Cement Heart(18)

I’d heard people talk about a “stomach-sinking” feeling before, but until that moment, I’d never actually experienced it. But they were absolutely right. Inside I felt like I was falling, but in reality I wasn’t moving at all.

“What happened?” My voice cracked, exposing the sheer panic coursing through my system. “I hit him and then went for the puck. I didn’t even see what happened.”

“I’m not really sure.” Brody put his fingers on Mike’s neck, checking for a pulse.

Holy fuck. A Pulse. How can he not have a pulse?

“I saw you hit him,” he continued, “and then I watched the puck for about half a second before his body sliding across the ice caught my attention. He crashed into the boards pretty hard, Viper. I think he might have been out at that point already.”

I didn’t think it was possible for my stomach to sink any lower, but it did.

Just then, Louie and Pete came racing across the ice.

“What happened?” Pete yelled, sliding to a stop next to Mike. Just like Brody, he checked for a pulse on Mike’s wrist.

I swallowed hard and took a shaky breath. “I hit him.”

Brody’s eyes flew up to look at me, but I couldn’t look back at him, so I just stared at Mike, silently begging my friend to wake up, to talk, to move an arm… anything.

Pete moved around to the other side of him and shined a light in his eyes as we heard the faint sound of a siren getting louder and louder. It felt like an hour later but was probably only seconds before a small team of paramedics slid across the ice as carefully as they could.

“What happened here?” asked the first guy who got to us.

“I—”

“He fell,” Brody interrupted me. “We were playing a game of one on one and he got checked. I think it knocked him out, because when he slid into the boards, he was already pretty limp.”

“Okay. Move back, please,” he ordered.

The three of us backed up enough to allow them to circle around Mike and do what they needed to do. He still hadn’t moved. Why the fuck wasn’t he moving? I covered my face with my hands as my head spun.

Wake up, Mike. Please, wake the fuck up.

Brody put a hand on my shoulder and leaned in close. “Relax. He’ll be okay.”

The loud clank of the wheels of a stretcher hitting the ice echoed through the arena and pulled me out of my own head and back to reality. One paramedic was pushing it while another carried a neck brace and a backboard.

A neck brace.

A backboard.

Please, God, don’t let him be paralyzed. Holy fuck. Please.

They worked quickly but carefully, placing the brace around Mike’s neck and rolling him onto the backboard, where they secured him tightly.

“On three… one, two, three.” The paramedics worked together to lift him onto the stretcher and made their way across the ice, toward the tunnel.

Pete turned to the three of us and sighed, running his hands through his hair. “I’m gonna follow the ambulance to the hospital. Does anyone know how to get ahold of his wife?”

“I’ll call Michelle,” Brody announced before turning to me. “Are you going to the hospital?”

I bit down hard, clenching my jaw.

Do. Not. Cry.

“That’s the stupidest fucking thing you’ve ever asked me,” I snapped and skated ahead of them toward the exit.

My vision was blurry, everything just slightly out of focus. My mind was racing with the worst scenarios possible, and a permanent lump that I couldn’t swallow was lodged in my throat as I made my way across the ice toward the tunnel. Only one thing was bright and in focus.

That fucking pink tutu.





BRODY AND I drove the whole way to the hospital in silence. I stared out the window at nothing in particular, but my peripheral vision kept catching Brody look over at me.

Finally, as we pulled into the hospital parking lot, he sighed. “Listen, obviously this whole situation sucks, but let’s not freak out until we know there’s something to freak out about, okay?”

Too late.

“Yep,” I answered coldly.

We walked into the emergency room, and Pete was already there.

“Hey,” Brody said to him stiffly as we walked up. It was clear none of us wanted to be there. “Any news?”

Pete grabbed a tissue from a box on the desk and wiped his eyes. My heart sank again.

Why is he crying? What the fuck is going on?

“Not really.” He shook his head. “They’re prepping him for surgery right now. Did you call his wife?”

“Surgery?” Brody panicked. “What kind of surgery?”

Pete cleared his throat and took a deep breath, looking back and forth between Brody and me. “Apparently he had a seizure and started puking uncontrollably in the ambulance, so they did a CT scan immediately, and he has bleeding around his brain.”