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Helpless.
Pins and needles shoot through parts of my legs. If the feeling of dead limbs waking up weren’t enough, the ice pick slicing through my lower back would take me to my knees.
I know pain. I know the burn of the bench press, the pinch of lungs trying to keep up with sprints on top of sprints. I know bruises, lacerations, surgically reconnected tendons. I know shoulders that weren’t supposed to bendthat way. I know tackles that caused stingers and blindsides that knocked me unconscious. I’m intimately acquainted with concussion protocols. I know ice baths that steal the air from my lungs and made me wish I’d picked a day job.
Except I never wished for a day job.
I’ve only ever had one love.
One dream.
Football.
I don’t once think of howluckyI am.
I don’t once thinkat least I can walk.
I click the button on my IV and let the morphine pump through my veins. I feel its tendrils snake through me, warm and clawing, sucking me back into sweet oblivion.
I may be a selfish prick. I’m good with that. But I’m a selfish prick who was rookie of the year my first year in the League, and now I need assistance to get to the fucking bathroom, all the while fighting the blinding pain of a career-ending injury.
Career-ending.
Career…
…fucking…
…ending.
SEVENTEEN
SCIENCE EXPERIMENT
LIVY
It’s beginning to feel personal.
I’ve been turned away at Layton’s hospital room door for two weeks. Records indicate he’s had another two surgeries in that time. He hasn’t been discharged. And much to my chagrin—and I can only assume to his—his medical records are passed through the offices of the medical staff, and so far as I can tell, legal and public affairs too.
He is a person, and those HIPAA laws should be enforced, but since he gave permission in his contract upon signing, the team has decided his body is their business. And I guess it is. But Mr. Ranger’s words echo in my head:I give zero shits what his team wants.
I can see why.
The team is making plans. And much as I don’t want his dad to be right, many of those are being made without consulting Layton.
But when Mr. Ranger, or Layton himself, is turning people away that are trying to include him, they’re buying some of the reaction.
I’ll try again this afternoon. One last player appointment, and I’ll head to the hospital before going home to Kyle.
But it’s not a player appointment at all. Hans Carlson isn’t in my office. A man in a Henley and Dockers sits on my patient table, fidgeting with gadgets. He stops like a busted ten-year-old when I walk in the door, the band snapping back and hitting him in the jaw.
He rubs it while I question why a man was allowed into my office where there are patient records. And how grown men can always assume anything in the world can be made into a slingshot. It must be in their DNA.
“You’re not Hans. Who are you? And why are you in my office?”
I plop my hands on my hips, lifting my chin.
“I can definitely see it.”
