Page 32 of Offside

This play had been going on for a while, and even my legs were getting tired, so I knew Landon’s had to be too. It had been our longest shift on the ice so far, but we were tied 3-3 with only five minutes left until we went into overtime.

It was a brutal fight to stay alive in this game.

Coach Banning kept not calling us off the ice, and it was wearing me down. My legs were on fire, and every breath I took felt like knives in my chest. I looked over to Landon, not out of insecurity that he wasn’t where he needed to be, but concern for how he was doing, too.

Like we were that in sync, he looked over to check on me, nodding once to me, only to have his skate hooked by one of Calgary’s players' sticks.

Landon toppled over to the ice, clutching at his leg and curling in on himself.

The whistle blew, and I headed straight over, kneeling to help peel him off the ice. He howled in pain, shoving an elbow at everyone around us to make them stop helping him.

There was a cardinal rule about getting an injury on the ice–if you could walk yourself off, you could come back.

If you couldn’t…

Trainers pushed us out of the way to help him, hauling him up and off the ice to look at him. Coach Banning called me off, sending in Jayden and Shane to finish out the game.

Landon and I weren’t really friends. We didn’t hang out or speak any more than when we were at practice or games, but he was my partner. I still knew him and felt bad about any player getting hurt, but my partner?

“Should go check on him,” Ash said over the roar of people, eyes still locked on the ice in case he had to go back out.

Ash was our goalie, and only in so we could have the man advantage to try and score.

“That would be weird–we’re not like friends or anything–”

“He’s your partner, man,” he went on, almost shouting to be heard over the people. “He’d go check on you.”

That was true…

Landon was a sportsmanlike guy, even if he was almost as reclusive as I was with other players. He tried more than I did, but still…

He would go check on me.

Nodding at Ash, I slid past everyone to head down the tunnel.

We had training rooms and medical rooms all over the place, but it wasn’t hard to find Landon–I just had to listen for the screaming. It was blood-curdling and almost made me stop to back out–he clearly didn’t care for visitors…but maybe he did.

When I got hurt at thirteen, I dislocated my shoulder. It hurt so bad, and getting it popped back in was worse, but looking over and seeing my mom was a comfort. She was there, along with a few of my teammates, and it did make me feel a little better.

Maybe it could make Landon feel marginally better.

Swallowing down the nerves, I continued on, poking my head into the room.

Landon was lying on the exam table, face scrunched and red, with his wrist in his mouth, biting. The medics were trying to get his gear off him without hurting him, but it clearly wasn’t going so well.

They’d only managed to get his skates, socks, and shin guards off.

One of the medics had his hands against the leg, lifting it gently to roll up his pant leg, and my blood went cold.

Landon didn’t shower with us.

Landon was always first into the locker room and changed well before all of us. I used to think that was just a privacy thing.

I didn’t really know anymore.

My legs started carrying me deeper into the room, forcing my eyes to focus on the water-colored ink scribbled along his leg–ink I knew very well.

Ink I saw every night.