8. Am I Mr. Darcy?
AM I MR. DARCY?
LIAM
I hate hockey.
No, seriously. The one thing that used to be my favorite thing on earth is now the bane of my fucking existence.
I sit in my Jeep, trying to still my shaking hands as I end the call with Jasmine, my therapist.
We had a long conversation, me catching her up on the latest shitshow I call my life—telling her about how I ran into Aubrey while she was on a date.
I feel better now. Well, better for me, that is.
My fingers tremble as I open my driver’s side door, stepping out into the parking lot of the arena. A deep exhale escapes my pursed lips with such force, I’m surprised I don’t whistle like a teapot boiling over.
One foot in front of the other, I encourage myself.
I look down at my feet, rooted in place as if fused to the concrete beneath them.
I force my left foot forward, then my right, repeating the motion until I start taking full strides. Until I’m standing before the doors of the arena, the place where everything began and ended.
Just as I’m about to reach for the doors, I turn on a heel, knowing that it’s not the arena I need to face today.
No. It’s the light pole a few feet away that stares mockingly at me. It was once the only source of light on the pedestrian skybridge connecting the parking garage to the players’ entrance. Now, though, you’ll find no light streaming from it.
I stare at it, eyes trailing up and up. No one has replaced the bulb yet, and now I can’t help but remember the night it went out.
My shoulders slide down the cool metal of the overhead light’s support beam until my bottom thumps against the ground beneath me.
Chills ghost over my body, sending shivers down my spine. I know it’s not from the cold; it’s August in Michigan, so the weather is fair. Yet a coolness bites at me regardless.
I know what’s really causing them.
Me. I did this to myself.
My heart flies in my chest, beating so wildly I can’t hear anything besides the pounding of it in my ears.
I’m pretty sure my phone has been ringing, shoved into one of my pockets that seems so far away, too much of an effort to try and find it.
My arms are heavy as I reach for a small stone, rolling it in my palm before hurling it at the arena ahead of me.
I know it’s still too far away, that no matter how hard I try to hit the building, I’m far too weak—too high to make my aim worthwhile.
A shallow breath wheezes past my lips. I have to force it, compelling my body to take in the air and then let it out, feeling suddenly like a chore, like a task I have to do.
I clutch at my head, throwing my skull back against the light pole supporting my back. A dull ache spreads across it, a welcome feeling as it distracts my brain from the arena, from the injury, from the future I can see off in the distance—unable to reach.
I do it again.
Again.
Each time, I throw my head back a bit harder, slamming it against the metal. Over and over.
Until I become so weak that I slump over. I think I vomit, the sour contents plastering against the front of my shirt, but I’m not certain; everything is starting to become fuzzy.
My vision, it seems, is content on leaving me, too.
People approach. Rough hands are trying to shake me awake. I think it’s Reid. It sounds like him anyway. I try to form words, to tell him to leave me alone, that I don’t want to wake up. I was just starting to enjoy the silence, the peace, the reprieve from darkness that is myself these days.
A cold sweat beads on my forehead.
Another form appears.
Is that really her standing in front of me?
No. No, it couldn’t be.
“Aubs?” I question, certain I’m hallucinating this all.
Her head wags at me, eyes looking away like she can’t tolerate seeing me this way.
“How many did you take?” She spits. Her warm, brown stare now vacant and cold.
Then, she’s walking away, becoming nothing more than a blip on the horizon.
“Wai—” I try to manage. But I don’t think the words actually part my tongue, or, if they do, they are twisted and tied in ways she won’t be able to undo.
One breath trips on the heels of another. Until I start to forget why I’m forcing them.
The darkness creeps in, blurring the edges of my vision. Until my head thumps against the ground, no longer able to stay upright.
The last thing I see is the flickering bulb at the top of the pole. As its variations dance against my pupils, it flickers one final time and then goes out.
The next time I wake up, the fluorescent lights of the hospital are too bright on my eyes, and I wish I were staring at a void again, and not my red-eyed mother from a hospital bed.
My palm rubs at my chest, as if trying to ease away the pain tightening there.
I nod, shaking my head, urging myself to turn away—to put the lightpole behind me along with the memory.
I swallow thickly, knowing there was much more that happened, more that my brain won’t allow me to remember—not yet, not tonight.
