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“Is he okay?” Sergei asks from the seat behind mine.
I shrug. “He’s really sick, but he wants to go to the hospital in Denver.”
Our flight is a lot quieter than usual, everyone trying to give our teammate a chance to sleep if he can. We’ve only been in the air for about half an hour when Logan throws up several times in a row, doubling over in pain afterward. He’s groaning and squeezing Terry’s hand, obviously in misery.
Terry calls Coach over, her forehead creased with worry.
“There was blood in his vomit. We need to get him to a hospital right now.”
Coach nods and Logan lets out a soft moan of complaint.
“I’ll let the pilot know,” Coach says.
“I can make it,” Logan says, so weak he can barely get the words out.
“Nope. It’s probably a tear in your esophagus from all the throwing up, but I’m not taking any chances,” Terry says. “We’re going to the nearest hospital.”
Everyone on the plane is silent. All of us worried about our teammate. As soon as we land in Tallahassee, Sergei gets up from his seat and scoops Logan into his arms, carrying him from the plane. Terry follows with an IV bag.
Ford stands up, his overnight bag in hand. “I’m staying until we know what’s going on with him.”
We all stand up, getting our bags. No one wants to fly home with our teammate in such dire condition; no family here with him.
No family but us, that is. If we have to sit in the waiting room and take shifts being with Logan, that’s what we’ll do.
Phone calls are made to arrange for transportation to the hospital for everyone else after Logan is taken away by ambulance. We have to walk through the terminal and end up waiting half an hour for a bus to arrive, everyone anxious to get to the hospital.
Once there, we have to split into two groups because we can’t fit into a single waiting room. Terry and Coach take turns updating us, and for a while there are no answers.
Logan is declining and the doctors can’t figure out what’s wrong with him. We all sit in silence, dumbfounded by the quick turn of events.
His parents arrive after flying in from Raleigh and I breathe a sigh of relief. Knowing they’re with him helps a little.
“The doctors think he has an infection of some kind,” Coach says when he updates us. “It could be bacterial, but they just don’t know. They’re doing everything they can for him and he seems stable.”
Stable. I guess that’s good. I don’t have much time to think about it because Ford stalks into the waiting room, looking furious.
“Watch out for anyone suspicious,” he says. “We just kicked a fucking reporter and photographer out of the hospital.”
Unbelievable that those vultures would show up at a time like this. If I see anyone trying to take photos of my teammates or Logan’s family, I’ll crush their camera into a thousand pieces.
I eat in the cafeteria with some of the guys, our movements mechanical. It seems weird that we’re still hungry even in the midst of a crisis, but we are. We’re finishing up when I take out my phone, finding several texts from Tess.
Tess: Hannah is so excited you’re coming tonight! She told her dance team a pro hockey player is coming and none of them believe her. You might need to wear your jersey.
Fuck. My heart drops to my feet as I look at my watch. It’s 9:05 p.m. here, which makes it 7:05 p.m. in Denver.
Tess: I saved you a seat, we’re in the third row.
Tess: Are you lost?
I close my eyes, feeling like a complete failure. I’ve been so focused on what’s going on with Logan that I forgot to tell Tess I didn’t make it back on time.
All I can do now is apologize, but that won’t help a twelve-year-old girl who told her friends I’d be there and then looked like a liar.
“Dammit,” I mutter, shaking my head as I try to think of a way to word a text.
“What?” Beau asks.
