12. Ellie
CHAPTER TWELVE
ELLIE
Ipoured a glass of wine and collapsed onto the couch. Marzipan strolled into the living room and leaped onto the arm, staying out of reach.
My phone buzzed on the coffee table.
I picked it up, expecting Crim or maybe Patty with a question about tomorrow’s schedule.
Instead, Brashe had sent a photo of his hip, properly wrapped in ice. The instruction sheet lay on the bed next to him, all the stretches checked off.
9:41 PM. Nineteen minutes before he was supposed to ice. He’d started early.
I stared at the photo for a long time. I wanted to delete his number. But my thumb hovered over the screen, tracing the edge of the creased instruction sheet, and I couldn’t make myself do it.
I’d told him this could happen, but my satisfaction tasted like cardboard.
I typed him a message, Good. Keep it up.
Deleted it.
Typed another. This doesn’t fix anything.
Deleted that too.
Yet another. I see you’re following instructions. Continue.
I hit send before I could overthink it.
His response came right away. I will. I’m sorry.
You should be.
I am. For all of it. I really messed up.
I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I didn’t.
I set my phone down.
Marzipan climbed into my lap, purring.
“Traitor,” I said, but I petted her anyway.
I picked up my phone, opening the photo again. Zoomed in.
The instruction sheet had been unfolded and refolded so many times the paper was nearly translucent along the folds. Notes had been written along the margins, 3 sets. Hold 30 sec. No cheating.
The little frowny face I’d drawn had been circled.
I set the phone down again and closed my eyes.
“I’m in trouble,” I told Marzipan.
My cat purred louder, which could be agreement or judgment.
Probably both.
I went to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. At 11:43 PM, I pulled up the MRI results on my phone, the screen bright in my dark bedroom.
No tear.
I exhaled before I kept reading.
Grade two strain. Significant inflammation. Fluid accumulation.
The hip flexor was involved now too, which meant he’d been compensating, putting weight where he shouldn’t, trying to protect the adductor and making everything worse.
He’d need eight to ten days of aggressive treatment. The playoffs started in three. I did the math a couple of times, hoping it would change. It didn’t.
There was a good chance he’d miss the first three games.
This was really bad.
I opened our chat and typed, Got your results. We need to talk tomorrow. 8 AM. Don’t be late.
I’ll be there.
The next morning, I arrived at work carrying spite and a cup of coffee strong enough to strip paint.
I’d barely slept, but I’d dressed for battle.
A blazer. A pink blouse that meant I was serious but approachable.
My hair scraped into a bun tight enough to give me a headache.
The parking lot was nearly empty when I got out of my car, just the early staff and the die-hards who showed up before the sun remembered it had a job to do.
My phone had buzzed during the drive. Brashe.
I hadn’t looked beyond noting who’d messaged.
Earlier, I’d sent the full MRI report to Patty, Coach Beecham, and the team doctor. I’d used phrases like, “significant inflammation” and “grade two strain” and “estimated recovery with aggressive treatment: eight to ten days.”
What I hadn’t written was: Your goalie is an idiot who thinks his feelings are bigger than anatomy.
My phone rang as I was unlocking the office. Coach Beecham.
I answered. “Morning, Coach.”
“Give it to me straight.”
I ran through the findings again, including the timeline and the reality of what we were looking at. He listened without interrupting. When I’d finished, he was quiet for a long moment.
“So we’re playing Drachmar in game one,” he said.
“And game two. Maybe even game three, unless you want to risk Brashe tearing it completely and losing him for the season.”
“Damn.” He exhaled hard. “Right. Do you think you can have him ready for game three? That’s our first home game. We need him.”
“I’ll do my best, but I make no promises. It depends on how he responds to treatment.”
“He’ll respond. He doesn’t have a choice.”
I wanted to tell him that everyone had a choice. Brashe had already made his when he decided a rookie’s education mattered more than his own body. But the coach had already hung up.
Later, I sat in the treatment room, staring at the MRI images on my computer. The inflammation showed up bright white against the dark muscle tissue. I traced it with my finger on the screen.
Uneven footsteps rang out in the hallway. Limping.
I closed the file and pulled up Brashe’s treatment schedule, locking my professional face in place.
He appeared in my office doorway, looking like he hadn’t slept either. Dark circles hung under his eyes, and his jaw was tight with pain he was trying to hide. As usual, he wore compression shorts and a team hoodie.
“Sit,” I said, pointing to the second chair I’d dragged over beside mine. “We need to talk about your MRI results and how this is going to work from now on.”
I walked him through the images, pointing out the inflammation and explaining in detail what he’d done to himself.
