Chapter 8
eight
. . .
Aidan
Sinclair shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “Sorry to bother you, Cap.”
“Not a bother. What can I do for you?” I lean against the doorframe, taking in my defenseman. His sandy-brown hair is tousled, like he’s been running his hands through it, and his green eyes hold a tinge of panic.
He swallows loudly. “Can I come in?”
He lives down on the eighth floor. At least a third of the team lives in this high-rise. It makes it easy for us to spend time together, and it’s easy to rally the troops when shit goes down.
“Right. Of course.” I back up to let him cross the threshold, then close the door behind us. “Drink?”
“Sure.”
I cross the room to the small mini-fridge beside the bar cart, pulling out two electrolyte drinks. Unlikely what he expected, but if he’s thrown by my not serving him alcohol, I can’t tell. He takes the bottle and perches on the edge of the couch.
“What did you want to talk about?” I ask, settling on the armchair.
Sinclair joined the team maybe three seasons ago, but we don’t hang out much.
He’s a good deal younger, maybe twenty-five or twenty-six, and is still in the partying, playboy phase of his life.
There’s nothing wrong with having fun as long as everyone is consenting and having a good time.
From the outside looking in, he’s happy with his life the way it is, and I don’t need to know more.
I’m over and done with that. I don’t miss it.
But when my teammate comes to me, his captain, something is obviously wrong. He’s killing it on the ice, he has plenty of friends on the team, and he never has difficulty picking up women, so his reaching out to me is… worrisome.
“I’m not okay,” he says, voice hoarse. His eyes are glassy, and he rapid blinks a few times as if to clear them. “I’ve been trying to keep my chin up, trying to be strong, but I’m not okay.”
“What can I do to support you?”
“I don’t know.”
The pain in his voice makes my heart throb with sympathy.
“Have you talked to anyone about it?”
He shakes his head. “Jenkins a little. He told me to fuck it out. And I tried, I really did. But it’s not working. There’s this rock in the pit of my stomach, and I just… I don’t feel good. Nothing I do seems to make a difference. It doesn’t go away.”
Steadying my nerves, I rise from my armchair and cross the room to settle on the couch across from him. My hand lands on his shoulder, and I squeeze.
“Have you talked to Dr. Liz?” She’s our team’s sports psychologist and usually our first line of defense with anything mental health related.
“I… I think it’s beyond that,” he whispers, his pain clear as day.
I take a deep breath. “Okay. Do you want me to offer support, or do you want me to try to fix it?”
Sinclair gulps. “I—I don’t know. I just know I can’t keep going on like this.”
“Okay. So here’s what’s going to happen.
” Making a plan gives me a purpose. It gives me confidence.
“We’re going to call Dr. Liz first and set up an emergency session.
And then you’re going to ask her for a referral to a psychiatrist and a therapist. If this is a chemical imbalance, we’ll find a way to even you out.
You aren’t the first or the last guy on this team in need of psychiatric meds.
And you’ll establish care with a therapist who can get to the bottom of what you’re feeling and how to handle it. ”
He meets my eyes, his gaze full of sorrow. “The first?”
“Not the first, and you won’t be the last,” I repeat firmly.
But I’m not about to divulge our teammates’ private medical issues. I only know due to my position as captain, and Coach is aware, but it’s up to each player who they want to reveal their personal issues to.
“Now, do you think you need to be treated inpatient?” I ask neutrally. “Do you need some time away from the team?”
Sinclair whips his head back and forth. “No. I want to stay with the team. I just don’t want to be traded. Or worse.”
“It won’t come to that. I can’t promise there aren’t trades in the future, but for right now, you keep playing the way you have been the last few seasons, and you won’t be sent away for this. Our team doesn’t retaliate for seeking the help you need.”
He chews on the corner of his bottom lip and pins his gaze to the floor.
“If you were diabetic like Schwartz, you’d take insulin.
If you tore your Achilles like McKittrick did, or fractured your wrist like Jenkins last season, you’d have surgery and rehab until you were back to normal.
This is the same thing. It’s medical treatment.
