It was absurd. Chef didn’t want me. No way. She stopped whatever had been about to happen. And I didn’t want Chef. Did I?
My hands shook as I did my daily exercise to mentally settle in: origami. I’d been working on a project to make a thousand cranes, because it’s supposed to make all your wishes come true. Thankfully, cranes were easy to fold with how shaky my fingers were. But I’d probably just burned whatever luck I’d saved up, because how lucky was I? I was still alive.
“How did Chef save your life?” Jack Leroy grumbled to my declaration, only seeming half-interested.
“I . . . I was on the phone and I wasn’t looking, and I almost got hit by a bus. But then I was tackled from behind and was on the ground.”
Our alternate captain, Dylan Sorrento, snapped his head up. “Seriously?”
“Are you okay?” Our captain, Colton Jones, stepped forward and looked me over.
My words came slowly as I processed it out loud. “Yes. Yeah. I’m fine. But Chef. She saved me. I think she’s hurt but she wouldn’t let me do anything. She came at me with all her might and tackled me. I fell on her. She saved my life. And she dropped her coffee.” I examined the trail of brown liquid on my pants leg, a reminder that I hadn’t hallucinated this whole thing. “Myphone got crushed under the bus. That could have been me. It could have been her. What if she hadn’t been there?”
I held up my phone and a piece of shattered glass fell from it for dramatic effect.
“Holy shit,” Cap said. “Has anybody seen her this morning? We should go check on her.”
Wait, she had been in pain and I just let her leave. What kind of an asshole was I? I should have taken her to the hospital. Insisted on taking her to work. Figured out some way to thank her.
Cap walked my way and put his arms out. “Glad you’re okay, buddy.” He squeezed me in a quick hug and slapped my back. “Why don’t you go have medical check you over? I’ll go check on Chef and see if we can get somebody to help with your phone.”
My thoughts swirled while my legs carried me to the PT room.
This was a wakeup call. My past on-again-off-again relationship had been officially over for going on two months, and it still almost killed me. I needed to block her number once and for all.
She didn’t accept me for who I was, and when I refused to change for her, she took it as a rejection. But I was the one being manipulated. It was madness. And I couldn’t keep nursing her through the heartache I allegedly caused. She was the one who rejected me.
She was the one who, when I figured out my sexuality and came out to her, immediately started asking which of my teammates I’d slept with. Instead of me only being a potential cheater with women, now everyone was someone I could cheat with. Goalie hugs? That was just my way to get affection from people who weren’t her.
This was the end of me worrying about what happened to her. This was the beginning of living for myself.
The bus may not have hit me, but a critical realization did: I needed to be more intentional in my life. Who I included. What I did for others. How I spent my time. Everything needed to be reevaluated.
I would emerge as Harlan 2.0.
Other people must have felt this way. Your whole world changed in an instant, shifted irrevocably. The grasp you’d had on the world crumbles. But the universe was unfeeling. Uncaring.
What if I had died? What had I not done in my life that I wanted to do? Win a Cup? Become a chef?
Find somebody who loved me for who I was? Was that even possible?
And what about Chef? Was she going through the same shake-up? I shouldn’t have let her go into work alone. I felt responsible and here was Cap, going off to do my dirty work.
Iwasresponsible. I was the dumbass who walked out in front of a bus.
I had to find her. I had to find some way to thank her.
I needed to be better. Right here, this pivotal moment, this was the time I could reshape myself.
Gone was the Harlan who let life happen to him.
Gone was the Harlan who bent over backward to make someone else comfortable.
Gone was the Harlan who was too afraid to strive for more because he was afraid of failing.
I was going to be who I wanted to be. Starting right now.
Rusties’goalie coach Lars Olson poked his head into the PT room as I was hopping off the table. “You all good? Jones told me you took a hit. From a bus?”
