Dreams_A sweet hockey romance

by Michelle MacQueen

  A new line was put in and Josh stepped through the small door before scooting in next to Mack on the bench.

  “What was that, Josher?” he asked, nudging his shoulder. “You had that guy.”

  “Sorry, Man.”

  “Don’t apologize, Dude. It isn’t the first time you’ve screwed up a play I know you could make in your sleep.”

  “Uh, thanks?”

  The horn sounded, ending the first period with the teams tied at zero.

  Josh removed his helmet as he followed his teammates down the hall to the locker room, running a hand through his sweaty hair.

  Mack pulled him aside. “You’d tell me if something was wrong?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “You don’t look good, Josh.”

  “I know I don’t have this pretty face,” Josh laughed, trying to ease the tension. “But it just gets you in more trouble than it’s worth.” He slapped the side of Mack’s face jokingly.

  Mack swatted his hand away. “I’m not kidding, Dude.”

  “For once.”

  “You look like you’re about to keel over.”

  “I’m just not feeling great,” Josh finally admitted. “I’ll be fine. I want to finish the game.”

  “Don’t be a dumbass.” He paused. “If it gets worse, tell Coach.”

  “Sure thing, Boss.” Josh saluted, and Mack finally grinned. He slung his arm over Josh’s shoulders and they joined the team.

  They re-entered the ice to a chorus of cheers. Josh scanned the crowd until he found the right section and the girl he was looking for. She didn’t take her eyes off him until he looked back towards the guys.

  “You ready?” Mack clapped him on the back.

  “Yeah,” Josh said. “Let’s do this.”

  His skates sliced through the ice as he picked up speed. The Penguins had the puck, but not for long. Glancing quickly at Mack, he barely caught the side of his mouth turning up into a smile, and knew exactly what his friend was thinking.

  Josh may not have the skill of a first-liner, but the way he could read Mack and vice versa put him there. He pumped his legs, not slowing until he was closer. Mack tied up the Penguin along the boards, trapping the puck between them. Josh dropped his shoulder and propelled himself into the other man. A clean hit. The glass wobbled back and forth from the impact, and a roar came from the crowd. The Penguin shook his head in a momentary daze as Mack took off on a breakaway. The goalie didn’t stand a chance, and the Jackets were up 1-0.

  They celebrated, and then it was back to business. Now they had a lead to protect, changing the game entirely. Josh was sent back out a few shifts later and immediately took off to where Zak had two Penguins trapping him in the corner with the puck.

  He suddenly felt like he was seeing them, but they were far away. The sounds from the arena faded into the background, giving way to a loud pulse in his ears. It sped up, and he stumbled before righting himself. His name was yelled over the noise. Somebody - Mack - was asking what he was doing. He looked up and Zak was no longer in front of him. The play moved on to another area of the ice.

  A tingling started in his fingertips and then his hands grew weak, his stick clattering to the ice as a result. Unable to think, the only thing he felt was sheer terror as his legs gave out and he fell head-first into the boards, the arena disappearing into the blackness.

  Taylor let out a strangled cry as her heart thumped painfully against her ribs. The image on the Jumbotron zoomed in, revealing the back of the player that was collapsed on the ice. A million thoughts ran through her mind and she couldn’t focus on just one. His number was visible. Josh’s number, but she suddenly wasn’t in Columbus anymore.

  The Portland arena rose up around her and another boy she’d loved was in a heap collapsed on the ice, his captain, Garret, freaking out and screaming for help. Garret looked up at them, tears streaming down his own cheeks. He wasn’t even trying to hide it.

  Taylor’s dad, Coach Scott, sprinted across the ice as fast as he could. The minutes ticked by agonizingly slow. Danny was on the stretcher as they shocked him again and again. Taylor didn’t know how much time had passed before Garret skated towards them and put his hand against the glass. Taylor mimicked him with held breath. The tears never stopped flowing as the cracks formed in her heart.

  Garret shook his head almost imperceptibly. He hunched his shoulders in utter defeat as Taylor collapsed back into her seat with a final shattering in her chest.

  “Taylor, honey.” Her mom’s voice brought her back to the present as she felt a hand squeeze her shoulder.

  She felt her face, and the tears were very real.

  “Oh, God. No no no no,” she whispered.

  It was all so similar. Josh on the ice. His best friend at his side yelling for help. Her dad running towards them with the trainers and paramedics.

  She lurched to her feet when she saw Mack and Zak helping Josh up. When he gave a small wave, she let out a whimpering sob.

  It was in that moment she knew. She was in love with Josh, and she wished she wasn’t.

  When Josh regained consciousness, he was still on the ice, laying on his back looking up into the worried faces surrounding him. Mack gave him a weak smile before glancing behind him at the paramedics pushing a stretcher towards them.

