Page 1 of Cactus Heart
Levi
One Week Ago
You’ve done it this time, Rayburn. Your face is plastered all over the fucking NHL. Is this some sort of sick joke? A prank?? Did you get drunk and send out this email?
Why wouldn’t you have told me you were going to make that announcement? Where did this even come from? YOU ATTACHED THE PRESS TO IT TOO. This is a NIGHTMARE
LEVI FUCKING RAYBURN, ANSWER YOUR PHONE
Sorry, Robin. Need a break. Getting on a flight, I’ll text when I’m ready.
CALL ME NOW YOU JACKASS
I read the last text message from my agent, then pressed the button on the side of my phone until the screen turned black.
There.
Peace.
Finally.
I exhaled deeply as a weight lifted off my back, my shoulders dropping with relief.
In the last two hours alone, I’d had an avalanche of messages. Notifications for over three hundred unread texts and countless voicemails and emails cluttered my phone. I hadn’t even dared to check my social media accounts. My entire fucking career was up in flames, and I’d struck the match.
I was done.
Plain and simple.
Done.
At least for now.
When I started this career, I’d dreamed about being one of the outliers. Playing until I was fifty-two, making a shit ton of money off sponsorships and ads, and riding into my golden years like a damn king.
But I couldn’t do it anymore.
At thirty-six, my body felt like I was eighty. The countless injuries I’d had left me in pain all the time. There were some mornings I’d wake up and try a yoga class, only to find I could barely touch my toes. And I could deal with that part of it, but really, it was everything else that had pushed me too far.
The social media. The constant pressure of being perfect. My life being under a microscope. I didn’t even know myself anymore.
I was done with it all.
“Now boarding group one for Midland, Texas.”
I slung my backpack over my shoulder and winced as pain flared through my joints. I ignored the few glances from strangers around me, adjusting my face mask and keeping my eyes forward as I headed for the gate. I wouldn’t be able to breathe easy until I was driving toward the dusty little town I remembered fondly from my summers growing up.
Escaping to the middle of nowhere was the only thing that sounded good right now. I doubted anyone would remember me, aside from the Whynot family. Austin was my best friend in the summers I spent there, and we’d kept in touch after I officially moved up to Saint Paul, Minnesota to go for the league. Maybe it was sad, but I still considered him my best friend, even though we only caught up once a month or so.
My entire life had always been split between Texas and Minnesota until that point, so it felt right that I’d be going back to find some peace.
God.My agent was going to kill me. Robin had worked her ass off for me over the last decade, and I was flushing it all down the toilet by announcing I was out for the season—and probably every season after that. It was June and the drafts were coming up in a couple of weeks, so I’d let management know through email that they’d need to find another goaltender.
Yeah, it was shitty. Yeah, it was unprofessional. Yeah, I’d been on this team for years and we were at the height of a winning streak that was putting us up there with the best teams in the NHL.
But I was breaking apart like a puzzle smashed to the ground. I had missing pieces too. I wasn’t even agoodpuzzle.
The messages I’d glanced at were from my coach, my captain, my agent, and a few of the other players. All the rest pouring in had to be from every fucker who thought they had some sort of stake in my career or thought they knew me.
