I felt my body relax a little. At least I knew what the issue was. Now I could research; I could actually do something. And I was damn glad for taking her into this hospital when I did… but “severe”?... Why did she have to use that word?
I didn’t want to leave Sav here, but I also wasn’t sure what good I was doing by just waiting on the floor. I could at least get back to her place and fix the brokenwindow…
Exiting the hospital, I finally powered my phone back up while walking across the parking lot to my car. I had about five missed calls from the time I brought Sav in to now, all from the same Detroit number.
As soon as I sat in my driver’s seat, I hit the call back button and was floored when I heard who was on the other end of the line.
“Coach Petersen speaking.”
I took the phone away from my ear and looked down at it dumbfounded. Nick’s coach. The head coach of the Detroit Crewmen.
“Uh… This is Ben Griffiths,” I heard myself say.
“Hello, Benny.”
My throat started clogging up. Hearing him say that felt like a stab to the heart. No one called me “Benny” but Nick. He must’ve been addressing me that way because that’s how Nick probably wrote my name down.
I cleared my throat. “Hullo, Coach.”
“You’re his uh… contact. To come collect his stuff in case, ya know… In case anything ever happened. Could you come down to the rink?” he asked.
“I’m actually in Detroit right now,” I answered. “I could be over there in five.”
“Perfect,” he said before disconnecting the phone call.
———
Walking into the Detroit stadium felt bittersweet. I always loved hockey stadiums. It was always the goal to play in one of them… and Nick reached that goal. But now, I felt like an absolute shit friend for only ever seeing a couple of his games here in person. Sure, I watched all of his games on tv and we’d recap on the phone afterwards, and I always wished I could be there… but I was always in the middle of my own season while he was playing here. I was still trying to make it on my own while he already got his ticket.
I knew it would happen for him first back when we were teenagers. He had offers lined up every single season, where I always had to fight tooth and nail til the very end of the season to get an offer extended to me. I wasn’t jealous. We weren’t really competing because we were two completely different types of players– and teams needed both. Nick was the kind of guy who put the puck in the net… but I set Nick up a lot of those times… The problem with hockey though– and maybe other sports too, I wasn’t too sure– is that no one really pays attention to the playmaker when the flashy stars are the ones throwing their arms up in celebration multiple times every period. I was cursed with being a playmaker.
I think that was always my dad’s issue with me too. He wanted a hero. He wanted me to just skate the puck all the way up the ice on my own and score… but I wasn’t capable of doing that. I knew my abilities. If I tried to do it all on my own, I’d get rubbed off. So, I turned into a strategy player. It was my job to attack in the corners, get the puck loose, then set up plays for the scorers.
An elderly rink manager of few words led me back to the locker rooms. We first took an elevator down to ice-level, then made our way through a slightly smelly, cement hallway to get to the locker room door.
Opening that door felt like we were entering a completely different facility, because unlike the outdated hallway, the state-of-the-art locker room was beautiful… The Crewmen logo was lit up on the ceiling, and nice, wooden cubbies lined the walls of the room– one for each player. The last locker right by the door had a #33 printed above it.
As soon as I opened the bench of his little cubby, I realized why I was the emergency contact to come clear this stuff rather than Sav. I chuckled to myself seeing the amount of dirty practice jerseys all balled up. He never liked washing his shit… Even when we were teenagers, I think Sav washed all his stuff… but she couldn’t get the stuff that was at the bottom of his bag or the bottom of his locker… That shit would stay and stink and he’d just laugh about it being too late to hand over to her… I guess some things never changed…
I contemplated throwing some of it out… but… It wasn’t my property. It wasn’t Savannah’s really either… It was his kid’s… If the baby was okay, that is. Fuck. I hoped to God the baby was alright… Sav couldn’t take much more.
Jeez. Why did I have to sit here wondering like this? Not knowing was excruciating… Why’d she kick me out on my ass like that? I couldn’t get her scared eyes out of my head. And how had she not known she was pregnant? I started piecing the theory together all morning… She’d been throwing up for days and hadn’t thought about that possibility? But with Nick gone… Why would she be thinking of anything else, I guess.
When I lifted the last of the hockey sock at the bottom of the locker, it revealed a beat-up blue notebook.
My heart practically jumped to my throat as I quickly leafed through it. It was filled with hockey plays… Some aging back to when we skated at the Ice League together… but my body froze when I spotted his handwriting.
On the very last page, he left a letter.
To me.
I could practically hear his voice as I read it, and that made it hurt even worse.
Hey Griffy Boy.
If you’re reading this, that means I’m toast.
Don’t feel too bad, I always had this feeling that life was short. Remember I used to say that to you every time you’d get all upset and in your feels back at the Ice League?
