“No, you won’t. That will only make things worse. Come on.” He threw an arm over my shoulders and dragged me away, careful to shield me with his body.
We hid out in Dr. Souza’s office while the clinic’s security dealt with the cameraman. It was a small, tidy space with a desk, a computer, several filing cabinets, and enough chairs to go around. Mom and Dad spoke with my publicist while I sat in the corner with my head leaned back against the wall, trying to keep myself together.
An hour later, Dr. Souza joined us. She was a short, compact Latina woman who spoke with an authority and efficiency that had made meinstantly trust her. She was also detached, clinical, and very obviously a scientist more than a doctor. I was glad it was her giving us my results. I couldn’t take the looks of pity and empathy I’d seen from some of her peers.
“Your memory results aren’t what we’d hope for in a man of your age,” she said.
“What does that mean?” Mom asked.
Dr. Souza looked at me as she answered. “My colleague, Dr. Baptiste would like to speak to you further when we’re done here, to go into greater detail about each reading and talk about treatment options. The good news is that your comprehension and reasoning are well within the expected range.”
“Any other good news?” I asked.
She nodded. “Physiologically, you’re fit as a fiddle. We detected no loss of balance or cardiovascular anomalies, and you have good blood flow through your brain when exerting yourself.”
Was that it? Was that really the only good news she had for me?
She turned to her desk and picked up a folder. “The way you responded to the emotional stimuli does give us some small cause for concern,” she said, turning back to us. “The speed with which you became angry indicates that your flashpoints are much lower than we would like, but the fact that you didn’t lash out when angered does show promise. We still recommend behavioral therapy.”
“On top of the therapist I’m already seeing?” I asked.
“Yes.” She opened the folder and handed my parents and me a stapled stack of paper each.
I glanced down and caught a few of the headings on the first page: Withdraw, Distract, Reorient, and Reassure.
Mom tried to take my hand, but I put it on my knee instead, worried that I might accidentally break her fingers if I squeezed too hard.
“I won’t beat around the bush with you,” Dr. Souza said. “The MRI and CT scans show signs of past concussions and traumatic brain injury.”
It felt like she’d punched me. I dropped the stack of papers and leaned over, elbows on my knees. Dad reached out and put his hand on my shoulder.
“The PET scan highlighted tau clusters,” Dr. Souza told us. “They’re not as dramatic as a lot of the other cases we’ve seen, but they’re there, and in areas of the brain that would explain your severe bouts of depression and anxiety.”
What she was telling me was that at 28 I was already showing symptoms of CTE.
Beside me, Mom began to sob.
I just sat there, looking down at the crack in the tile beneath my feet, not really seeing it. Not really feeling anything. A numbness had settled into me. Because this was worst-case scenario.
My life as I’d known it was fucking over. The happy, goofy, trusting kid I’d been was gone forever, and God knew what kind of man CTE would turn me into.
Chapter 21: Ella
“Oh my God,” I whispered, my hand over my mouth as I stared down at my phone.
Across its screen splashed a series of photos of Ben and Hani in a hallway of the rehabilitation center in Boston where he’d had his testing done. In one, they hugged. In the next, Hani was crying. And then the final one showed him leading his son away as though he had to physically support him. They were still shots from a video. I pulled it up, fingers shaking as it played out. By the time it ended, I was crying.
Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.
The story was from six o’clock last night. What time had I fallen asleep to have missed this? I read through the accompanying article in a near panic, my eyes flying over the screen as I tried to keep from fearing the worst. It became apparent quite quickly that the writer didn’t really know anything, that they were only jumping to the same conclusions that I was based on how upset Ben and his dad looked.
I clicked on another link, and then another and another, until I found the story that started it all. A smaller Boston news channel first broke the news that Ben was at the clinic. No wonder I had missed it. The piece was pretty neutral, citing Ben’s PR rep and herstatement that Ben and his parents were visiting the clinic because of their charity.
I read several more stories, searching for answers that no one seemed to have. Eventually I landed on a YouTube video from the biggest sports network in the country. Six large men in suits sat around a half-moon table discussing Ben’s absence from the limelight, his appearance at the clinic, and how they didn’t believe his PR rep. Not after the photos of him and his dad surfaced. The panel was split between empathy and dislike. Some of them sided with the league against Ben and all the “trouble” he’d made for the sport, while others defended him. The round table erupted into argument toward the end, and, God, it was so ugly.
I set my phone down before I broke it.
Sam whimpered from beside me on the bed and scooted a little closer. I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him. I hated those men. I hated them all. Even the ones on Ben’s side. Because they had agreed to go on national television and have this debate about him in the first place. How dare they do this to him? How could they treat a fellow player,hell, a fellow human like this when all he’d ever wanted was to make things safer for other people?
