Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Devin
I speed-walk through the airport, my carry-on bouncing against my hip as I dodge families with gaggles of kids, little dogs in carriers, and slow walkers who seem to be enjoying the view of the kiosks more than anything else.
The smell of overpriced coffee and cinnamon rolls follows me past the food court.
Reaching my gate, I finally heave a sigh of relief. The flight isn’t boarding for twenty more minutes, but I can never relax until my butt is in my seat. That familiar pre-flight anxiety loosens its grip just a little.
Finding a chair close to the windows, I pull out my earbuds and pop them in.
A light snow is coming down, tiny flakes catching the runway lights, making the morning look even darker than six-thirty should be.
It’ll be even colder and snowier in Minnesota, but I’m ready for it.
If I forgot to pack my snow boots or extra thermal underwear, they’ll be under my bed at my dad’s house.
Stuffing my hands into my hoodie, I survey the people waiting around me.
It’s more stress than excitement for the upcoming holidays, with plenty of red-faced parents at their wits’ end.
A couple of boys about five years old run past, their light-up sneakers flashing, and I smile to myself.
In a few hours, I’ll be reunited with Jemma and the rest of the family.
While traveling three days before Christmas is less than ideal, being with my twin, my mom, my dad and his partner makes it all worthwhile.
Checking the time, I open my email on my phone, prepared to catch up on messages. There’s nothing, though. Of course. The inbox stares back empty except for automated holiday greetings.
Everything, not just my clinic, is closed. Pine Island Physical Therapy is locked up tight. There probably won’t be any emails or calls for the next week, though once the New Year’s gates open we’ll be up to our noses in post-holiday referrals.
Usually, I relish the break. Right now, though, it feels like a yawning abyss stretched before me, threatening to suck me in.
It would be one thing if I could fully chill out—read a book, knit, listen to a podcast. I can’t even think of doing anything like that, though, because I’m too distracted by one thing.
By one person.
My finger hovers over the browser icon. I’ve been so good. Five whole years of not looking him up. But seeing him yesterday at the pizzeria, those crystal blue eyes...
Screw it. The temptation is too strong.
Opening the browser on my phone, I type in Oliver’s name before I can second guess it. My heart pounds as the search results load. I glance around like someone might catch me in the act. Just one little peek... Just enough to know what he’s doing in Portsmouth...
What comes up makes my mouth go dry.
Shattered wrist... last game of the season... Out for good...
The headlines blur together. Star Forward’s Career Ends in Devastating Fall. Paxton’s Final Game: A Tragic End to a Promising Career.
Oliver’s pro hockey career is over. That’s what he’s doing in New Hampshire.
Chewing on my bottom lip hard enough to taste copper, I read faster, scrolling through article after article as if rushing through them will alleviate the shame over being curious about him at all.
Apparently, he hasn’t played in almost two years, a wrist injury in the last game of the season taking him out permanently.
Multiple surgeries. Months of physical therapy.
Since then, he’s been completely out of the public eye.
There’s not even a mention anywhere about him taking a coaching position at Portsmouth High School. No press release, no feel-good story about giving back to the community.
Is that intentional? Is he trying to disappear?
God, he must be devastated. Hockey was his oxygen, his religion, his reason for existing. When we were together, his hockey career was everything to him.
I keep reading the articles about Oliver’s injury when something jumps out in one of them. The article mentions an investigation into what caused the injury. Apparently, some of his fans didn’t believe it was an accident.
Sure enough, in the comments at the bottom of the article people are speculating about what happened.
They know that there was an issue with the mechanism that holds the blade into his skate causing the blade to loosen.
Throughout the game, the blade loosened little by little until he took a sharp turn on the outside edge of the blade and it caused him to take a nasty fall.
That mechanism being loose is rare, but not unheard of.
Ultimately, no foul play or tampering could be proven, and the investigation was dropped.
I purse my lips. What the hell? Why am I feeling sorry for him? That’s right—his hockey career was everything to him; it came way above me. To the point where if I missed a game because of a chronic fatigue flare, he belittled me for it. Called me weak. Dramatic.
