Page 30 of Rookie Recovery

“No,” I said, finally finding my voice. “I can’t. I need to play. I … what will … I …”

I couldn’t comprehend the thought of not playing. I needed to play. I needed to stay here, in America, on this fucking team, playing the sport I was made to play. Not traded, or deported, or whatever would happen to me.

“Listen.” Jamie placed his hand on my upper arm. I wasn’t able to meet his eyes, so I stared at the point where our bodies made contact. Heat licked up my shoulder and down to my fingers. “You’ll get through this. I’ll explain everything to Turner—”

“No. Please don’t tell Coach—”

“Bowie, they won’t bench you for missing one teeny training camp, okay? I’ve seen you play. Nobody is benching you. You’re”—he shot a glance towards the doorway as though someone might be hanging around eavesdropping—”you’re one of the best players I’ve seen in … in my whole career. But we need to fix this now, before it ruins yours.”

I lifted my eyes to his.

“Please,” he said, his fingers digging into my tricep. I doubted he knew he was doing it.

After a few moments, I nodded.

Jamie mirrored my nod. “I’ll tell Turner today, and as soon as we get your test results, I’ll start work on your recovery programme.”

I had nothing to say. I wanted to cry, and I wanted to thank him for caring. For being the first person ever to put me before the game, before everyone’s expectations of me. Including mine.

But instead, I lay back on the couch, and rolled over onto my side. Ignoring the way my shoulder screamed its objections.

Chapter 5

Jamie

I couldn’t sleep.

Couldn’t stop seeing the broken look on Bowie’s face when Coach Turner had benched him.

Torn rotator cuff, I’d said. And then I’d unpacked a monologue of detailed stretches, exercises, massagework, and ice-heat routines into the void between my mouth and their ears while they stared.

He should be off the ice for the next several weeks, I’d finished. Rest. No skating.

Those words echoed in my head on repeat.

Because fuck.

I knew how hard they hit. Knew the terror of wondering if your dream was about to get washed down the drain, before your eyes. Rinsed right out of your fingers. And you couldn’t risk that, not when you were so close. All you needed to do was reach out and grasp what was in front of you, injury be damned. If you were just a little stronger, fought a little bit harder …

That was how your career ended. And that was what I wouldn’t let happen to Bowie. Not with talent like his, with a future that bright.

Still, I couldn’t stop feeling guilty about it. Even though I’d done the right thing by telling Turner, the remorse left me raw. It shouldn’t. It really fucking shouldn’t.

If anything, I was saving his career. With the proper treatment plan—rest, mobility exercises, sports massages, stretches, ice, use of a shoulder brace—he’d be back playing in no time.

The alternative was worsening the injury. Followed by decades of cortisone injections. Or surgery, and then injections. If he rested, he’d recover without surgery, save his career—and twenty years of counting down the days between shots.

Or so I kept telling myself.

I rolled over in bed for the nine hundredth time before I gave up. It was barely six in the morning, the sun just cresting the city skyline to bathe the world beneath in faded grey light. But I needed to get out, and Brady was a good dog who never complained about a run, no matter the hour.

She kept pace with me in a loping canter as I tore down the sidewalk outside my apartment, headed south, away from the Downtown core.

My knee protested in a persistent, dull ache, but I knew it could handle a few miles, even at a brisk tilt. Some stretching afterwards, a little ice, and it’d be fine.

What wouldn’t be fine, I realized as the sheen and sparkle of Downtown softened into long rows of brick townhouses, was Bowie. He was probably awake, too, tossing and turning and wondering if he was about to be benched for a season or traded or wind up a free agent sans team. Career over before it had gotten started.

Because of me.

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