Page 12 of Goalie interference

Luckily, Carp never complained about my weirdness. I couldn't sleep for almost a month that year, but we worked together to find both a schedule and a system that worked, involving moving the room around so that I was next to the door and had all the other furniture between our beds.

Carp was a good guy.

My leg was on fire by the time I made it halfway to the rink. I thought I was going to die from how bad it hurt, gripping onto any available surface with a death grip as I sat down. I thought about heading back to my room, relaxing like I was supposed to, or heading to the rink.

The last thing I wanted to do was seek out Thayer…

But he could help.

There wasn’t even a guarantee that he was at the rink today, but I still hauled my dead body off the bench and made my way to the rink, just in the hopes. I was a prideful person and had no interest in repeating last week with him, but he did fix my issue.

It was worth a little embarrassment.

It might have happened slowly, but eventually, I limped my way into the rink.

As soon as I crossed the threshold, I started walking as normally as I could, even if that was more painful–I couldn't let anyone still lingering see it.

Painfully, I made my way to the offices, hoping to find Thayer and only finding one empty room after another. I was losing hope and adrenaline the longer I went without finding him, almost giving up, until I heard someone in the weight room.

It was likely just one of the other players, but I still let hope win and poked my head in.

My eyes fell over two men–Thayer bench pressing and Reed spotting him. I assumed they worked out in their spare time–even Reed wasn’t old by any means–but I’d never actually seen them do it.

I’d found who I was looking for, but for some reason, I didn’t speak up right away. I didn’t interrupt and get his attention–I just lingered. I watched him for a minute, inspected his form, and found my mouth got very dry very quickly–maybe it had been the whole time?

Too much time passed for this to be considered normal, so I cleared my throat, garnering both their attention as Thayer racked the weight and sat up on the bench.

Sweat was dripping down his chest and forehead, making loose strands of his hair stick–

“Coach Thayer,” I called out, nudging my head back. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

“Of course,” he panted, wiping his bare chest with a small towel as he stood, smiling at Reed as a goodbye.

Thayer gestured for me to walk ahead of him, leading him down the hall to one of the training rooms instead of his office, like he might have expected. I held it together just fine the whole way, but as soon as that door was shut, I started limping over to sit on one of the benches–I just couldn’t do it anymore.

“It really hurts today,” I said awkwardly as I sat down, wincing.

“I can see that,” he said, almost angrily, kneeling next to me to help straighten my leg out. “Don’t tell me you walked all the way here with it hurting like this.”

“I’ve played on it when it hurt worse,” I mumbled. “I can usually just run or work it out, and it feels better, but it’s like it’s superhuman pain today–I don’t know what’s wrong–”

“What’s wrong is you got used to not feeling pain again,” he muttered, taking my hand and resting it on his shoulder to help me down to the padded ground. “It’s the same pain it’s always been–you just forgot what not feeling it was like.”

“But it’s not going away,” I argued, biting my tongue at the whimper that wanted to break free once I was flat on my back. “I even tried having my girlfriend do that massage thing you did, and it just hurt worse.”

“That’s nice in theory, but she probably wasn’t doing it right,” he huffed, down on the ground next to me, but not touching me–I was swallowing my pride and asking him for help, and he wasn’t doing it.

It was frustrating!

I didn’t ever ask for help, and I finally was. He seemed like he was going to help me, but now he just seemed angry and annoyed with me, huffing and puffing like I was a naughty kid he was responsible for.

“Okay, well, are you going to help me or just scold me?” I asked, folding my hands over my eyes to block out the light and him and just all of that. “You can slap my wrist or whatever later–”

“We just need to talk first, Ash,” he said reluctantly. I peeled back one of my hands to find him almost in pain, clearly uncomfortable as he rested his hands flat on his legs again. “We need to set boundaries, and–”

“Look, I’m in too much pain to care about last week, so–”

“Not that,” he sighed. “There’s something you need to know. I just don’t want you to find out on your own somehow and feel any particular way about any of this stuff.”