though. Tell the team I’m proud of them. They played a damn good game tonight.”
My heart twists inside my chest hearing him, knowing he would’ve given anything to have been out there on the field with them.
“Fine, but if you change your mind, you know where to find us.”
The call ends then, and we’re plunged right back into silence.
This is killing me. West is more than just my husband. He’s more than my rock and my safe space.
He’s my best friend.
And there’s nothing worse than knowing that the person you love most in the world is in pain and doesn’t want to let you in.
I lie still, trying to convince myself not to break the silence, especially since it feels like this is what he wants, but I can’t do this anymore.
“I think we should talk.”
He’s quiet for several seconds, and I’m not sure how to read that.
“I’m listening.”
His tone is flat and unfeeling, and I’d swear I’m lying beside a total stranger.
“I… want to know how you feel about… well… everything. You haven’t said much, and I’ve admittedly been nervous to ask.”
He inhales sharply, and I hold my breath, waiting for him to answer, waiting for him to explode.
“I feel shitty,” he grumbles, and regret sets in right away. “It feels like my entire world is on fire around me, and I can’t do shit about it. Add to it that my team doesn’t even fucking need me. They proved that tonight.”
His chest rises and falls rapidly, and I’m frozen again, reliving that feeling of not knowing whether to move left or right.
“I can understand why you might feel that way, but you’re an asset, West. You know that. They know that.”
He scoffs, but falls silent right after, and I swear I can feel heat and tension permeating his skin, moving over mine.
“And I know what Dr. Graham said was scary, but—”
“Please. Just… don’t. I don’t want to rehash that shit. It’s bad enough I can’t get his words out of my head already.”
I purse my lips together. If I didn’t think it would make things worse, I’d retreat, slip out of bed to go to another room where we could both pretend I didn’t start this conversation.
But I did start it, and I can’t leave things like this.
I flip onto my side, focusing on him through the darkness. I reach toward him, but think better of it, pulling my hand back to my side of the bed.
“You’re shutting me out, and I’m not sure what to do.”
The words burn leaving my throat, and I’m grateful for the darkness. It means he can’t see the tears pooling in my eyes, racing toward my pillow.
“I’m not shutting you out, Blue, I’m just… Fuck. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing anymore. Feels like everything I touch turns to shit, and I’m just stuck. There isn’t a single fucking thing I can control right now, not a single thing I can fix.”
He doesn’t say it out loud, but I know he means us.
He can’t fix us.
I part my lips to speak but then close them before finally getting up the nerve to say what I have to say. It’s the same thing I’ve been telling him for months now, even before his injury flung us even further off course.
“Maybe because this is too big to fix by ourselves, West.”
Silence.
My heart races.
“Every time I bring up counseling, you—”
“Just fucking drop it!”
His voice booms, ricocheting off the walls of our bedroom, shaking me to my core. I’m frozen, unable to move or speak.
“Damn it! Every fucking day, you say the same shit. Like, give it a fucking rest already!”
He sits up in bed, trying his best to mask that he’s in pain, but I hear the breath hiss between his teeth as he clutches his shoulder.
He stands and walks toward our closet. I’m still shocked and silent when the closet light turns on.
He’s rustling through his things for a bit before he finally returns in a t-shirt and jeans.
No longer shirtless in his boxers. He tosses a pair of sneakers to the floor before sitting on the edge of the bed, unlacing them.
“Where are you going?” My voice trembles, but I don’t even think he notices. Hell, I’m not sure he hears me at all these days.
“Out,” is all he says.
My hands tremble. I push myself upright until I’m sitting against the headboard, staring at the back of his head as he slips into his shoes. A flash of my parents flickers in my head, and I hate what this feels like.
History repeating itself.
No, there’s no addiction, no infidelity, but the distance mounting between us feels all too familiar.
West stands, no other explanation given as he walks out of our bedroom. A few minutes later, I hear him speeding down our driveway, and for the first time since saying I’d be his girl, since he swept me off my feet and made me his wife…
I’m relieved he’s gone.