“I used to be in medical school. I finished pre-med, did a couple years of med school, and while I was studying as an undergrad I volunteered at a physiotherapy clinic. I didn’t really do more than organize charts and get coffee, but once the doctor showed me how to perform the tests.”
“You were in med school? Wow, pretty and smart,” Daniel complimented, winking at me as he said it. The blush crawled up my face again as I remembered just how close my hands had been to his most sensitive areas.
“Yeah, well, I never finished. I’m not going to be a doctor, but I can tell a knee injury when I see one.”
“Can I ask you a sensitive question? You don’t need to answer if you’re not comfortable with it, but I’d like to know why you’re here.”
“I’m an alcoholic,” I answered. I had no problem telling him that. If he wanted to know all he had to do was ask around, everybody knew alcohol was my personal demon.
“What triggered it for you? Again, don’t answer if you’re not comfortable with it, but I’d really like to know if you’re willing to tell me.”
I looked into Daniel’s eyes. They were so earnest, so genuinely interested in my life. Suddenly, my brain flew backwards. Memories flooded my brain. Crying, sitting in the ambulance, someone wrapping a blanket around me. That feeling of absolute despair. The desire to kill myself. Being unable to look my parents in the eye. The knowledge that my life would never be the same.
It was three days later that I walked past the liquor store and went in on a whim. I bought a bottle of vodka. I had never been a huge drinker. I would get drunk from time to time at parties, or with friends, but it was never more than once every two weeks or so. Usually if I went out for dinner with anyone I’d have a glass of wine or something, but that was it.
It took three hours for the entire bottle of vodka to disappear. That was how it started. The more I drank, the more the memories disappeared. The more I could pretend everything was like it had been before.
When I said I was broken, I didn’t mean the alcoholism. That was just a symptom of what had happened, of that night, the worst night of my life. The alcohol made the pain go away for a while, and now, now that I no longer had the alcohol, I begged for more pain. I deserved it all.
I didn’t realize I was crying until Daniel’s finger, like velvet against my skin, stroked the tear away and brought me back to the present.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I shouldn’t have asked. I’m sorry Kylie. I can tell you don’t want to talk about it, and that’s fine. But hey, if you ever need a shoulder to cry on, I’m here” he told me, wrapping his arm around me.
I was sweating and gross, and so was he, but I couldn’t have cared less right then. His arm was so strong, so hard, so comforting wrapped around my shoulders, I felt like I belonged with him, I melded in with him absolutely perfectly. I buried my face in his chest and cried for a few minutes, silently sobbing, my tears mingling with his sweat from earlier.
Daniel stroked my hair until I finally came back from my complete collapse.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized, wiping my eyes. “I have no idea why I just did that. It’s been ages since I’ve just broken down and cried like that.”
“Don’t worry about it. Exercise can bring out emotion in people, especially when they haven’t really done much before, and I shouldn’t have brought up your past. It was my fault.”
“Thanks, Daniel. Thanks for... everything.” I looked up at him and smiled. God, not only was he so hot my body could barely stand it, but he was so nice. I had always assumed professional athletes were douchebags, hell bent on sleeping with as many women as they could while they made millions of dollars. But Daniel didn’t seem to be like that at all.
“Listen, I guess with this knee problem we’re going to have to cancel our next date, or at least move it into a less physical part of the building,” I finally told him, trying to change the subject.
“Why would we have to do that?”
“Well for one thing, the two most important ligaments in your right knee don’t work. You need to see a doctor, so that you can get referred for surgery.”
Daniel shook his head. “No, I’m not getting surgery.”
“What? Why not? Both of those are definitely grade 3, if you were a normal person you might be able to get by for a while by rehabbing and resting, but for an athlete like you, you have to get the surgery as soon as you can, or you’ll never play professional hockey again.”
“That’s the thing, I’m not going to play hockey again.”
This revelation surprised me. I had always assumed that while he had become addicted to painkillers, Daniel would be trying to get back on the ice as soon as possible.