Max
The voice was soft but insistent, calling my name, the light so bright I shoved it away. At least, I thought I did, but I couldn’t feel my hand connecting with anything, and I hurt. Everywhere.
“He’s waking up,” that voice said, and there was relief in the tone. There was nothing but quiet. What had happened to the roar of the crowd, the shouting, the celebration? Where had it gone?
“Hey, Max?”
That was Ben’s voice, and I wanted to say something. What happened? Why am I warm? My head hurts.
None of it happened, and I was tired. I closed my eyes again. A nap would help.
The nap left me feeling sick. At least I thought it was the nap. Someone held my head when I was sick. I heard Ben’s voice, and I focused on him completely.
Ben? I asked, but the words weren’t coming. Ben, I love you. What happened?
The light lessened, the pain in my head with it, and I wasn’t feeling sick. That was the appraisal of my situation when I next opened my eyes.
“Hey,” Ben said to me immediately.
“Wh’appen?” I managed, and this time the words worked.
“You had a bleed,” Ben said, softly and without explanation.
Shit. I couldn’t have. I’d believed in the positives. Why had it gone wrong?
“It wasn’t a major bleed, but Doc Warner was here, and he… It’s too complicated, but you’re okay. You’re going to be okay. The fire, the stress, the game, the hit you got from that D-man, the pressure of the final, the win…the Doctor thinks it was enough to bring this on. It wasn’t a stroke, just a small bleed. You made the papers—collapsing at the final was kinda dramatic.”
I wanted him to stop talking, I could hear the fear in his voice, and I wanted to address that.
“I love you,” I managed to say, my tongue thick, my words a little slurred. He gripped my hand, then he kissed me. I felt his touch, I responded, and I felt his kiss.
I wasn’t broken. I could get back from this.
I was in the hospital for three days, mostly under observation, and after day one I was feeling good enough to get out of there. By day two, I was irritable. Ben gave me news about the shelter, showed me pictures, told me about donations and the puppies moving back and how Stan and Erik had taken two of the labs and a crossbreed no one could tell what it was at all. Apparently, it was so tiny it could sit in Stan’s hand, and had made friends with his cat.
“So much for Stan wanting a guard dog,” Ben finished.
“I want to go home,” I announced, as if I hadn’t been listening to what he said at all.
“Westy said he’s checked in on your apartment—”
“No,” I interrupted, “your place, our home.”
I thought he might cry then, and I squeezed his hand. “I love you.”
He kissed my forehead gently. “And I love you.”
The doctor was blunt and to the point. I’d experienced a small bleed, nothing too dramatic, and he’d shut it down, and that was probably the last of it now. The weakness he’d never been able to pinpoint had exposed itself horribly, and that was the end of things. The positive percentage I had to cling on was higher, apparently. Ben seemed relieved, but at no point in the explanation did he let go of my hand, not once.
I had my moment in the spotlight. Ben kept the paper—Stanley Cup Champion Collapses on Ice at Final—and had links to YouTube videos of the moment I’d collapsed. All I could think was I’d gone to the ice as gracelessly as if I’d been punched out. It was embarrassing.
The third day was going home day, Ben’s aunts fussing, most of the team waiting at the small house.
Right in the middle of the tiny front room sat the thing I’d been fighting for. The Cup.
We took photos, alone, with the team, but the best bit was when they went and I was left with Ben.
Just as it should be.