In Oliver’s mind, I was always making excuses, always exaggerating my symptoms. The way he saw it, I never tried hard enough to overcome the chronic fatigue. “Just push through it, Dev. Mind over matter.” Like my body’s rebellion was a personal choice.
At first, I fought back against his claims, did my best to explain to him that this condition isn’t a mind over matter situation.
I’d show him articles, research papers. “Sometimes I can’t even hold a conversation, my brain is so foggy.
” Eventually, though, I gave up. What was the point when he’d already decided I just wasn’t trying hard enough to overcome my symptoms?
I did what I could to conserve my energy—which I like to measure in theoretical spoons; say I only have ten spoons a day and work takes seven and making dinner takes two—to give him more time.
Instead of using spoons to go out with friends or teach yoga on the weekend, I would use them to attend Oliver’s games.
My life became more and more about him as I drifted further away from my friends and family.
Which was all too easy, especially since we were in New York, away from everyone I’d known my whole life.
At our third year in New York, Oliver’s team made it to the regional championships. Of course I wanted to go. Why wouldn’t I?
The fact that Oliver begged me to be there made it even worse.
“Dev, please. I need you there. You’re my good luck charm.
” Those blue eyes pleading. I knew the lights and noise would be hell on me, the screaming crowd and blaring music probably leading to a flare, but I went.
Because I’d come to feel that taking care of myself equated me not loving Oliver enough.
The arena was packed. Twenty thousand fans, air horns, strobe lights. By the third period, my body was screaming at me to leave, but Oliver’s team was winning.
After the game, sinking into the worst fatigue flare I’d ever had, my legs barely holding me up and my vision swimming with black spots, I told Oliver I couldn’t go out to celebrate with the team and their partners. The victory party at Prime 46. Oliver’s response?
I was selfish. I wasn’t embracing mind over matter.
“This is the biggest win of my career and you can’t even pretend to be happy for me?”
Oh, and we should “probably take a break.”
Right then and there, in the parking garage under Madison Square Garden, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, at the lowest point of my life, when I needed my boyfriend more than I ever had before.
It didn’t seem real. The concrete pillar I leaned against felt more solid than his words. Couldn’t he see how much I was struggling? How I could barely even stand up straight? How my hands shook?
It was a betrayal that cleaved me in half.
Using the last tiny spoon I had left, more a teaspoon than anything else, I called the front desk for my own hotel room, my voice barely a whisper.
The clerk must have heard something in my voice because she sent a bellhop with a wheelchair.
I turned my phone off, collapsed onto the stiff hotel mattress, and slept for fourteen hours.
The next day, my gracious few friends I had left agreed to help me through the flare and move.
Naomi came immediately, no questions asked, bringing soup and electrolyte drinks.
I recovered at her apartment for three days, wrapped in her grandmother’s quilt while she and her boyfriend packed my life into boxes.
There was never an apology. No regret of any kind on his behalf. And why would there be? He was so convinced that my chronic condition was something I was doing to him.
It wasn’t even the breakup that was the worst of it. The real damage was the way he made me question myself for months afterward. Even six months later, I was still hearing his voice during every flare: “Are you sure you’re not being dramatic?” It took years of therapy to trust my own body again.
Tears blur my vision, and I blink them back before anyone notices. Five years. That’s how long Oliver and I were together. When it was good, it was... glorious. Sunday mornings in bed. His laugh echoing off our apartment walls. The way he’d kiss my forehead before leaving for practice.
But when it was bad... Well, it fucking broke me. Twisted my mind. Made me feel undeserving of love and simple human compassion.
Looking at these articles about his career ending, I feel something I don’t want to name. Not satisfaction. Just... sadness. For both of us.
Shaking my head, I put my phone away. Boarding is being announced, and it’s time to grab my seat and move forward.
By the time I step out of the Minneapolis-Saint Paul airport a few hours later, the fierce winds blasting my face like tiny needles, I’ve almost forgotten about Oliver—almost.
At least I know that there will be plenty of distractions at home in the form of talk, board games, and the classic movies we watch every year. If nothing else, my family is entertaining.
“Devin!”