Chapter 25 #3
“Oh, plenty. Just thought I’d say hi.” He licks his own cone of something garish, bubblegum pink and shrugs like he’s innocent. “Big day in two days, huh?”
I keep my jaw locked. Don’t give him anything.
Keith steps in. “Cut it out, Jack. Seriously. Go bother someone else.”
Jack throws up his hands, mock surrender. “Relax, I’m just making conversation. Can’t a guy wish the star player good luck?” His eyes flick back to me, glinting. “Who knows, it might be your last match. Ever.”
The words hit harder than I want them to. I feel them settle somewhere heavy in my chest, right under my ribs.
Keith bristles. “That’s not funny.”
“Who’s joking?” Jack tilts his head, like a curious kid. “Careful out there, Cammy boy. Ice can be a dangerous place.”
My grip tightens around the cone until I feel it start to crack. I want to say something, anything, but my throat’s dry.
Jack just grins wider, then backs away, hands still raised like he’s some saint. “Anyway, don’t let me interrupt date night. Enjoy your chocolate.”
He saunters off down the street, whistling.
Keith mutters a curse under his breath. “Ignore him. He’s just trying to get in your head.”
Too late. He’s already there.
The rink is colder than usual today, or maybe it’s just me. My breath fogs out in short bursts, chest already tight, even though warm-ups haven’t even started. Jack’s words from yesterday coil in my head like barbed wire. Might be your last match. Ever.
I shake it off, slap my helmet down tighter.
“Focus up,” Coach barks from the bench. “We’ve got two days to sharpen the edges before the big game.”
We run through passing drills, then speed sprints. My legs burn, lungs screaming for air, but it’s familiar pain. Comforting, in a twisted way. Keith skates by and smacks my stick with his own.
“Keep your head in it,” he says, grinning.
“Trying,” I mutter.
We move into scrimmage. I push harder, chasing the puck down the ice. Every stride feels heavier, like something invisible is dragging at me. My blade catches, just slightly, but enough to send a ripple of unease down my spine.
Jack’s voice echoes again. Careful out there. Ice can be dangerous.
I clench my jaw and shove it down, locking on the puck. If I play timid, he wins. I can’t let him win.
Keith calls out, “On your left!”
I glance up, ready to pass, when—
My skate clips something. Not the ice. Something else. A stick hooked just right at the wrong second.
I lurch forward, arms flailing, vision whipping sideways. The boards rush up fast, and then almost immediately, I hear a crack.
My head explodes in white. There are muffled sounds around me, and it feels like I’m underwater. The last thing I see is Jack skating backward, stick innocently up, that smug grin tugging at his mouth.
When I open my eyes and make a little sense of my surroundings, I’m lying on the bench, helmet off, Keith’s face hovering above me, pale and panicked.
“Cam. Hey. Stay with me, man. You hear me?”
My head throbs so hard I think it might split in two. “I’m fine,” I croak, though the word comes out broken.
“You’re not fine,” Keith snaps, looking over his shoulder. “Coach, we need an ambulance. Now.”
I try to sit up, but the world tilts viciously, and my stomach lurches. Keith presses a hand to my shoulder, keeping me down.
“Don’t move. Just—don’t. Help is on the way.”
The hospital lights that are blinding. I’m propped up in a bed, a dull ache pounding in rhythm with my heartbeat.
A doctor, mid-forties with sharp eyes, flips through my chart at the foot of the bed. He doesn’t bother sugarcoating.
“You’ve suffered a concussion,” he says flatly. “Not your first, according to your record.”
I swallow hard, throat dry. “So what does that mean? I’ll be fine by tomorrow?”
The doctor looks up, unimpressed. “Absolutely not. You’re lucky you didn’t black out longer. Another hit like this—” he taps the chart with his pen, “and you could be facing permanent damage. Cognitive, motor, even loss of basic coordination. Do you understand?”
My stomach sinks. “But… I can still play.”
“Hockey?” The doctor’s eyebrows shoot up. “You step back on that ice too soon, and you’re gambling with the rest of your life. If you get injured again, you may never play hockey again. Period.”
Keith is sitting in the corner, silent, but I can feel the anger rolling off him.
I grip the sheets. “You don’t get it. In two days, it’s the game. I can’t just sit it out.”
The doctor crosses his arms. “What I get is that you’re thirty-five with your entire future in front of you, and you’re willing to throw it away for one match. That’s reckless.”
“I’ve been training for this my whole life,” I snap. “You expect me to just walk away?”
The doctor leans in, his voice firm, eyes drilling into mine. “I expect you to decide whether you want to walk at all in ten years.”
The room goes quiet. My pulse thunders in my ears.
Keith finally speaks. His voice is low, controlled. “Cam… maybe you should listen to him.”
I turn to glare at him. “You think I’m just gonna let Jack take this from me?”
Keith stiffens. “So you do think it was Jack.”
I don’t answer. I don’t have proof. All I’ve got is the memory of his smirk as I hit the boards.
The doctor sighs, setting the chart down. “Look. I’ll clear you once you’ve had proper rest, tests, and observation. But if you step onto that rink against medical advice… don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He leaves the room, door clicking shut behind him. The silence stretches uncomfortably but I’m unwilling to break it.
Keith leans forward, elbows on his knees. “Cam. You can’t keep doing this. He’s in your head, and now he’s under your skin. Don’t let him finish the job.”
