On Thin Ice 2 (2 page)

I
scootched my chair in next to Fiona’s.

“Have you heard anything about Amanda?” she asked, and I shook my head.

“Not yet. I’m sure she’s fine. She’ll probably be back here later tonight.”

“That’s
good, it looked like a scary fall.”

“I missed it completely, I wasn’t watching.”

“Oh, well, it was one of those things where she went to kick the ball, but she kind of stepped on it instead and fell down, and her leg twisted under her when she landed.”

“Ouch. Yeah, I can see how that can lead to a break.”

“So it is broken then?”

I nodded. “I’ll be really surprised if it isn’t. I mean, there’s always a chance it’s not, but I really doubt it. That leg was swollen up almost instantly.”

“I know, I saw it, it was huge! When Jacob, my youngest, broke his arm skateboarding when he was six he came home and his arm was the same way.”

“Yeah, th
e human body is funny that way.”

“Speaking of human body,
you’re looking good lately.”

“Thanks, Fiona. I should say the same about you. I was saying to Daniel that I wouldn’t be surp
rised if you tell me you’re leaving sometime soon.”

“I’m hoping it’ll be in the next two weeks. I miss my boys, and they’re going to be coming home next month. I’d like to be there for them when they are.
But hey, I was talking about you, not me. I think you’ve got a crush on our resident hockey player. Am I wrong?”

I felt the blush creep up my face immediately.

“What? Of course you’re wrong. You’re crazy!”

I didn’t want anyone to know that every time I so much as looked at Daniel Ross I began to fant
asize about him, dreaming of what he would look like naked, imagining him naked on top of me in my bed, taking me to new heights of pleasure...

“I
dunno, I’ve seen the way you look at him.”

“Daniel and I are just friends. Besides, if we were going to be more than that, which we’re
not,
we’d both get kicked out of here.”

“Whatever, Kylie.
You only live once.”

“You’re supposed to be the older, wiser woman giving me solid advice on how to live my life well, not telling me to bang the hot guy and get kicked out of rehab.”

Fiona laughed. “I’m not the type of person who gives out good advice, or I wouldn’t be here myself, would I?”

“Fair enough.
But no, honestly, Daniel and I are just friends.”

“Ok, ok, I believe you.” She lowered her tone. “But I still think you should go for it if you get the chance.”

“You’re impossible,” I laughed, hitting her arm lightly.

“Hey, when I was yo
ur age, I already had two kids and a rich husband. You need to get on with things if you intend to catch up with me.”

I rolled my eyes at Fiona.

“Unlike you, I’m not a gold digger.”

“Hey, I love Kevin. He’s a great husband, and he’s not way older than me. I married for love. He just happened to also have a lot of money.”

“Alright, let’s call a truce. I won’t call you a gold digger if you stop trying to turn me into one by chasing after Daniel.”

“Fine.
Now eat your food, I’m going to go get some desert.”

When Fiona left, then came back with some ice cream,
I couldn’t help but worry a bit about what she had said. If Fiona had noticed that I had a thing for Daniel, did other people pick up on it as well? Would Doctor Emma ask me about Daniel, try and see whether we were having a relationship? I knew they couldn’t kick us out of here without proof, and I certainly didn’t want to give them any. I was going to have to be a lot more careful around Daniel, and make sure that what I felt inside didn’t manifest itself on the outside.

* * *

I actually thought I did pretty well to hide my feelings for Daniel over the next couple weeks. I imagined that if anyone thought there was anything going on between us before, they would have changed their mind. I told him about what Fiona had said, and Daniel agreed that we should stay apart a little bit more than before, and as a result I didn’t see him all that much anymore.

At
sports, and at group therapy however, there was no avoiding him. That was fine. I went back to never talking in therapy. The only time I had broken my silence and shared a story was that first day Daniel showed up. Doctor Emma always asked me why I didn’t want to share, why I didn’t want to heal. I never told her that I didn’t want to heal, that I didn’t deserve it.

Two weeks after Amanda broke her leg, Adam decided we should have a tennis tournament.
After all, with Amanda no longer able to participate in sports, we had the perfect number of people to make a doubles tourney work. We had to pick a partner, and while everyone wanted to be with Daniel, he picked me.

I smiled shyly. I had never played tennis before outside of here.
I knew I was at a disadvantage. This was a rich people’s rehab center. My parents were footing the bill, although they weren’t really that rich, just two relatively good incomes that paid the bills and let them save a little, in the hopes that they wouldn’t lose me. Nearly everyone else here had been or still was a member of a country club, having grown up playing tennis. Daniel and I were the only ones who didn’t, although Daniel was so athletic he could usually easily beat everyone else at every sport, no matter how many years they’d been playing it.

Our first matchup was between
Sandy and Alfred, two people I barely knew. While I missed the ball nearly every time it was served to me, Daniel made up for my mistakes and we beat them easily.

Our next match, against Fiona and her pretend-boyfriend Sam, was a lot more difficult, but we won out in the end.

“You’re not as bad at tennis as I thought you’d be,” Daniel told me as we high fived.

“I’m not sure if I should be insulted by that,” I replied. I couldn’t help but notice the light sheen of sweat covering his body,
giving him a slightly dishevelled look. His eyes sparkled as he thrived on the competition.

“No, it’s a compliment,” Daniel replied.

“Good, because you shouldn’t be playing tennis at all with you knee.”

“Don’t worry about my knee. I
t’s fine. I’m wearing the brace like you told me to.”

“Ok, good. If we need to forfeit to stop you from breaking yourself for good though, just let me know.”

