The guys get me to the training room and half out of my gear so the trainer can strap a bag of ice to my knee. They have me on my back, my leg elevated, when Coach comes by. He squeezes my shoulder with a “tough luck, kid,” and then I hear the staff read my sentence to him: two weeks, no practice, no games.
I watch the rest of practice through the glass. Rookie and Spinner run drills. Mayhem lays someone out with a clean check that echoes across the empty arena. Grentley makes a save I have to admit is beautiful. The Stag brothers whoop and cheer like they don’t hate Grentley’s guts, and maybe they’re slowly getting over their feud.
All I know is they’re going to take that energy to Carolina tomorrow morning, and I won’t be on that plane.
Micky the trainer insists on a home visit, following me into Rookie’s condo, frowning as I install myself on the couch. He sets me up with a foam wedge for elevation and texts me rehab instructions I probably won’t read. “I’ll see myself out,” he says. “And then we’ll see you for PT in the morning, okay?”
I grunt, and then the apartment is empty. Ella's at work. Jason’s not home from practice and film.
I lie on the couch with my knee throbbing and my head spinning, and I stare at the ceiling where the streetlights used to paint yellow streaks before I hung curtains for a woman I’m not supposed to care about.
And now Ella and I will be alone in this apartment for at least five days, and I can't run, can't skate, can't even walk to Gianna's without limping.
I'm grounded. Trapped. Alone with her.
I press the ice pack harder against my knee and close my eyes.
Chapter 13
Ella
Susan turns the volume up on the waiting room TV, and I hear Bernard's name before I see his face.
"—Houser listed as week-to-week with a lower body injury. The Fury forward went down during practice yesterday and did not travel with the team for their three-game road swing through Carolina and Florida?—"
I grab the edge of the nurses' station. The screen shows Bernard in his jersey, skating, whole and healthy, with a red graphic that says INJURED stamped across the bottom.
"Isn't that your brother's teammate?” Susan nods at the TV. "MCL, sounds like. I should look him up in the system to see if he’s having surgery here.”
I ignore Susan’s faux-privacy-violation threats and pull out my phone to text Bernard.
Are you okay?? I just saw the news.
Nothing. No dots. No response.
I text Jason.
What happened to Bernard?
Three minutes later, my brother says,
Yeah he tweaked his knee. He's fine.
I stare at the word "fine" and want to throw my phone at the vending machine with my brother's face on it. "Fine" is the word Jason uses for everything — fine when he offered me a couch, fine when he didn't pick me up from the airport, fine when his best friend apparently hurt a ligament and is lying alone in their apartment.
The rest of my shift is a blur. I cycle between patients and my phone, checking for a response from Bernard that never comes. My brain fills the silence with clinical information I didn't know I'd retained: MCL sprains are graded 1 through 3. Grade 1 is mild, microscopic tears, one to three weeks. Grade 2 is a partial tear, four to six weeks. Grade 3 is a full rupture and surgery. Treatment includes ice, compression, elevation. Limited weight-bearing. No lateral movement.
I know the anatomy. I know the rehab protocol. I know what an MCL does — because I've been studying it on a laptop and in a car with a man who turns medical terminology into foreplay.
What I don't know is how bad it is, whether he's in pain, whether anyone is with him, or whether he's eaten.
I clock out at seven-thirty, skip the bus, and spend Jason's remaining money on a ride share that gets me home in twelve minutes.
The apartment is dim. Jason's door is open, and his room is stripped: road bag gone, open closet half-empty. He's long gone. The living room is quiet except for the TV on low volume, playing something Bernard clearly isn't watching.
He's on the couch. Not casually lounging. Genuinely immobilized. His right knee is wrapped in a compression sleeve and propped on a foam wedge, with a melted ice pack draped across it, doing absolutely nothing therapeutic. He's in mesh shorts and a Fury T-shirt that's wrinkled like he slept in it. His curls are matted on one side. He looks exhausted, bored, and a little defeated.
"Hey," he says, looking up when I come in.
