“Your ribs?Back?”
He didn’t know exactly what section, but it “hurts like Hades.”
“Can you get up?”Gerry asked, as Sam and Kyle’s teammates hovered near.“Or do we need the backboard?”
He drew in a deep breath, pushed himself upright.Sam skated closer and helped him stand.Kyle grimaced, unable to stop a groan of pain.
“Dude, you’ll be okay.”
Sure he would.Easy for someone else to say.He nodded, acknowledging the crowd with a small wave as, still hunched over, he skated off the ice.
His teammates tapped the ice with their sticks, the traditional tribute when someone left the ice injured, and he caught Chris and Zac’s grimaces, nods, and fists over hearts, the signal sometimes used to silently acknowledge a fellow member of the Northwest Ice online Bible study, and that they’d pray for him.
The trainers escorted him down the tunnel to the medical room and he was soon examined by the team doctor, who helped him to strip off his jersey and undershirt, then began gently pressing around the tender area.
He released a hiss of pain.
“Hmm.”Doc Cheloff frowned.“I don’t like that.”
“Me either,” Kyle groaned.
A quick scan on a portable X-ray left the doctor frowning.“I’m not sure if it’s your ribs, or something more internal, but we need to get you to hospital for assessment and to undergo more scans.Okay?”
“Whatever you want.”
The doc gave him pain meds, which he sucked down as a trainer grabbed a bag with Kyle’s necessary things, then he was transported to the waiting ambulance required at all NHL games.He closed his eyes, as the road’s bumps jolted and jarred, poking his pain.
Zac and Chris might be praying, and he bet some others might be too, but how was this God’s best for him?He’d attended the online Bible study this week where the Reverend Josiah had shared about trusting God in the highs and the lows, but seriously, this was ranking there among the lowest of his lows.Not the ultimate low—that had been mixed up in that time ten or so years ago when he’d left Washington and headed east with his folks—but pretty close.
Ugh.Where was God now?
He had to focus on something good.A Bible verse.A promise.Anything.
And then he remembered a face he’d always thought more beautiful than any other, one that more recently had often wafted through his dreams.Where was she?What was she doing?He hoped she was well, that she’d accomplished her dreams.But if he was ever to see her again, well, that would be beyond awkward.
For how did a man apologize for giving up the woman he’d been so stupid as to let get away?
* * *
Earsplitting groans bouncedoff the walls of the exam room as Dr.Genevieve Rivas winced at the extent of the young man’s compound fracture.Saturday nights working in Seattle General’s emergency department were always stupidly busy, and lately people seemed to be looking for more extreme ways to hurt themselves.Such as the eighteen-year-old’s broken leg that had resulted in bone piercing the skin, and bellows of pain coming from the kid’s lungs.
“Hey, Jimmy, I know you’re really hurting right now, but I want you to be brave.”Gen glanced at the man’s female friend as he refused to listen.“I need him to quieten.”
“Jimmy!”His girlfriend shook his arm.“Stop that noise right now.You’re embarrassing yourself.”
Yeah, not quite what Gen had intended.Still, it had the desired effect, as the volume dropped by half and Gen was able to finish her assessment.She glanced at the nurse, then girlfriend, then the patient himself.“It’s a bad break, so we’ll need to send you to the OR, but first we need to clean and cover the wound.”She gave the order for IV antibiotics and pain meds, then worked with the nurses to clean the debris then cover it with a sterile dressing.The operating room would see the debridement and irrigation for the wound, bone and tissues to clean all contaminants, before the realignment and fixation could begin.
She gave Jimmy a small smile.“Sorry, dude, but it’s gonna take a few weeks before you’ll be skateboarding again.”
“I can’t believe that useless brother of his, giving him a skateboard at Christmas.It’s not like Jimmy is ever going to be Tony Hawk.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know who that is,” Gen confessed.
“Like, only the most famous skateboarder,ever,” Jimmy explained.
“Sorry, I don’t follow sports.”Once upon a time she’d cared about a certain sport—a certain sportsman—until it had become apparent he didn’t care for her.Since then her spare time was taken up in other, more meaningful, ways.
“Is she stupid or something?”the man complained as he was wheeled away by the nurse.
