Page 8 of Toeing the Line

Aly nods, and while Caro changes into PJs we open another bottle of tequila. But the text has me on my feet.

“What’s wrong?”

“Freddy’s injured. It sounds serious.” And knowing Zeke, he’s freaking out. He and Freddy went from college to the pros together. And if what he’s saying is accurate, he saw his closest teammate’s tibia on the ice tonight.

“How serious?” Caro asks. Aly’s expression is serious.

“Zeke’s with him at OHSU. Sounds like a compound fracture.”

The girls are quiet. Zeke is my best friend, and while I know he’d never ask me to go back to the hospital, I can sense that he needs me.

“I need to go,” I say.

“I’ll call you a car,” Caro says. She does just that and Aly brews coffee as I get dressed. She passes two travel mugs to me as I step into my favorite leopard-print ballet flats.

“I found the video of it,” Caro says. “You might not want to watch this,” she says to Aly.

Aly takes a step back and doesn’t argue. She queues it up. I watch what appears to be chaos on the ice as Pasha passes the puck to Freddy, who then passes it to Zeke—and then Zeke scores! But the excitement at watching my best friend score a goal is quickly tempered as I realize just what happened.

Freddy knocked the puck over to him to get it out of the way of the oncoming assault. In the replay I can see that his leg bends in exactly the wrong direction, even through his pads. He’s going to need surgery.

But Zeke? The guy who thinks his entire existence is to protect his teammates? Who only scored because he took his eye off his teammates in that moment—a moment that has his longtime teammate and close friend riding in an ambulance? There’s no surgery to fix what I’m sure he’s feeling right now.

“Keep us posted?” Aly says, giving me a little squeeze as the car pulls up in front of the house.

I nod at them as I shoot Zeke a text to let him know I’m on my way. Something tells me that no matter how fast this driver goes, I won’t be able to get to his side fast enough.

4

zeke

I’d rather smelllike a pig than a hospital. Hospitals have that smell to them. I’ll have to wash my clothes as soon as I get home. And Dale will thank me for it. That potbelly pig has worked hard to hone his earthy musk in the corner of my living room. And I respect hard work.

I stare at my phone, reading Faye’s last text again.

FAYE: He’s in good hands. I’m on my way.

I hate that she’s giving up her Friday night to come back to the hospital. But selfishly, she can’t get here fast enough.

While Freddy was brought to the Oregon Health and Sciences University Hospital in an ambulance, Pasha stuck it out with me. After a hit like—both against Freddy and mine into the back of Boston’s net—I had to do media. It was brutal, but I got through it. Then he told me I’d better take my time showering. We’d gotten word that Freddy was taken straight to surgery and the last thing he needed, coming out of anesthesia, was to come face to face with my post-game swamp ass.

Before I left the locker room, I called his parents in San Diego and promised I’d keep them posted once I got there. And yet, once I got here, I didn’t want to be alone. So I texted Faye. She knows me better than anyone, and maybe it’s immature or stupid, but I knew that I wouldn’t have to ask her to come for her to know I needed her to be here. She hates med school so much, I would never ask her to sit with me. And yet, I feel relief as another text from her comes through, telling me she’s crossing the Ross Island Bridge. I text back Freddy’s room number as the orderly knocks and opens it for me.

Freddy’s head rolls in my direction with a subtle sloppiness to it, but it does nothing to diminish his golden boy grin.

“Hey there, Coop,” Freddy says, his grin widening.

His leg is wrapped in a hard-covered splint, elevated in a sling that hangs from the ceiling. His temple has been stitched up, his blond hair is rumpled and I doubt it’s been washed since the game. His pupils are blown wide, leaving only a thin rim of blue. I’m pretty sure he’s only smiling courtesy of Portland’s finest morphine drip.

His room is already crowded with flowers and mylar balloons. A couple of stuffed ptarmigans sit in a chair next to the window overlooking the Willamette River below. I stand awkwardly at the end of the bed, not sure where to go.

“Come on, man, it can’t be as bad as that,” he says.

“Nah,brah,” I say, using Freddy’s favorite term of endearment against him. “I just forgot how ugly you are without the visor. I can’t be the first to tell you that you’ve got a face made for a helmet.”

He lifts his chin slightly as the laugh cuts from his chest. Truth be told, Freddy is probably the best-looking guy on our team. He’s also the most talented forward in the league at the moment. But looking at him right now, I don’t need to be a brilliant med student like Faye to know he’s not coming back quickly from that break.

“You just gonna stand there and stare?”

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