“I don’t know the meaning of the word forfeit. Anyway, we’re in the final, so let’s get ready to go. I want to win the chocolate bars I saw Andy bringing in earlier.”

“Really?
That quickly? I didn’t realize there’d be prized, maybe I should start trying! Who are we playing?”

“
Nathan and Sara.”

Another two people I didn’t really know. I knew they were both in their late 40s.
Nathan was an executive for one of the major companies in Seattle, and I didn’t know if Sara had a job or stayed at home with her kids, or what. Either way, they both looked pretty fit. I was a bit nervous. Despite my comment earlier about trying, I didn’t really care about whether we won or lost, but I knew Daniel did, and I wanted to win this for him.

We won the first game, but only just.
We were playing best-of-three, and as we took the early lead in the second game, I was feeling optimistic. Unfortunately, thanks to a major error from me, Nathan and Sara were able to come back and win. I felt guilty about it and apologized to Daniel during the break, but he waved me off.

“
It’s fine, these things happen. It’s not your fault.”

It was all coming down to this last game.
We fell behind quickly, and for a little while I thought we were going to lose. Nathan and Sara had match point, but luckily, while it was their serve, they were serving to Daniel. He had no problems whatsoever returning serves, and I knew there was a chance we would come back and win it.

Nathan served the ball,
and Daniel sprung over on his bad knee to get at it. I could tell straight away that he had hurt himself. He froze, then almost like he was in slow motion, he fell to the court, missing the ball, which landed in bounds. We had lost. I immediately went over to see if Daniel was ok, but he pushed me away. He threw his racket to the floor, breaking the cheap aluminum frame, and stormed back into the building, half limping because of his knee. He was angry, I could tell.

I immediately chased after him. I had a sneaking suspicion I knew where Daniel was going to be, and sure enough, he was in the
basement gym. He was sitting on a bench, his back to me, swearing.

“FUCK.
FUCKING HELL.”

“Daniel?”
I asked gingerly, not wanting to scare him.

“Go away Kylie.
FUCK. I can’t FUCKING believe I lost the game. I FUCKING LOST IT. FUCK.”

“Hey, it’s ok Daniel. It
was just a friendly tournament,” I told him, ignoring his demand that I leave and sitting next to him on the bench. When I looked into his eyes, however, I knew there was more than that. There was so much pain, it looked like he wanted to cry.

“Is your knee ok?”

“It’s not the knee. My knee’s fine. It hurts a bit, but it’s fine.”

I rested my hand on his thigh. “Ok. It’s not your knee. Listen, if you want to talk about it, I’m here.”

Daniel’s breathing was heavy. His fists clenched over and over. I could tell he was struggling with something inside his head. I knew the feeling all too well. Finally, he jumped up with a limberness that I couldn’t have imagined coming from someone experiencing an injury like his. He paced around the room.

“You know, I want you to know, Kylie. Maybe telling you will help. I think you’ll understand.”

I waited as he continued to pace, staring at the ground, trying to decide what to tell me.

“You know I hurt my knee, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s not the whole story. I mean, it is, but it’s not.”

“I know what you mean Daniel, go on.”

“It was the Stanley Cup Playoffs. This was something I had worked for my entire life. My entire fucking life was dedicated to this moment.
To winning this trophy. Do you understand what that’s like?”

“I do. I spent every waking moment since I was fifteen working towards being a doctor.”

“Yes. Exactly. You volunteered at a clinic when you were an undergrad for experience, I spent hours at the gym. Same thing. You know the hours, what it takes from you. It consumes you. It’s your life. You want nothing more than that. Nothing at all.”

He paused, as though trying to figure out how to continue.

“We were two minutes into game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. I was so
ready
for that game. I was prepared. It was funny, it should never have happened that way. Seattle and Vancouver should never have met in the Stanley Cup Finals, they were going to move us into the same division in the following year, so we’d be in one of the Western divisions. Either way, I was ready. I had worked my entire life for this moment. All those hours of blood, sweat and tears. All that time in the gym, all that time on the ice. All those days when I woke up at five in the morning to get ready for practice, they were all going to be worth it when I led the Seattle Sea Lions to victory.”

He paused for a while, figuring out how to phrase what happened next.

“It was two minutes into the game. I was chasing down a puck in the corner in the offensive zone. The icing had been waived off. I went in for the puck a bit too aggressively, and was slightly off balance. One of their players came in and tried to get the puck off me, and it knocked me sideways. I went feet first into the boards and my knee exploded completely. It was a fluke, a complete fluke. I’ve done the same thing hundreds of times, hell probably even thousands of times before, and I’d never been injured. And yet this time, it happened. There’s video of it on the internet. I was on the ground, clutching my knee. And it was funny, despite the ridiculous amount of pain I was in, pain like nothing I had ever felt before in my life, what absolutely killed me was the fact that I knew my game was over. I wasn’t going to get to play in game 7. I wasn’t going to have the chance to win the Stanley Cup for my team. I had worked my whole life for this moment, and two minutes in that moment was taken away.”

Daniel was calmer now, noticeably calmer. He came and sat back down on the bench next to me, and I said nothing, but took his hand in mine.

“I tried to get back up. The trainers, they were there. They had come out right away. I remembered trying to get back up, and everyone telling me to stay down. ‘I need to play. I need to fucking play,’ I remember saying. I wanted to play, more than anything. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t put any weight on my knee at all. It was the worst feeling on the planet, knowing that it was gone. My opportunity was gone. That game was going to be played, and I wasn’t going to be involved in it.”

My heart absolutely ached for Daniel as he told me his story.
I could only imagine the heartbreak he must have felt.