And it’s perfectly normal and shouldn’t be a stigma. ”
“But it is,” he whispers, staring at his hands. “I don’t want the press to start—”
“Nobody will tell anyone anything you don’t want publicized,” I cut in.
“With your permission, I’d like to tell Coach, but all I’ll say is that we have a plan and you’ll be treated.
He doesn’t need to know specifics. Management either.
As long as you are in treatment, as long as you put in the work, it doesn’t matter if you take two steps forward and one step back. Forward progress is still progress.”
“I—” Sinclair swallows hard. “I don’t know how to do this.”
“If you’re okay with it, I’ll take the lead. All you have to do is show up.”
“I can do that,” he says. “I’ll show up. I’ll put in the work. I don’t want to feel like this.”
Gripping his shoulder again, I pour every ounce of my mustered confidence into it. “We’ll get you sorted out.”
He nods, a quick jerk of his head.
“Promise me one thing,” I continue.
“Yeah. Of course.”
“If things get bad, if you think it’s going to escalate, you get help. Come to me or to Coach or anybody in management. Don’t wait.”
“I will,” he swears.
“Okay. I’m going to make some calls. You’re welcome to hang out as long as you’d like.”
He finally cracks the lid on his electrolyte drink, gulping down a third of the bottle in one go.
I stand from the couch and grab my phone off the charger, swiping past a notification from Annie, and click on Dr. Liz’s contact.
In a few short minutes, she’s agreed to come to my apartment for an emergency session, and I leave a voicemail for Coach that we have something to discuss when he has a minute.
Sinclair moves to the floor-to-ceiling windows, lost in thought as he stares out at the city below, so I hit the kitchen to heat up a protein brownie with some frozen yogurt. When I stand in front of him, holding out the dish, he looks up at me, twisting his face.
“What’s this?”
“I can’t fix things. I can only help make you feel better right in this minute. And when I was a kid, my mom would make me an ice cream sundae.” A wisp of nostalgia has my stomach churning. I miss them so much sometimes I physically ache. “So I made you one. Fuck if I know what I’m doing.”
My teammate lets out a shaky chuckle. “Thanks, MacGregor.”
He takes the sundae, picking at the frozen yogurt until it melts all over the warm, gooey brownie. I make another one for myself, because fuck, I need a pick-me-up too. All this emotional shit is exhausting.
About half an hour later, another knock sounds on my door, and I open it to find Dr. Liz, a bag slung over her shoulder. Our sports psychologist is in her mid-fifties, with graying blond hair and kind blue eyes that see everything.
Outside of our mandatory bimonthly sessions, I don’t see her much. I have more physical aches and pains than mental.
I step aside, ushering her into my apartment, and she doesn’t react to Sinclair on my couch.
“Good evening,” she says. “Let’s chat.”
“You’re welcome to stay here,” I offer. “I can head out for a bit.”
He shakes his head. “No. I—we can go down to my place, if that’s all right?”
Dr. Liz tips her chin. “I’m here to help. Wherever you’ll feel comfortable, Adam.”
“I don’t think I’ll feel comfortable anywhere,” he admits, rubbing his palms on his jeans. “I—I’m not in crisis. Not yet. But I can feel it creeping closer, and…”
“We’ll get ahead of it,” she says in her soothing therapy voice. “Let’s find some privacy, and we can talk.”
His swallow is loud in the quiet room.
“Just talk. Whatever is on your mind, you’re safe with me. With us.”
Sinclair rises from the couch and starts toward her, then turns back to me. “Thanks, Cap.”
“Anytime.”
And I mean it. I’m here for my teammates. My brothers. We battle together on the ice every day, and we’ll be here for each other as we battle our inner demons too.
His lips tip into a half smile before he gestures to the door, and he and Dr. Liz disappear into the hallway.
I close the door behind them and then flop onto the couch, emotionally drained. Sliding my phone from my pocket, I stare unseeingly at the screen. I want to talk to Annie again, but after the weird way we left things, I don’t know that I’m ready for another charged conversation.
Instead, I pull up the Kindle app on my phone and lose myself in this month’s book club novel. If I can’t tolerate the real world, at least I can escape from reality for a bit.