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It makes me question a lot of things. First, I imploded a partnership of four years by getting romantically involved. Now my partner almost killed me because… I don’t know why. Maybe I’m the common denominator. Maybe the problem is me.
“I would have died if you weren’t there,” I whisper, looking up at Winter. I’ve heard that several times over the past few days, but seeing it firsthand? How much blood there was. How fast it all happened. That’s a mindfuck I’m unprepared for.
A tear slides down her cheek, and her smile is tremulous. “But I was, so you’re here.”
I inhale relief and exhale the pain of it all. “Nothing will ever be the same, will it?”
She shakes her head. “You can’t beat death and view the world through a lens that no longer exists.”
“I’m never going to skate with a partner again.” The words sound wrong and right at the same time.
“Not with Adele.” Her chin trembles, and the sadness in her eyes tells me more than her words.
There’s another piece of this everyone has been dancing around. When they come to change the dressings on my wound, someone is always here to keep me occupied. “How bad is the damage?”
Her gaze drops. “I don’t know. It’s too early to say.”
“That sounds like some real bullshit, Winter.”
She lifts my hand to her lips. “Why are you making me do this with you?”
“Because you’re the only person I trust to tell me the truth, even if it’s going to suck.” I’m right too. My parents will sugarcoat it. Lovey will downplay it and say everything will work out. But Winter won’t.
Her tears land on the sheets beside our clasped hands.
“It’s that bad?” My voice is a whisper.
“I honestly don’t know, but it’s a really deep laceration. You were in surgery for hours. Tendons and muscles were severed, and some nerves, but they reattached everything, as far as I know. It was touch and go, and I think the focus was on keeping you alive first, and putting you back together second. The healing process will be long.” She sighs. “These are things I’ve heard the doctors say, but I don’t have any timelines or definitives. I have pieces and not the whole picture.” She flattens my palm against her cheek, her eyes full of pain. “I don’t want to tell you lies, BJ, but I don’t know what your future on the ice is going to look like. I’ll be here, though, to help however you need.”
I let that sink in.
All the things I’ve been working toward are no longer within reach. They’ve shifted, moved to a distant and indistinct future. For the first time in my life, I feel untethered. Uncertain. Like my path has been erased.
“I’m sorry I don’t have more answers,” she whispers.
“Don’t apologize. I needed to hear it, and it’s better coming from you than anyone else.”
The first time I see the damage, I vomit and then faint. The second time I’m better prepared, but it’s still a level of horrifying that’s hard to handle.
I’m stuck in the hospital for a week. The first few days weren’t that bad because I spent most of them asleep. But now that the fog has lifted, I’m stuck in my head, replaying the events that brought me here—especially at night when I’m struggling to sleep. That’s the hardest, being alone with my thoughts, questioning everything. Feeling like this is my fault, like I should have seen it coming.
“I fucking hate being here,” I snap on the morning of the seventh day.
Winter had to go back to class in person today, and I miss her. I miss her presence. I miss her face and her voice and her sass and the smell of her shampoo.
“You want out of here, you know how to make it happen,” Dad says with an arched brow.
“It fucking hurts.”
“You think I don’t know that?” He leans forward in his chair and levels me with a challenging stare.
I want to tell him he has no idea how bad the pain is, but he sort of does. I know this because the whole teach-me-how-to-aim thing and using a urinal for the first time is some weird father-son rite of passage and I’ve seen his scar.
“Look, I know how difficult this is, son, but you make it to the bathroom on your own, and the doctor will sign the release papers. Then you can be in your own house, with your own bathroom, and you don’t have to eat shitty hospital food.”
“Fuck. Fine. Let’s do this.”
“I’ll get the crutches.”