I press my palms into my eyes, head throbbing. “If I don’t play, we lose. And if we lose… he wins.”
Keith doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to. The weight of it all presses down until I can barely breathe.
Keith finally leaves after making me promise I won’t be reckless, and the room falls into a thick, sterile silence. The only sound is the faint hum of the machines and the occasional beep from somewhere down the hall.
I stare at the ceiling, my head still throbbing, and the doctor’s words replay in my skull like a damn chant I can’t mute.
One more bad hit and you’ll never play again.
I swallow hard. Hockey’s not just something I do. It’s who I am. It’s the one thing that’s always made sense, even when everything else in my life was chaos. The ice has always been my escape, my battlefield, my home. And now? Now it feels like the ground’s been ripped out from under me.
I clench my fists against the sheets, the rage crawling under my skin hot and sharp. Jack. I don’t need proof to know he’s behind this. That smug look on his face yesterday, the way he said might be your last match… it wasn’t just taunting. It was a warning. A goddamn promise.
The worst part? I can’t prove a thing. He gets to keep skating, keep smirking, keep pushing me closer to the edge while I sit here in a hospital bed like some broken rookie.
I exhale slowly, trying to push the storm inside me back down, but it’s useless. My thoughts spiral—what if this really is the end? What if the thing that defines me is ripped away before I’ve even had the chance to prove I can be more than my past?
And then, like she always does, Brie slips into my head. Her laugh, her stubbornness, the way she looks at me like I’m not just a bruised-up hockey player trying to outskate his demons. The thought of her seeing me like this—weak, stuck, vulnerable—makes something inside me twist.
I drag a hand over my face. “Fuck,” I whisper to the empty room.
I’m in big trouble. Trouble with Jack. Trouble with the game. Trouble with my own damn heart.
The door creaks open, and for a split second I think it’s another nurse coming to poke at me, but then I see Brie. And I’m surprised.
Her hair’s a little messy, and her eyes, God, her eyes lock on me like I’m the only thing that matters in this whole sterile, whitewashed building.
“Cam,” she breathes out, her voice tight with worry as she hurries to my side.
I push myself up straighter on the bed, ignoring the way my head spins. “Hey. You didn’t have to come—”
“Don’t start,” she cuts me off, her hand brushing over mine before she realizes what she’s doing. She pulls it back quickly, but not before I catch the tremor in her fingers. “The moment Collins texted me, I got in my car. You think I’d just sit around while you’re here?”
Something about the way she says it cracks me open a little. I look at her, really look at her, and I don’t see pity. I see… fear. For me. And damn if that doesn’t make it harder to breathe.
“It’s not that bad,” I mutter, trying to keep my voice steady. “Doctor says I can leave if everything checks out.”
She narrows her eyes like she can see right through the lie I’m trying to sell both of us. “Not that bad? Cameron, you have a concussion. Do you even realize what could’ve happened?”
I shrug, even though the movement makes my head ache. “Comes with the game.”
Her jaw tightens. “No, it doesn’t. Don’t you dare normalize this. You could’ve…” Her voice falters, and she looks away, blinking fast.
The silence stretches between us, heavy, suffocating. I hate seeing her like this. I hate that I put that look in her eyes.
“Hey,” I say softly, reaching out despite myself. My fingers brush hers, tentative, careful. “I’m still here. I’ll be fine.”
She glances back at me, and for a heartbeat it feels like the world tilts into something I don’t know how to name. Then she pulls her hand away again, standing straighter, putting that invisible wall back up.
“You better be,” she says, trying for stern but sounding more like a plea. “Because I don’t think I can handle another scare like this.”
Her words sink deep, and I don’t know what to say to them. So I just nod. “I’ll try not to give you one.”
She exhales, shakes her head, and sits in the chair by my bed. “I’m staying until they release you.”
She settles into the chair like she’s not moving anytime soon, arms crossed, eyes fixed on me.
Part of me wants to let her stay—hell, part of me wants to reach out and just keep her close.
But the other part? The one that’s still reeling from the doctor’s words, from Jack’s smirk burned into my head? That part just wants silence.
I drag a hand down my face and sigh. “Brie…”
She looks up instantly, so damn alert, like she’s waiting for me to say something important.
“I think you should go home.”
Her brows knit together. “What?”
“I need space,” I say flatly, forcing the words out before I choke on them. “I’m not… I don’t feel like talking to anyone right now. Not even you.”
Her lips part like I just slapped her. She doesn’t say anything at first, just studies me, searching my face for something—maybe for proof I don’t mean it. But I do. At least, I think I do.
“You can’t just shut me out like this,” she says quietly, her voice tight with hurt. “You don’t have to talk, Cam. I’ll just sit here. You don’t even have to look at me—”
“No,” I cut in, harsher than I mean to. I swallow hard, my chest heavy. “Please. Just… go. I need to be alone, okay?”
Her eyes glisten, but she bites down on whatever words she wants to throw back at me. Finally, she nods, stiff and jerky, and stands.
“Fine,” she says, her tone clipped. “I’ll go.”
I watch her grab her bag, her shoulders squared like she’s trying to hide the fact that she’s hurting. Every step she takes toward the door feels like a mistake I can’t undo, but I don’t stop her.
When the door shuts behind her, the silence rushes back in. I lean back against the pillow, staring at the ceiling, telling myself this is what I need.
So why the hell does it feel like I just pushed away the only person who actually cares if I wake up tomorrow?