back under my gear. I’m laser focused on the game and killing it out here. On the ice, nothing matters but the game. I’m able to lose myself in the muscle memory and adrenaline of it all, the real world fading to the background for an hour.
Jeremy, Oiler, and Johnson are gelling, reading each other’s next move and not getting frustrated when our opponent gets the puck back.
Oiler steals the puck and flies up the ice on a breakaway, flinging the puck to Jeremy, who shoots on goal and the lamp lights up. The team is on their feet, whooping and hollering. They make their way off the ice with smiles on their faces, our first line taking over.
I slide to the end of the bench to give Jeremy room to drop down and he takes it, grabbing a water bottle and squirting some Gatorade into his mouth.
He lifts his glove covered hand to me and I fist bump him.
“Good shot.” I wink at him.
“I guess that cheeseburger and fries didn’t make me slow, huh?” He grins at me, his face red and sweaty.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” I deadpan and he chuckles, taking another drink of the sickly sweet liquid.
“Think your sister saw my breakaway?” Oiler smirks at me. Why the fuck did I tell them she came down to the game with a few of her friends? I lift a lip at him and he laughs, taking the Gatorade from Jeremy.
“Line change!” Coach hollers and I stand with Willis. The other guys come off the ice and we find our spots.
The puck is dropped and a big motherfucker races toward the blue line. I do my best to block him without interfering with the goalie’s view of the puck. The player slams into my chest and knocks me off my feet. On instinct, I put my hand out to catch myself, but fall on another player’s skate, wrenching my shoulder. Immediately there’s a pop and a dull, bone-deep throb.
The puck ends up back on the other side of the ice and Willis skates over to help me up. When I try to tuck the injured arm to my body, searing pain shoots through the muscles and I shout.
“Dude, you alright?” he asks when I give him my good hand and he pulls me up.
“No, I can’t move my arm.” I hiss through gritted teeth.
“Coach!” Willis yells. “Carmichael’s hurt!”
The refs blow whistles and the game is paused while I get off the ice and the ambulance staff come toward me.
He stays on my bad side to protect me until I’m at the bench in case anyone tries to fuck with me.
“What’s wrong?” Coach is looking at me expectantly.
“My shoulder popped,” I grit out. “I think it’s dislocated.” Jeremy stands, concern on his face, and pushes his way toward me.
“Fuck. Alright, get it checked out.”
For a second, I let the fear I feel show in my eyes before I shut it back down. This isn’t the most amount of pain I’ve been in, but it’s not a vacation either. Will I be able to come back tonight? Tomorrow? Did I break something? Tear something? How long will I be out? Will this fuck up my odds of being drafted?
Do I want it to?
I walk back toward the locker rooms to get looked at by one of the assistant coaches. The EMTs meet us and I tell them what happened. They ask me the normal questions like name, date, who’s president, and what happened.
“Pain, on a scale of one to ten with ten being the worst pain you can imagine.” A pretty black-haired woman with big brown eyes asks.
“I don’t know, like a three or four? It’s constant and doesn’t fucking tickle but I’ve had worse.”
“Alright, can you move your fingers?” I try to move my fingers, but they barely budge. The ache in my shoulder joint increases when I use the muscles. “Does that make the pain worse?” I nod at her question.
Sweat drips from my forehead from the adrenaline. This fucking sucks. It’s almost like a bone break, that bone-deep throb that just doesn’t let up. It’s not sharp enough to steal your breath, but zaps your energy because it won’t quit.
I’m told to sit on the gurney, so I do. My hand hangs off the edge between my legs.
“Do you feel like you’re bleeding? Did you hit your head or lose consciousness?” I shake my head no at her questions.
“I need to feel around the shoulder, okay? If it hurts too bad, let me know.” She tells me and I brace for the pain and for the physical contact. She slides her hand under my jersey and the shoulder pads to feel along my shoulder. I try not to flinch at the touch. She’s on the outside of my base layer but it still makes my skin crawl. Jeremy is the only one who can touch me. She finds a sensitive spot and I jerk back with a hiss.
“Shoulder deformity, probably dislocated. Let’s stabilize and load him up.” One of the crew gets an ice pack ready. “Are you on any medications, vitamins, or supplements?” she asks.
“No,” I grunt out as I swing my legs up onto the plastic mattress and wince as my arm is jostled. Once I’m settled, an ice pack is put on my shoulder and the woman is cutting the sleeves of the jersey and base layer to expose the crook of my elbow.
They take a quick heart rate and she gets an IV started in my good arm.
“We’re going to give him some pain meds,” she tells Assistant Coach Scott and we all head toward the ambulance. The woman is talking into her radio at her shoulder, updating the hospital on my condition, but I’m not paying attention because whatever she gave me is making my head swim a bit.
We get into the ambulance and head to the hospital.
She’s saying things like “No LOC, fifty mikes, and bp,” which means nothing to me.
I’ve never felt so light, like I’m floating for a minute.
No wonder people get addicted to this stuff. It feels like the softest, plushest fabric is wrapped around my brain. My shoulder hurts but I don’t care. I don’t care about anything but getting back to the ice. I don’t want to go to the damn hospital. Why can’t they just pop the damn shoulder back in? My father is going to be furious over this.
“Jesus, we didn’t give him that much fentanyl,” someone says, and it’s weird to have to focus on turning my head.
“I’mma sensitive guy,” I mumble, strangely aware of the movement of my lips. I feel weird but I’m still coherent.
