I frowned, the conversation paused long enough for us to smell soaps and lotions from a local craftswoman before we were walking again. “Does your hip still hurt? Even now?”
“Not all the time,” Shane said with a shrug. “But, yes. Hip and knee, both. It takes constant physical therapy to manage the pain.”
“That sounds tiresome.”
“It’s worth it to do what I love, even if not in the capacity I wish I could,” he answered easily, and then he plucked a candle from the table we were browsing. He held it up, brows arching as I read where it saidbacon in the oven. He opened it, inhaled, and then handed it to me to do the same as his eyes shot open wide.
I laughed.
It really did smell like bacon in the oven.
“I don’t think I’d want that smell in my house unless there really was bacon coming,” I said. “Seems like torture for my stomach.”
“What about this one?” he asked. This candle was labeledmonstera that needs water. We both laughed in surprise when we smelled it. It was actually quite delightful.
“What actually happened?” I asked as we perused the candles. “With your injury. If you don’t mind talking about it, that is?”
Shane stiffened, his eyes darkening. “I don’t mind.” But he still paused a long moment before speaking again. “It happened late in the second period in a game against Toronto,” he said finally. “I was on a break down the right side. A defenseman stepped up faster than I expected.”
He lifted one shoulder in a small shrug, like the rest was obvious.
“I tried to cut inside. My skate caught. Knee went first.”
My chest tightened, and a vision of him standing on the sidewalk in the freezing cold of Boston hit me like a truck — the crutches, the bulk of hardware under his clothes, the way he’d carried himself like a broken man barely hanging on.
“I heard it,” he went on, voice even. “That pop everyone talks about. I didn’t feel the pain right away, but I knew something was wrong.”
He stopped walking, picking up a candle and turning it over in his hands before he sat it back down again.
“I still had momentum. Got hit from the side before I could go down clean. Took the boards hard. Hip shattered on impact.”
The words sat between us, heavy and final.
“They helped me off the ice,” he added. “I kept telling them I’d be fine. That I’d be back by playoffs.” A brief, humorless exhale left him. “Turns out you don’t rehab your way out of that.”
I didn’t know what to say.
Shane slid his gaze to me. “That’s it,” he said. “One bad second.”
And then he reached for a candle, holding it up to ask the booth attendant how much it was.
In the end, I left with one calledold bookstoreand Shane pickedneighbor’s freshly cut lawnto take home. When we had our bags in hand, I turned the conversation back to his injury.
“I thought you would end up playing again,” I said. “After the injury.”
“I told you I never could.”
That memory made my stomach twist, how we’d stumbled upon each other by chance in Boston not long after his career had ended in a flash.
“I know, I just… I guess I kind of thought somehow you’d find a way. You’ve always been so driven, so passionate.” I swallowed. “I know hockey is everything to you.”
Shane’s expression went flat, like those words were an insult instead of the truth. “Yeah, well, I learned quickly there’s only so far acan-doattitude can get you, and apparently it’s not very far when you shatter your hip and tear your ACL at the same time.”
I swallowed, eyes on where my hands were tangled together in front of me. “I’m sorry, Shane.”
“Not your fault,” he said. His eyes floated to mine as we came to a stop next to a jewelry tent. “We both know the blame is all mine.”
“It was an accident.”
