Page 27 of Game Misconduct
She’s here, in this city. Will she come to the games? Will I get to see her again? Fuck, just thinking about her has my heart pounding. I can’t decide if it’s anxiety, anticipation, or both. To distract myself, I reach for a Boston T-shirt and athletic shorts. My hands shake and I take a deep, centering breath to calm down, the way my sports psychologist taught me.
“You okay, man?” Gonzo mutters.
The room is filling up, so I appreciate his attempt to be discreet.
“Just getting in the zone.”
He musters a crooked grin. “This is only a baseline workout. Nothing to be worried about.”
Deep down, I know that… But the fact he’s trying to reassure me helps lift some of the weight off my chest.
Maybe this won’t be a terrible turn of events. Maybe being back in Boston isn’t the worst thing to happen to me.
Once I’m dressed, Gonzo and I head for the weight room, where a few guys are already in the middle of their workouts.
A woman with a short, blunt haircut gives me a nod as I approach. Her eyes narrow on my number, printed on my left pec, and she mouths the number fifty-two before she clears her throat and nods.
“Hey. Mitchell, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Her tinkling, melodic laugh echoes through the room. “Amelia is fine. I’m one of the physical therapists on staff. Go ahead and stretch, get warm, and we’ll run you through some mobility and weights tests. Gonzo, you too.”
My teammate gives her a fist bump, which she returns, and then jerks his head toward the mats.
We drop and begin our stretches, getting our bodies ready for the rigorous testing. Today they’ll be checking our conditioning levels and body-fat percentage, and then we meet with the team doctors for bloodwork and standards testing. It’s my least favorite part of the job, but it’s a requirement if we want to be on the ice, so I deal with it. Tomorrow, we start on-ice training. That’s the part that matters most.
After I’m warm, Amelia directs me to the treadmill, where I work up to a jog. A different trainer clocks my mile time, then leads me over to the weights section and has me perform my max output. Once Elsy’s wedding was over and dealt with, I did basically nothing this summer except work out and play golf. Oh, and drown in self-loathing. Can’t forget that.
According to the paper a trainer handed me, I have to check in at the lab before I see the medical doctor and report to the neurological team. That’s new. It makes sense, though, considering all the recent research about head trauma and CTE.
Immediately, my thoughts drift to that sticky Ohio summer day, when a pretty girl in a bar told me all about her research into concussions. I was deep in my feelings, and for a moment, she was my respite.
But then a flip switched, and Bex went cold, and in the blink of an eye, she was gone. No matter how many times I rack my brain, I can’t figure out what I did wrong, and it’s been driving me nuts.
Did I compliment her too much? Show her how much I loved her body too much? Was I too overeager? She got off—twice. I made sure of it.
Yet here we are.
Call me codependent or a people pleaser, but I don’t like when people dislike me. It’s like an itch under my skin that I can’t quite scratch.
Sweat drips from my temple, and I wipe it away, along with my thoughts, and follow instructions: go to the lab for a blood draw and full-body X-ray, then check in with the team doctor and go over my medical history. He’s got my records from New Orleans, and my agent sent over my injury packet, so it’s a matter of testing my range of motion and getting everything in writing, so when I inevitably get injured later on, they know what they’re dealing with for recovery expectations.
Let’s face it: at thirty-four, I’m past my prime and heading into decrepit range. Sooner or later, my joints will start failing even more than they already have, and I’ll be left unable to do my job and play hockey. The one thing that brings me joy. The one thing I have going for me.
Dr. Hudson—call me Doc, he says—is a kindly older gentleman, with white hair and a walrus mustache. He’s wearing a white coat over a team T-shirt and athletic pants, and as soon as we’re done, he wheels a little stool over and takes a seat.
“For your age, you’re not doing so bad,” he says, like that’s supposed to be a compliment. “We’ll get you on a performance plan and work on protecting your knees and back. Our PT team will make sure you stay healthy.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
He holds his hand out, and I stare at him for a second.
“I need to sign you off,” he says with a laugh.
Oh.
I hand him the paper, and he initials next to the “medical exam” box. I hadn’t even noticed the trainer and phlebotomist doing the same.
