I see it out of the corner of my eye, and I flinch when he’s smashed into the boards from behind. There’s a collective intake of breath around the room when his helmet smashes into the glass at this weird angle—right at the precipice of his visor and the plastic.
The whistle blows, and a fight starts somewhere on the ice.
But he doesn’t skate away. It looks sort of like the player who hit him was holding him upright—Bohdan staggers, and he looks a bit like he’s trying to brace himself against the glass before his knees buckle.
It’s when he hits the ice that I see the blood.
A small rivulet smeared across the inside of his visor that I can’t even be sure is there, until it’s joined by the rest—this crimson pool that somehow looks stark and beautiful against the ice, sparkling away on that giant television screen in the lounge, while Bohdan doesn’t move.
I think I start bleeding with him.
Bohdan
Then - Seattle
It was just a bad hit.
An unlucky angle, the doctor said.
The way I couldn’t brace myself or turn properly because I didn’t see it coming. The way my temple smashed against the corner of my helmet. The way it ricocheted off the boards, and the way my brain got knocked around again for good measure when I hit the ice.
It wasn’t the first time it got knocked around out there, but unfortunately for me, it was the last.
A million tiny things that happened in exactly the right way at exactly the wrong time.
Someone who works for me sues the equipment company, because there was a tiny flaw in the helmet that shouldn’t have existed. Something about the polypropylene foam.
But I can’t really bring myself to care about anything.
Because I can’t fucking skate without getting dizzy.
I can’t concentrate long enough to track a play, let alone try to make one.
The impossibly bright lights that once did me a kindness and shone a spotlight down on a beautiful girl with ebony hair and blue eyes decide they’re done being nice. I can’t even get on the ice under them anymore.
They’re too bright, and it’s too loud.
I try a lot of things to get it back.
I sprint on treadmills with oxygen masks strapped to my face to try and build my endurance again. I see all the specialists that money can buy. I try shorter shifts on the ice. Alternating games.
But it’s never the same, and neither am I, so with the girl that stupid fucking hockey gave me sitting beside me at a press conference table with lights that make my skull feel like I’m bleeding, I say goodbye.
Because if I can’t be great—I don’t want it.
And it turns out, I can’t be great at anything anymore.
What’s that saying? You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.
Sloan
Then - Seattle
Bohdan becomes a ghost right in front of me.
I watch him fade away each day, and I do my very best to hold on.
I hold on for dear life, actually.
