Page 92 of Penalty to the Heart

“I told you that would happen!” I shout back. “I told you how volatile he was. How frail and lost he is. Against my better judgment, I confided in you and warned you that this might happen. You don’t just snap your fingers and get better, Trent. That’s not what therapy is. These things take time.”

“Yes, well, time is a commodity that Caleb no longer has. We are just a couple of games away from winning the Eastern Conference and, after that, the Stanley Cup. How could I, in good conscience, let just one player ruin our chances because I felt sorry for him?”

“Caleb doesn’t need your pity, Trent. What he needed was your support.”

“Well, he’ll just have to find it somewhere else.”

“Is that so? Where, pray tell, since you seem to have all the answers.”

“You. He can depend on you.”

My chest feels like a boulder just smashed into it.

“On me? That’s your answer?” I shake my head, astounded that he expects me to clean up after him.

“You are still his doctor, Roxanne,” Trent starts, his voice no longer holding that authoritarian hint. “And by the way you barged into my office to tear me a new one, tells me you’re more than invested in his well-being. That alone tells me that Caleb still has a shot out of the chaos he’s created for himself and a chance to play on the team again. You wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Don’t even try to manipulate me with flattery,” I scoff before standing by his side, facing the cityscape. “It won’t work. I’m still too angry at you.”

“Fair enough. Be angry with me all you want. Lord knows my girlfriend is.” He gives a rueful chuckle at his own expense. “All I need you to do is not take your eye off the ball. If anyone can pull the kid from that deep hole he’s dug for himself, it’s you. When he’s proven himself not to be a liability anymore, I’ll deal with Preston.”

“And what if I can’t?” I mutter, a sense of uneasiness starting to claw inside me.

Trent frowns.

“Then I’m afraid Preston will sell him off to another team. And there won’t be a thing I can do to stop him.”

It’s with Trent’s foreboding threat still ringing in my ears that I decide to walk back to my office instead of taking an Uber or taxi. I do my best thinking when I’m walking, but as much as I try to come up with a solution for Caleb’s problems, I fear that I don’t have one.

Trent is right.

In Caleb’s quest for self-sabotage, he made himself too much of a liability.

Putting his whole future into question.

And worse still, he did it willingly.

I know Trent still holds out hope that, somehow, I will pull a miracle out of my hat and have Caleb doing a one-eighty.

But how can I help him when he hasn’t even shown up to any of our sessions?

When he doesn’t call or even send a simple text or email?

How can I be his saving grace when he refuses to see me?

And why am I hurt by his sudden absence?

When I finally arrive back at my office, the disparaging thoughts swirling through my mind evaporate into thin air after finding the man himself sitting in one of the chairs in the waiting lounge.

“Caleb?” I choke out, not believing my own eyes.

“Hi, Doc,” he says, forlorn, rising to his feet.

“I was starting to think you wouldn’t come back.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.” He bows his head, kicking the air in front of his foot. “I… um… wasn’t the best person to be around with last week. Thought I’d spare you.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

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