Eyes up.
I turn my gaze to the plexiglass, and a head of red curls with a wide smile stops my heart in my chest. Her hand is pressed to the glass as she screams, eyes locked on me. She’s here? How is she here— The sudden flash of camera phones blind me, reflecting off the plexiglass and I blink, looking sharply away.
Focus—
“Langley!”
“Ahhh!”
Time stops as my body registers two things at once. First, I’m airborne. I float in suspended animation, the milliseconds slowing down, my legs swept out from under me. Second, I’m in a ton of fucking pain. It radiates from my knee, up my hip, down my shin. Fuck, it zaps me like lightning.
I clench down on my mouthguard hard enough to crack my teeth as I brace for impact. My helmet smacks the ice right at my temple. Shoulder. Hip. Knee. I cry out again, rolling to my side, my stick forgotten as I place both gloved hands on my knee trying to stabilize it. If something is broken, I need to hold it in place.
“Fucking asshole,” I shout as the Habs forward scrambles to his feet.
“Sorry,” he says as he skates off, chasing down the puck.
Panic swirls with my adrenaline. Both work to numb the pain as my knee suddenly forms its own heartbeat, radiating pain out in waves.
Not the knee. Please, God, not my fucking knee.
Without hockey, I’m nothing. My family needs me. My sister, my mother—I’m their only support. And hockey is the only way I’m ever gonna earn. If my knee is busted…if this is the end…
Panic is winning out over adrenaline as I hear the whistle. They’ve finally noticed I’m down and not getting up. I know it’s only been a few seconds. Somewhere beyond the plexiglass, Tess is watching me lie here on this ice. Was it Tess? Did I hallucinate her? I don’t even know. Can’t think about it now— “Langley!” Sully gets to me first, sliding to a stop and dropping to one knee, his hand on my shoulder. “Langers, you okay, man?”
“What happened? Where is he hurt?” I hear Novy’s voice, but I don’t look up into the blinding stadium lights. They’re all standing around me, casting my prone body in shadows as I pant, my hot breath making steam against the sheet of ice at my cheek.
“Oh fuck, it’s his knee—”
“Langers, can you get up?”
Someone’s hand is on my hip. He wants me to roll over onto my back. But I’m frozen, letting the pulsing pain in my knee paralyze me.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” I cry with a voice not my own.
“I’m so sorry,” comes Morrow’s voice. “I thought you had it. I’m sorry. It was a bad pass—”
“The asshole took you out at the fucking knees,” Sully growls.
Yeah, I know. I was fucking there.
“Let’s give him some space, fellas,” calls the ref, ready to push my teammates back.
“Langley!” calls a new voice.
Doc and Assistant Coach Andrews are hurrying across the ice from the bench. Doc has her medical bag on her shoulder.
An EMT beats them to me. “That was a nasty hit, but you’re okay,” she soothes. “Where does it hurt? Your knee?”
A big guy in a matching EMT jacket is at my head. “We should stabilize his neck.”
“Langley,” Doc calls again.
Coach Andrews drops down on one knee next to her. “You’re alright, Langley.”
“Coach, the asshole fucking clipped him,” Sully says.
“I know,” says Coach. “We all saw it. Let’s let the EMTs work.”
“Let me look at it, Langley,” Doc says.
I breathe out through my mouth in sharp pants as I drop my hands away, giving her leave to touch me.
“What’s your pain level?”
“Ungh—seven,” I groan. But then she presses in with her thumb, and I practically levitate off the ice. “Ahh—fuck—ten,” I gasp. “It’s a fucking ten. Don’t do that again.” My arm flails as I react instinctively, just wanting the pain to stop.
“Okay, it’s okay,” she soothes, catching my arm before I can hit her. I’ll apologize to her later. “His left knee took all the impact of that hit,” she says at the female EMT.
“And his head hit the ice first in his fall,” the male EMT replies. “How you feeling, sir? You feeling dizzy at all? Look at me, please. Follow the light.”
He shines a light in my eyes, and I groan.
“We need to get him off the ice,” says Coach. “Can he walk off?”
“You got this, Langley,” one of my teammates call.
But Doc shakes her head. “With that hard of a hit, we need scans to be safe. We need to rule out a break.”
I let their medical talk float over my head like snowflakes caught in a flurry. I gaze up, my eyes focusing beyond the lights to the haze of the sky overhead. I’m flat on my back on an ice rink…in the middle of Yankee Stadium. Forty thousand people are watching me lie here.
“I can walk,” I hear myself say. “Doc, help me.” I rock forward with a groan, trying to sit up.
Her gentle hands push me back down. “Easy, Langley. You’re getting a ride off the ice this time, okay?”
“Hang in there, Langers,” says Sully, his face visible over the shoulder of Coach Andrews.
“You got this,” Novy calls.
It’s the work of moments before they have me on the stretcher and strapped down. I groan as the hydraulic lift shoots me into the air. I’ve never in my career been wheeled off the ice. It’s humiliating, like I’m lying here naked instead of clothed in my full hockey kit.
“Where’s my stick?” I mumble.
“Don’t worry about it,” says Coach, patting my padded shoulder.
I’m missing a glove. When did it come off? I feel the sharp winter chill on my fingertips. It stings so cold it burns. As if she can sense my problem, Doc steps in next to me, her bare hand taking mine. “It’s okay, Ryan,” she soothes. “I’m right here, okay? I’m going with you to the hospital.”
This all happened because I lost focus for a split second. I saw a pretty face, and my brain skipped like a scratched vinyl record.
“Tess,” I mutter. “She’s here, right?”
Doc leans down over me. “What? I didn’t hear you.”
My head rolls to the right, and my vision goes hazy. I blink to clear it and peer through the plexiglass, looking for a freckled face and red curly hair. Tess is here. She distracted me. She’s under my skin. She— The pretty redhead at the glass wearing the Rays jersey looks stricken with worry as I pass by on my stretcher. Not my redhead. Not Tess. No, the woman behind the glass is too short, too thin. Dark eyes, not green.
But the mind sees what it wants to see.
“Not here,” I mumble, turning away. “She’s not here.” My eyes close, and I feel like I’m sinking through the stretcher into warm water.
“Hey—Langley, stay awake for me, okay?”
Doc’s voice sounds far away. Her grip on my hand is my tether. I’m a hot air balloon floating above the stadium, watching it all from on high. She calls at me from the ground, her hands cupping her mouth as she shouts through the din.
“Ryan, stay awake…”
I groan, wanting to do as she says. I’m a team player. I always do what I’m told. Doc says stay awake.
“Ryan…”
I’m a hot air balloon, and I’m floating…floating…
14
Monitors beep and hum all around me, their lights blinking in the semidarkness. The IV in my arm itches like crazy. I want to scratch at it, but that will likely work it loose. Again. I already did it once tonight, which annoyed the nurses.
Yeah, I’m a terrible fucking patient.
And I hate hospitals even more than I hate airplanes.