Someone snorts and pats my knee but I don’t know who it was. It wasn’t Jeremy, I know that much.
Jeremy. He’s going to be worried. My boyfriend. I love him. He’s going to be worried. I wish I had my phone so I could send him a message for after the game. I doubt I’ll be back before the end of the game.
The IV in my arm is pushing cold liquid into my veins. I’m no longer sweating, thanks to the saline, but now I’m getting cold.
A shudder has goosebumps rising on my skin.
“Do you need a blanket?” The attendant in the back with me asks.
My eyes are closed against the bright light of the inside of the rig, but I lift my eyebrows and nod. A blanket is draped over me and for the rest of the ride, the assistant coach gives me the game play by play. Jeremy is struggling, I can tell by how he’s playing. He’s worried about me.
“Hey, can you call my sister?” I interrupt him.
“Sure, what’s the number?”
I spout out the number and he puts the phone between my good shoulder and ear. It rings a few times before a suspicious but worried Lily answers.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s me.” She sighs. “Pretty sure I dislocated my shoulder.”
“Are you okay? What hospital are you going to? I’ll meet you there.”
“No, no. Don’t come to the hospital. Watch the game and tell Oiler and Johnson they sucked.” I snort at myself. That’ll teach them to flirt with my sister.
“Are you crazy? I’m not sitting in the stands and watching the game while you go to the hospital. We’re already heading to the car.” She says something to someone she’s with. “What hospital, Preston?”
I look at Scott sitting next to me. “What hospital?”
The male EMT answers me, “Providence Memorial.”
“You get that?” I ask into the phone as we pull up to the hospital. “Don’t get into a car without Anthony and Mark.” Her driver and bodyguard are paid for this shit and if she takes an Uber, I’m going to kill her.
“Tony is right here,” she says, exasperated. I can practically see her rolling her eyes at me. “Mark is getting the car.”
“Hey, message Jeremy for me. I don’t have my phone.”
“You got it, I’ll see you in a few.” The line goes dead and I nod at Scott, “Thanks.”
“No problem.” He goes back to checking the game highlights.
At the hospital, a tall woman with brown hair and big black cat-eye shaped glasses approaches me and quickly introduces herself, “I’m Jessica, I’ll be your nurse tonight.” She asks me what happened, if I’m on any medications, height and weight, and why I’m there. All the normal shit.
I nod at her. Her in-charge confidence brings me some comfort. I feel safe with her, like if my father were to show up, she wouldn’t give in to his shit.
Father isn’t here.
As she’s talking to me, a few other staff members in scrubs come in. One short, thin man puts on gloves and has a pair of scissors. Looking at me he says, “I need to cut this off.”
I eye the scissors but nod, clenching my jaw. The man makes quick work of cutting up the center and down the sleeves to pull it off then pulls the Velcro straps to take the shoulder pads off. Once the pads are removed, he pulls on the base layer shirt and cuts that off too. I don’t miss the glances between the staff when they see the scars marring my chest. Luckily, my legs and most of my abdomen are covered by more pads, but my chest and arms are all full display.
“Hello.” a man in a white lab coat and scrubs comes in. “I’m Doctor Harris.” He shakes my hand, pauses at my chest, asks me why I’m here and what happened, then checks for neck, head, and back issues.
He tells the nurse to order some kind of pain med that I don’t hear because I’m too busy watching everyone around me. People are touching me and it’s making my fucking skin crawl. Whatever they gave me in the ambulance is wearing off, which is making me even more on edge.
My good hand starts tapping on my leg, needing something to do with the energy. The ache in my shoulder is almost enough to get all of my attention but I’ve had too much practice shoving down pain to focus on other things.
“Alright, Mister Carmichael,” The doctor says to me after pushing on my shoulder. “We’re going to need to do some moderate sedation so we can set this arm. We’ll have a respiratory therapist come in to monitor your breathing while we have you under, give you an amnesiac just in case, and pull that arm back into place.”
That all sounds terrifying.
“Yeah, sure whatever, just fix it so I can get out of here.” My eyes flitter between everyone in the room, not trusting anyone but Nurse Jessica. Why is she the exception?
Nurse Jessica comes back in with some paperwork for me to sign then injects something into my IV line. It’s amazing how fast it hits my system.
My body relaxes and I slump back onto the bed, no longer giving a shit about anything around me. The world spins, someone is talking to me, but I have no idea what is happening anymore.
“Man, I wish my father would give me meds. I bet I wouldn’t have nightmares.” Am I speaking? I don’t know.
My fingers feel along the ridges of scars on my chest. “Why did he have to cut me though? I was a good kid.”
Sticky circles are stuck all over my chest and connected to wires that lead to whatever machines they have around me by more people I don’t know. How many people are going to touch me? How many people are going to see the evidence of my torture? Of my embarrassment?
“Hey, are you related to Doctor Carmichael? The plastic surgeon?” The pretty lady sitting next to me asks.
“Doctor Andrew Carmichael is my father.” I say on an exhale. “He hates me.”
I close my eyes and wait for the doctor to come back with whatever other medications he said I would have. I don’t know how long I wait, it could have been five minutes, could have been an hour. There’s no sense of time when there’s pain medication in your system. What did they even give me? I’m sure they told me, but I don’t remember.
“Here we go.” A doctor comes in with a syringe and injects it into my IV line. “Count back from ten.”
“Ten, nine…”
