Page 52 of Released from the Sin Bin

“You don’t—” I stop when I see the doctor walking up the hall with our coach. “Yeah, if you can.”

Coach’s head is down. This doesn’t look good.

“Ms. Luger, can you wait for Ms. Tomlin outside?” he says once they come through the door to see me and Jocelyn waiting for my fate.

“Can she stay?” I hold her hand tight and pull her back toward me.

Coach eyes me for a few seconds, but then nods in agreement.

“Willa,” Dr. Stern, the resident doctor, pulls up his chair. “I asked Coach Higgins to come so we can discuss the results and the next steps. If you’d like, we can get your parents on the phone or video as well.”

This really isn’t good. He wouldn’t be offering to call my parents if it was good news. My heart slows in my chest and I’ve left my body. It’s not real. I’m floating above the room, watching it all play out.

“No, that’s ok.” I don’t even know how I make the words out, but getting my parents on the phone won’t change what the doctor is about to tell me. It’s not going to change these results.

My hand clutches onto Jocelyn as tight as I can to stop the shakes going through me.

It’s worse than I ever thought it could be. They told me different possibilities of what could happen and I didn’t want to believe it. With a sigh, the doctor holds down the report after reading it off without any emotion.

In layman’s terms; it hasn’t healed. The bones are still cracked and not fusing together correctly. Keywords I heard and know from his list of findings are; fractured, tear, multiple loose bodies, and deformity.

“You’re still in pain, aren’t you?” he asks, knowing I was lying before when I said I felt great.

The pain hasn’t gone away, but I’ve been doing everything to ignore it.

“The fracture is worse than we thought.” No. “It’s not aligned and not healing with the cast.” Why is this happening? “There are also a couple of bad tears in and around the Achilles tendon.”

He puts his hand on my thigh, seeing the streams of water running down my face.

“You need to have surgery.”

And there’s the kiss of death.

“We discussed the possibility, and I think the best option is the plate to fuse the bone. And we can use anchors and fiber tape to correct the tearing. We can wait, but that’ll just prolong—”

“How long?” My voice comes out with a gargled strain as Jocelyn rubs my back. “How long until I can skate again?”

Dr. Stern looks at Coach Higgins, then back at me.

“Earliest, I’d say, is three months. It’s likely that it’ll be longer until you’ll be able to skate well enough to play hockey.”

Coach Higgins shakes his head. Disappointment shoots out from him and slaps right into my gut. As much as I try, I can’t hold it back anymore as a loud sob bubbles up from my throat. My hands cover my face while I try to catch my breath.

This is it.

My season is over. My career is gone.

I had everything I worked so hard for and it’s all gone from one night. One horrible mistake I made to chase after a love I never had.

My life is over.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go?” Brianne asks again as she and the other Beta’s in my house get ready to leave for the first game back. Since most of the girls in our sorority are on the hockey team, the rest of the girls try to attend every game to cheer us on.

In return we try to make as many of the skating competitions as we can to support them.

I’m only five days out from surgery and although I’d love to go and cheer my team on, I’d be a burden and won’t last the entire game sitting in those seats. And who knows if I’m even still on the team. Coach hasn’t said a word yet.

“I’m sure. I need to keep this elevated and I can watch from home.” I motion to my ankle propped up on the couch.

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