When I finished, he said, “I’m sorry.”
“That won’t fix torn muscle fibers.”
“You’re right.”
I gave him the new schedule. Twice-daily sessions, aggressive manual therapy, pool therapy, and targeted exercises that would hurt. “No exceptions. We can’t take shortcuts. And absolutely no more ice time.”
He nodded.
“I mean it. I can’t keep working with you if you don’t meet me halfway.”
“I will.”
We went to the treatment room, and I began all over again.
When it was time for lunch, I walked to my car to eat rather than going to the break room. I’d meal-prepped on Sunday, trying to be responsible, and the container sat in a cooler on my backseat. The parking lot was full now, players and staff coming and going.
Brashe’s truck sat in the far corner, a few spaces over from mine. As I got closer, I tried to look casual, though I doubted I succeeded.
He’d reclined in the driver’s seat, and his eyes were closed, his jaw clenched. The instruction sheet sat on the dashboard.
I suspected he was icing the limb in his truck because he didn’t want anyone inside to see him doing it.
I wanted to knock on his window and tell him he didn’t have to hide in his truck like he was doing something shameful.
Icing an injury wasn’t weakness. But my feet had stopped moving and my hand was already on my car door.
If I walked over there, he’d know I was checking on him.
Two hours later, while walking to the treatment room for Fedor’s knee assessment, I passed the gym.
Hearing heavy breathing inside, I paused and flattened my back to the wall next to the opening before peeking inside.
Brashe sat on a mat on the floor, doing the hip flexor stretch I’d prescribed.
The hardest one, the one that hurt the most. His face was screwed up in concentration, and sweat beaded on his forehead.
He held it for the full thirty seconds. I knew because I was counting.
Then he released, breathed, and started the next.
I watched him ease into it, exactly like I’d shown him.
He finished the set and stayed on the mat, catching his breath. With a grunt, he pulled out his phone and set a timer and laid an ice bag on the injured area.
I eased away, continuing down the hall, but only made it a few steps before I had to stop and lean against the wall. My hands were shaking again, though not with anger this time. No, this was something messier that I didn’t have a name for.
He was doing the work. Following every instruction. And some petty, vindictive part of me had wanted him to fail at this too, so I could stay righteously angry without all these…complications.
But he wasn’t failing. He was suffering through every stretch, alone in an empty gym, trying to fix what he’d broken.
I still wanted to snarl at him for ignoring my medical advice.
And I kept thinking about the picnic and how I’d spent ten months believing I wasn’t enough when really he’d just been too scared to choose me over comfort.
I was also angry about all the questions he’d asked Crim about me, when he could’ve just asked me.
Talked to me like I was a person worth the risk.
Veskar’s voice echoed from somewhere down the hall, laughing with one of the other players or staff about something.
I pushed off the wall and kept walking, shoving my hands into my pockets.
The image of Brashe on the mat stayed with me through Fedor’s assessment, where I had to ask him to repeat himself twice because I wasn’t listening.
Through the team meeting where Coach announced Drachmar would start game one, and I caught myself watching for Brashe’s reaction.
Through Mikael’s attempt to flirt with me in the break room later that I shut down so hard Tolrek actually winced.
“Are you alright?” Tolrek asked after Mikael had slunk away.
“I’m fine.”
“You seem intense today.”
“One of my patients is being stupid. It’s frustrating.”
Tolrek’s mouth twitched like he knew exactly which patient I meant, but he was smart enough not to say it.
By the time I got home, I’d convinced myself I had this under control. Brashe was doing the work. I was doing my job. Everything was professional and appropriate and exactly how it should be.
Then my phone buzzed with a photo at 9:51 PM, one showing him icing with the instruction sheet lying on his sofa beside him. I stared at the circled frowny face until my vision blurred. How had a stupid little drawing I’d added without thinking become something worth noticing?
I wanted to throw my phone across the room.
Or text him back and ask what he thought he was doing, making this harder than it needed to be.
I typed: You’re four minutes late.
Noted. It won’t happen again.
My mouth twitched, and I set my phone down.
Marzipan jumped onto the couch and looked up at me, her head tilting one way, then the other.
“Don’t come at me like that,” I said.
Her slow blink said everything.
I looked at the photo again, at his handwriting in the margins. At the circled frowny face again.
Ten months ago, I thought I’d figured out Brashe Kedish. Now I didn’t know who he was, only that he’d folded my instruction sheet so many times the paper had gone soft, and I couldn’t stop looking at the crease marks.
I wasn’t ready to forgive him. I might never be ready.
But I was starting to realize I’d been wrong about why he’d hurt me.
And that felt more dangerous than the anger ever had.