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“Ultimately, I cannot tell you what to do. This is your livelihood and I am sensitive to that. But in my professional opinion, I cannot guarantee that your brain would recover from another concussion event.”
Nobody speaks for a full minute. Then the dipshit from the league clears his throat.
“You still have three years of your contract left, Mr. Cooper. And the player’s union will have information about benefits.”
“You think I’m done?” I say, but there’s no bite to it.
I look at my agent. His suit is wrinkled. And he’s wearing a suit in a hockey office in Portland. I don’t even know what he’s doing here, much less what he can do for me. Still, I ask him, “What do you think?”
“I think I’m not a doctor. And I’ll help you do whatever it is you want to receive the rest of your guaranteed pay.”
I lean forward, my head throbbing, and I pinch the back of my neck, letting it drop between my shoulder blades.
“Let me have a word with him?” Krazowski says.
I can’t see anyone’s faces, and I don’t bother to try. I just stay where I am, head down, as I listen to the sound of feet shuffling past my seat, and the door opening and finally shutting. I can sense Krazowski sitting in the chair next to mine.
“Shitty hand to be dealt,” he finally says.
“Yeah,” I grunt. When I sit up, the blood rushes to my head and the room spins. Then it stops, and I see it’s just me and him.
“You don’t have a backup plan, do you?”
I shake my head. It’s been on my mind since Freddy got injured, and I still have nothing. No, I have less than nothing, because I don’t even have Faye. The brief reminder turns something sour in the pit of my stomach and I feel nauseated.
“Look, it’s ultimately up to you. You can do the PT. Come back to workouts. Maybe we put you in a game down the road. A nice home game where the fans know what’s up and cheer on your triumphant return. The front office’ll have T-shirts printed.
“But then we’ll go on the road. Houston. Chicago. Boston.”
He waits for me to react.
“The other goons in the league will know. You think they’ll take it easy on you just because you’ve got a head situation?”
“I know they won’t,” I say. “I wouldn’t.”
“Then you know that if you have any sense of self-preservation, this is it. If we put you in, that brain of yours won’t last the season. And it doesn’t mean you’ll die. No, it’s not that simple. It just means TBI. Or worse, CTE. It means forgetting things in your day, in your life. Mood swings. Depression. I don’t need to mention a certain New England football player for you to know this isn’t something to mess around with.”
I let out a deep sigh.
“I can’t tell if you’re hearing me—”
“Yeah, I’m hearing you,” I say.
He’s right. I know he’s right. And yet, there’s not a horrible, gut-wrenching ache in my gut. There’s not a part of me that feels like my world is ending. Maybe it’s because it’s not. Or maybe it’s because it already did.
“What can I do? You want me to call everyone back in here? Come up with a plan?” He’s on his feet now, leaning back against the desk, just waiting. Like he has nowhere else to be. “Or you wanna sleep on it? No one would begrudge you that.”
“You sure about that? Pretty sure that prick from the league wants me to sign a bunch of paperwork.”
“He can sleep at the Benson for another night and return in the morning if that’s what you need.”
“Yeah,” I say, rubbing my knuckle into my right temple where the headache is the sharpest. “Yeah, I need to sleep on it.”
“Done.”
I don’t know what’s worse: the fact that the only thing I’ve ever wanted, the one thing I’ve worked for my whole life, is slipping through my grasp and I can’t dig up a shit to give? Or the realization that since the wedding, since Faye walked out of my life, nothing seems to matter—and there’s nothing I can do about it.
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