Christin:
I’m not trying to be insensitive. I just know your heart.
Maya:
Saw the news. Call us if you want to talk.
Talk? Talk about what? That my hands are shaking over a man who likely still believes I was seeking attention outside our relationship? Who abandoned me because it didn’t look good for his career?
Yet, the image of him unmoving on the ice won’t leave my mind. The way his body went limp. The way the arena fell silent.
I exhale slowly, pressing my palm flat against my sternum like I can physically hold everything in place. Because if I don’t, I’ll have to admit something I only allow myself to feel after I wake up crying late at night.
That some part of me has never stopped loving him. Despite what just happened on that ice, it changes nothing between me and Brennan.
After all, when Brennan left my life, I was taught a very valuable lesson I immediately incorporated into my life.
People who love you don’t abandon you.
2
COLLAPSE: DEFENSE COLLAPSES AROUND THE SLOT
One Year Later
I’ve taken hits that have shattered bones. Torn cartilage. Been slapped on the ineligible bench—unwillingly. Temporarily. But nothing has ever terrified me as much as waiting for the head of Greenwich Hospital’s neurology and neurosurgery department to give me test results that will change my life.
I’ve been in this position before but never with quite so much riding on the results of the doctor walking through the door. The last few times, my parents flew in from Ireland to support me. They asked if I needed them this time, but I told them no.
After all, this isn’t my first visit; it isn’t even my third.
It took my coach, my agent, and practically an act of God to slide into the first available cancellation Dr. Bryan Moser had available. Even then, it’s been a long six months where I’ve done nothing but watch my team survive without me on the ice. Now, the day of reckoning is here. Despite the fact I pushed hard—calling almost weekly for any cancellation—apparently, the good doctor reserves those only if you’re an emergency case.
Apparently, my situation doesn’t qualify me as, “…being in urgent distress.”If he only knew,I think furiously. There’s almost a desperation for me to get back on the ice. Not external pressure, but from me.
Otherwise, what did you ruin your heart for?The insidious part of me prods. Immediately, bringing her to mind.
Not that she’s ever been far from it.
But right now, I can’t focus on the past. I shove that to the back of my heart and focus on the more preeminent feeling coursing through my veins—terror.
I’ve already been told by the Kings’ coaches, this is a Hail Mary to get back on the ice. I’ve already been checked out at NYU Langone, UCSF Health, and New York—Presbyterian—Columbia. Still, none of them have Moser’s reputation.
Whipping out my cell, I reread the information my best friend and agent, Mark, dug up about him. “Dr. Bryan Moser has taken on obscure neurology cases in his career and made them his bitch either by treating them medically or surgically. If anyone can get you cleared to play, he’s it.”
Reading Mark’s synopsis aloud doesn’t make me feel better. I close the screen without reciting the last part.If he can’t, that’sit. We’ll work together to enact the clause to terminate your contract with the Kings due to medical incapacitation.
Unable to continue on to the PR spin he laid out, I press the button on my phone to close the screen. “All these years, all the work,” I murmur.
The idea it might be swept away in the next few moments has my knee bouncing up and down in a physical manifestation of the anxiety coursing through my veins. Unwillingly, my mind drifts back to my first serious injury in college.
I inform my father, “Wrist sprained. Not broken. No surgery. Not season-ending.”
“I figured you weren’t too banged up when I saw your signal.”
“Good. I’m glad you saw it.”
He retorts, “I’m grateful Amy thought of it.”
