7. Maya
Maya
My therapy session with Dr. Williams gets rescheduled again, this time to Friday. Which means I go almost two weeks without seeing her, and by the time Friday arrives, I’m barely holding it together.
“Tell me about the nightmares,” Dr. Williams says once we’re settled in her office.
I describe the bathtub, the blood, the cold. The relief. The way Carter’s voice sounds in the dream versus how it sounded in reality, he was screaming in the dream, but in reality, he was crying.
“And they’re getting worse?”
“More frequent. More vivid. More…” I struggle for the word. “Real. Like I’m back there and it’s happening again.”
“What do you think is triggering them?”
I think about the blood on the ice, about Ryder’s injury, about watching someone else destroy themselves and feeling helpless.
“I met someone,” I say. “He’s… he’s hurting himself. Not the way I did, but still hurting himself. Pushing too hard, ignoring his body’s limits, trying to be perfect even though it’s killing him.”
“And seeing him triggers your own trauma?”
“I guess. Or maybe it just reminds me how easy it is to destroy yourself while everyone watches and nobody stops you.”
“Did you want to be stopped?”
The question catches me off guard, and fir a long time I stare into nothing, while I think about the question. But there is only one answer which comes to me.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Part of me wanted Carter to find me. Part of me didn’t. Part of me wanted to die, and part of me wanted someone to tell me I didn’t have to.”
“And now? What do you want now?”
“I want to help him. This guy I met. I want to stop him from making the same mistakes I did.”
“Because helping him helps you?”
“Maybe or maybe because I couldn’t save myself, but I can save someone else.”
Dr. Williams leans forward. “Maya, you can’t save him. You can support him, you can care about him, but you can’t save him. That’s his work to do.”
“But—”
“Just like your recovery is your work. Not Carter’s, not mine. Yours.”
I let her words settle in my ears, I know she's right, I know I can’t save him, but I still want to.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I whisper. “How to live when living feels like the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
“One day at a time. Sometimes one hour at a time. And Maya?” She waits until I meet her eyes. “It’s okay that it’s hard. It’s okay that some days you don’t want to. What matters is that you keep choosing to try.”
After therapy, I text Ryder.
Maya
How’s the shoulder?
Ryder
Hurts. How was therapy?
Maya.
Hard.
Ryder
Want company?
Maya
You’re supposed to be resting.
Ryder
I’m going stir crazy. Carter and Lennox are disgustingly in love and I’m third-wheeling in my own convalescence.
Maya
Fine. Meet me at the quad in 20?
Ryder
Deal.
He’s already there when I arrive, sitting on a bench with his arm still in the sling, looking lost in thought. The bruise on his forehead has turned spectacular shades of purple and yellow.
“You look like you lost a fight,” I say, sitting beside him.
“I did. The ice won.” I start laughing at his reply, because he meant it.
“The ice always wins.”
“You sound like you know.”
I shrug. “I spent a lot of time on ice. Before.”
“Figure skating?”
“Yeah. Long time ago.”
“What made you quit?”
I could lie. Could deflect. Could change the subject.
Instead, I roll up my sleeve and show him my wrists.
The scars are thin, white, faded but visible. Evidence of a night I tried to erase myself.
Ryder stares at them for a long moment. Then he says quietly, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I made the choice.”
“Doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve sympathy.”
“I don’t want sympathy. I want…” I trail off, not sure what I want.
“To feel like you’re not drowning?” Ryder offers.
“Yeah. That.”
We sit in silence, two broken people on a bench, carrying different kinds of damage.
“The doctor says I need physical therapy,” Ryder says eventually. “To rebuild strength in my shoulder.”
“You should do it.”
“I don’t want to go to the team physical therapist. Don’t want it on record, don’t want everyone knowing how bad it is.”
“So go somewhere else.”
“Can’t afford private PT. Hockey scholarship covers tuition, but not much else.”
An idea forms in my mind. Possibly stupid. Probably reckless. Definitely crossing boundaries I should maintain.
“I could help,” I hear myself say.
“You?”
“I did PT for a year. After I…” I gesture vaguely at my wrists. “After. I know the exercises, know how to build strength safely. I’m not a professional, but I know enough.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because watching you destroy yourself reminds me too much of watching myself. Because maybe helping you helps me. Because we’re both drowning and maybe we can take turns keeping each other’s heads above water.”
Ryder looks at me like he’s trying to solve a puzzle. “That’s the most honest thing anyone’s said to me in months.”
“I don’t do polite lies.”
“I’m starting to realize that, not that different from your brother.” He shifts his shoulder carefully. “Okay. Let’s try it. But I have conditions.”
“Which are?”
“You have to actually participate in the photography club. No joining and then hiding.”
“That’s fair.”
“And you have to tell me when you’re having a bad day. No pretending you’re fine when you’re not.”
“That’s… harder.”
“Then we’ll both struggle with it together.”
I extend my hand. “Deal.”
He shakes it with his good hand. “Deal.”