But, hey, it’s a start.
Then, I find it in myself to smile softly, tapping the light pole once before putting my back to it. With my head held high, I walk into the arena.
Sure, I am an hour late. But I made it.
I even feel a sense of pride for having the strength to face it alone.
I feel…good.
No, I feel fucking great.
Right up until the point when those brown Medusa eyes stare deep into my soul as I walk into the trainer’s room—until I see her, and I quickly realize that we’re stuck doing clinicals together.
Then, I feel horrible. Hopeless. My shoulders slump, like they can’t take another added weight. At least not tonight.
I’m turned to stone for the rest of the evening, watching the game clock count down, praying I don’t lose my ever-loving mind before this game ends.
The buzzer sounds, and the teams line up, tapping sticks before our home team breaks off into celebration. Aubrey and I start packing the equipment up; thankfully, there weren’t too many injuries other than a few bloodied noses.
I didn’t talk the entire game. And neither did she.
But honestly, not talking is probably for the best.
For starters, the last time we tried to have a conversation, we ended up screaming at one another. And second, my mind was nowhere near able to form words.
We make our way back to the locker rooms, more than ready to leave the arena behind.
We snake through the tunnels below the rink in total silence.
“Theo will need a concussion screening,” she orders at last.
I nod. Desperately trying to get a hold of myself, I clear my throat in a poor attempt to sound composed.
“Yeah, good call. He took a hard hit in the second period,” I say.
I don’t know much about our goalie, Theo, besides his skill as a goalie and his future as Brennan’s stepbrother—his mother and Brennan’s father recently got engaged.
But considering the pair hate one another, I shouldn’t expect Brennan to talk much about him.
“I’ll take care of it…If you want to take ice and recovery duty?” I offer since I know she was pissed I nearly missed the start of the game, absent for all the hustle and pregame prep. “That way you can get out of here early,” I add.
She purses her lips together. “Alright. Thanks.” Then she disappears as I seek out Theo.
When I finally find him, he curses when he sees me—not because I’m best friends with Brennan, but because he knows I’m about to screen him for a concussion.
I know firsthand how annoying it is when you have to stay back and go through the assessment when all you want to do is celebrate with the team, but concussions are a serious injury. They should be handled appropriately.
We walk back to the training room, and I start the process, documenting as I go.
“Do you have a headache?” He shakes his head, and I continue. “Any sensitivity to light or noise?” He murmurs no as I continue the fifteen-minute procedure.
When I’m close to finishing my notes and clearing him from the injured list, he asks, “Must be hard to be back here?”
Hard doesn’t come close to describing it. But how would he know?
I nod, shutting my notebook. I don’t know him well enough to get into this, so I leave it at that.
But he continues, “I give you props for doing this.” He moves to leave, but then hesitates. “You dated Aubrey Vaughn, right? For a year or so?”
“Yeah.” It’s the only word I can manage before I force out, “Yeah, I did. We broke up right before what was supposed to be my junior year.”
Right after I overdosed. I think, but don’t say.
“Shit,” he curses, realizing the full extent of my messy situation.
My brows rise, “Yeah.”
“She has a bunch of sisters, doesn’t she?” he questions, and I tilt my head, trying to see where he’s taking this conversation.
“Cousins,” I correct hesitantly. “There’s Aubrey and June. And then Reese and Rory, who are the only two that are sisters,” I explain.
He nods slowly. “I think I have a lecture with one of them,” he says, looking away. “Thin, dark hair. Wouldn’t be caught dead in sweatpants.”
I don’t hesitate, knowing that sounds like only one Vaughn I know.
“June.”
He nods his head, eyes refusing to meet mine.
There is an awkward silence as he starts to walk out. But then turns at the last second, “A bunch of us are going to Melbourne’s to celebrate.”
“I figured.” It’s kind of known to be the hockey bar—the place everyone goes to celebrate a win or get sloshed after a loss.
“You should come,” Theo says before he walks off, leaving me alone at last.
I crane my neck, my shoulders stiff. I force a deep breath and close up for the night.
Overall, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, next game I don’t think I’ll have to sit in my car and cry like a baby for an hour before I man up and call my therapist.
No, next time I might just be able to do it on my own.