Chapter 14
719words
Three Weeks Later
Pain. It was the only constant in my life now.
I sat on the locker room bench, gritting my teeth as Dr. Green wrapped the tape around my knee. His hands were sweaty and unsure. He pulled too tight, cutting off circulation.
"Ow! Watch it!" I snapped, jerking my leg back.
"Sorry, Mr. Sterling," Green stammered, dropping the roll of tape. "I'm just trying to stabilize the patella. The swelling is... significant."
"If you knew what you were doing, it wouldn't be swollen," I growled.
I looked down at my knee. It was the size of a grapefruit. Without Elena's nightly acupuncture sessions, the inflammation had returned with a vengeance. Without her custom herbal patches, the fluid buildup was constant.
I dry-swallowed two Percocets. It was my third dose today. Elena never let me take opioids before games; she said it dulled my reaction time.
But Elena wasn't here.
"You good, Cap?"
I looked up. Tyler, our rookie winger, was staring at me. He looked exhausted. His shoulder was taped up clumsily, limiting his range of motion.
"I'm fine," I lied. "Focus on the game. We need this win."
We didn't win.
We got slaughtered. 5-1 against the Devils. I missed three shots on goal because I couldn't pivot fast enough. Tyler dislocated his shoulder again in the second period and had to be carried off the ice screaming.
The locker room after the game was a funeral home.
"This is a disaster," Coach Miller yelled, pacing the room. "Five losses in a row! We are dropping out of the playoff spots! What is wrong with you people?"
"We're hurt, Coach," the goalie spoke up, rubbing his hip. "My hip flexor is locked up. Green gave me ibuprofen, but it's not working. Doc Vance used to fix this in ten minutes."
The mention of her name sucked the air out of the room.
"She's not here!" I shouted, slamming my stick against the locker. "Stop whining about her! She abandoned us! She abandoned you!"
The team looked at me. They didn't look convinced. They looked resentful.
I grabbed my bag and stormed out.
When I got home, the house was dark. Again.
"Sophia?" I called out, limping into the living room.
She was on the couch, watching a reality show, eating takeout sushi.
"You lost again," she said without looking up. "Twitter is saying you looked slow. Are you getting old, Liam?"
I felt a vein pop in my forehead. "My knee is shot, Sophia. And I'm hungry. Is there any food?"
"I ate the last roll," she shrugged. "Order something. Oh, and the private investigator called."
I froze. "What did he say?"
I had hired a PI two weeks ago. Elena had vanished. No digital footprint, no credit card usage. It was like she had been erased from the earth.
"He said he tracked a rental car to a private airfield in New Jersey," Sophia said, bored. "But the flight manifest was sealed. Private charter. He can't trace it."
"That's it?" I yelled. "I pay him five grand a week for 'I don't know'?"
"Don't yell at me," Sophia snapped, finally looking at me. "I'm carrying your child, remember? You're stressing the baby."
Always the baby. It was her shield for everything.
I sank onto the armchair, the pain in my knee throbbing in rhythm with my headache.
I pulled out my phone. I opened the gallery. I scrolled past hundreds of photos of me and Sophia to find the old ones. The ones I hadn't deleted.
Elena.
She was smiling in the photo, holding a bag of ice, wearing one of my oversized jerseys. She looked tired, but her eyes were full of love.
“I've got you, Liam. I'll always fix you.”
She had fixed me. She had made me a god on the ice. And I had treated her like a servant.
"Where are you?" I whispered to the screen.
I needed her. Marcus Kane was threatening to trade me. The press was speculating about my injury. My body was falling apart.
I didn't miss her love. I missed her utility. I missed the way she made my life easy.
"I'll find you," I muttered, closing my eyes. "And when I do, you're going to fix this mess. You have to."
