Page 87 of Body Check

I feel his rumble of appreciation reverberate in his chest, and then again as he asks, “What’s up first on the agenda?”

If I listen hard enough, I can hear the ocean waves crashing on the beach. It calls to me like no other, probably from having grown up in a middle of a state where muddy rivers were our only water source.

“To the Cliff Walk.”

30

Jackson

Holly and I spend hours along Newport’s famous Cliff Walk, a stony width of space that winds along the city’s rocky coastline, offering views of the Atlantic Ocean on one side and Newport’s infamously grandiose mansions on the other.

The farther we walk, the more natural our conversation becomes.

I tease her about being able to see her bright pink sneakers from outer space.

She leaps on my back, arms clinging to me like a hundred-pound-and-change monkey, just to throw me off guard when I stop and stare too long at a seagull attacking a poor woman down on the beach while he aims for her lunch.

I hold Holly like that, her arms hooked around my neck, her legs wrapped around my hips, for far longer than necessary.

She nips my left shoulder. “Put me down.”

I readjust her weight and keep trudging along the elevated path. During team workouts, I bench-press double her weight. I could go miles like this and not even lose my breath. “Your view is better on my back. You can see over the stone wall now.”

“Jerk,” she mutters, but I can hear the smile in her voice, “I’m notthatshort.”

Yeah, she is. “You’re what? Five-two?”

“Subtract an inch, maybe.”

“Like I said, short.” The walls of the Cliff Walk come up to my waist, but Holly makes me feel like I’m a teenager on some mission to prove I’m as tough as the Hulk, sans the green body.

But just as Bruce Banner is stuck in the Hulk’s body, my brain is locked inside my skull—whatever the hell that’ll do for me if the migraines worsen and Dr. Mebowitz lays down the law. In coming to Newport this weekend, I knew right away that telling Holly about the possible CTE was a necessity.

You can’t build a relationship without all the facts, and the fact of the matter is, I don’t know where my future leads. All I know is that I need her in it.

I don’t know what kind of life I can offer.

That’s the kicker, isn’t it?

I’m not some average Joe with a normal nine-to-five job that requires sitting at a desk, day in and day out. I’m no soldier, no cop or fireman, but every time I step out onto the ice, I risk another chunk of my soul to see the lamps light and to hear the crowds cheering us on—all at the expense of doing so much harm to my body that migraines might one day be the least of my worries.

The night I shared her bed in D.C., I spent hours on the internet after she fell asleep. Hours of reading account after account of NFL players and hockey players—some I personally knew—who experienced all the same symptoms that I do, only to have a brain aneurism or a stroke or begin to lose their precious memories.

I watched a fellow NHL player sit in front of a camera, tears coating his lashes, and announce to the world that if he’d ever been told how much his brain would suffer from the repetitive head trauma, he never would have picked up a pair of skates.

Behind my dark-tinted aviators, my lids slam shut. Slowing to a halt, I let Holly’s body slide down the length of mine, until her feet touch the stone walkway. I can’t un-hear the tremor in his voice. Can’t un-see the anger in his gaze. I wish I could, but I can’t.

I’m already itching to get back on the ice next Tuesday and win against the Tampa Bay Lightning on our home turf.

It’s fucked up, all of it.

“I remember your very first game with the Bruins.”

I blink my eyes open. Holly’s leaning on the stone balustrade, her eyes on the ocean. She looks younger than thirty-two, dressed as she is now: knee-length shorts, those bright pink shoes of hers, a faded Cornell T-shirt that hugs her trim back and reveals the twin dimples at the base of her spine.

So damn beautiful.

Unable to stay away, I move in beside her and mimic her pose. “It was a shit show.”

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