A shaky laugh left my lips. If anyone could get me through this heartbreak, it was my girls.
Chapter 28
Cal
I would take ajoint or muscle injury over a concussion any day of the week. At least then,
there would be a treatment plan and benchmarks to track progress in getting back on the ice.
With a concussion, all there was to be done was wait and see. It could be days, it could be weeks, or it could be months before symptoms dissipated.
It was also extremely isolating.
With a standard injury, rehabbing would take place at the team facilities, but a head injury required rest. I wasn’t with the rest of the injured players watching the first two games of the Conference Finals against the Miami Storm from the press box. The noise and lights weren’t good for my recovery.
To make matters worse, I couldn’t even watch those games. Screens were off-limits until I was better, so I laid in bed listening to the play-by-play on the radio. I hadn’t done thatsince I was a kid, hiding under the covers and listening to a game secretly after bedtime.
By the time the team left for Miami for Games 3 and 4 of the Conference Finals—with the series tied at one game apiece—I was cleared for light activity. Desperately needing human interaction, I opted to work out with the rehab team at the arena instead of in my home gym.
The moment I set foot in the facility, everyone left behind while the team traveled gave me a range of looks—some reflected pity, others disdain. They’d clearly heard about me and Hannah. How could they not have? To them, I may be injured, but I was the bad guy. Hannah was loved by all. I was the man who’d been dating her behind her father’s back, and then broken her heart.
If they wanted to add my broken heart to the injury report, it should be placed on injured reserve, out of action indefinitely.
Being stuck at home alone only highlighted all she had brought to my life, which was now absent. The silence with her gone was deafening. There was no one using up all the hot water before I hopped into the shower. The kitchen cabinets were devoid of the junk food she’d hidden behind my containers of protein powder. The bed was too big without her lying beside me.
Pushing past the ache in my chest that had no hope of rehabilitation, I was back on the ice by the time the team returned home from Miami for Game 5, up three games to one. We were one game away from playing for a championship—the one thing I’d dreamed of my whole life—but I couldn’t find it in myself to get excited.
The medical and training staff cleared me to play for Game 5 at home, but with strict instructions to the coaching staff to limit my playing time. Coach sat beside me, stiff, not making eye contact during that meeting.
What I wouldn’t give to tell him to go to hell, to tell Hannah what had really happened, but I’d already caused her enough pain. I refused to be the man who put a wedge between her and her family. Even if it meant suffering in silence, knowing the future I had planned for us would never come to pass.
The last time I saw her was when she left my hospital room, devastated. Gearing up for Game 5, I steeled myself to view her from a distance, to hear her incredible voice as she sang the anthem pre-game. When the announcer called the starting lineup and we took our spots on the blue line, the knife in my heart twisted seeing a replacement singer walk out onto the red carpet.
Hannah wasn’t doing what she loved because of me.
Everything was so fucked up.
A loss in Game 5 had us traveling to Miami for a Game 6. The Storm were still on the verge of elimination, but it was up to us to close out the series and move on.
Reaching the stunning seaside hotel, I was flooded with memories.
Hannah watching from a cabana as the team worked out in the sand, brazenly demanding shirtless men.
Being in this very city aboard the yacht, being as close as two bodies could possibly be as the sun set over the skyline through the massive window.
Days spent in the sun, every inch of Hannah’s body turning golden brown.
Was this what it was going to be like for the rest of my life? Every little thing reminding me of her, of what I’d lost?
The team congregated in the lobby, waiting to be handed keys to their rooms. Jaxon and Benji approached where I stood leaning against a wall, alone.
Holding out a keycard, Jaxon handed it to me. I didn’t know why I was surprised that Hannah didn’t want to see me; she’d gone out of her way to not share the ice with me last night.
Taking my room key, I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “How was she?”
Jaxon crossed his arms over his chest. “What do you think? You ripped out her heart and stomped on it.”
He might be my best friend, but he was protective of Natalie’s friends—Hannah, in particular, as Coach’s daughter. I couldn’t even tell him why I’d done what I’d done because it would get back to her.