  Josh wanted to tell them he was okay. He wanted to say he could get off the ice under his own will, but he couldn’t find the words, and there wouldn’t have been much truth in them anyways. He tried to sit up, but the team’s trainer put a hand on his chest to keep him down.

  “Not yet, Son,” he said.

  He was asked a number of questions to which he either nodded or shook his head.

  The arena was eerily quiet, with 17,000 people waiting to see what was going to happen.

  Feeling was coming back into his heavy limbs, but he was exhausted. The paramedics lowered the stretcher and started to try to lift him onto it.

  “I want to skate,” Josh finally forced out.

  “Listen to the paramedics, Walker,” Coach Peterson ordered. Josh didn’t know when he’d come onto the ice.

  “I can do it,” he urged. “I just need help up.”

  Coach looked to the medic who nodded slowly. “Fine. But you’re going straight to the hospital. When you pass out on my ice, you do what I say.” He gestured to Mack and Zak, who were still on the ice. “Help him up.”

  They each grabbed him underneath the arms to help him. The crowd went crazy as he got his feet under him. Acknowledging them with a small wave, he let his teammates push him across the ice. Both teams were standing at their benches, tapping their sticks on the boards in front of them while he made his way down the hall.

  “We’re not going to yell at you right now, because you just scared the shit out of us.” Mack glanced at Zak who was staying very quiet. “But, dude, I knew something was wrong, and you lied to me.”

  The paramedics joined them in the locker room as soon as Josh finished throwing on some clothes.

  Mack hung his head, shaking it back and forth before leaving to re-join the team.

  An ambulance waited outside, and Josh had no choice but to get in it. He could walk on his own now, but that was the extent of his recovery. His nerves were completely fried, and the moment right before his head hit the boards played on a loop in his mind. The moment when he realized he’d waited too long.

  All he knew was that something was wrong. That something had been wrong for a long time now.

  Waiting. That’s what hospitals were known for, right? There was no in and out. It seemed that even arriving in an ambulance wouldn’t afford Josh the privilege of expediency. As soon as they determined he was non-emergent, he was shuffled off into a room and told a nurse would be with him soon.

  White walls. Tile floor. Freezing air. Yep, the place was depressing. He hadn’t spent much time in a hospital since Michaela’s car accident a couple years ago. That wasn’t something he liked to think about.

  Lean
ing on the bed, paper crinkling beneath his back, he closed his eyes. He saw the ice rising to meet him in those final moments, and his eyes popped open as he tried to catch his breath.

  He was desperate for something to take his mind off of it. Anything. He pulled his phone out hopefully, but that was crushed when he didn’t find any texts from Taylor. No calls either.

  Maybe she’s on her way, he told himself. His gut told him she wasn’t. She’d have seen him go down, and he knew it wasn’t the first time she’d seen something like that.

  “How stupid could I be?” he groaned.

  He’d told her he was fine. He’d told everyone that. It was a lie, and the worst part was that he knew it was a lie. He just wanted to play. He loved the game. That’s all there was to it.

  The internet inside the hospital was ridiculously slow, so he watched his phone, mesmerized by the swirling circle on the screen. Finally, it pulled up NHL.com. Tapping his finger on the icon for the game, he sighed when he saw they’d just started overtime.

  The clock wound down, the seconds streaming by as he stared at the score.

  “Yes!” Throwing his arms in the air, he snapped his head back and laughed when he saw the score change and it go from OT to Final. He scrolled down and saw that Mack scored the winner. “Of course.” He’d give anything to be in that locker room right now with his team, celebrating. He’d just have to get this squared away and miss as few games as possible. It was torture being on the sidelines.

  There was a knock on the door and seconds later, a nurse opened it. He took Josh’s vitals and explained to him that the doctor wanted to run some tests. He hadn’t met the doctor yet, but that didn’t bother him. He just wanted to get out of there and go find Taylor.

  A few tests and an hour later, he was led back to his room, where Mack was waiting with Coach Peterson and Coach Scott.

  “Good win,” Josh smiled at the three very serious looking men. They definitely didn’t look like they’d just won a hockey game.

  “Have a seat, Walker,” Coach Peterson said, closing the door for privacy.

  Josh obeyed and looked up, suddenly feeling like he was in the doghouse for something he didn’t know he did.

  “We need you to be honest with us,” Coach Scott said.

  “No more bullshitting.” Mack shut up after sharp looks from each coach.

  Josh wiped his sweaty hands on his hospital gown and nodded, his eyes trained on the ground.

  “How long has this been going on?” Coach Scott asked.

  “How long have you been lying to me?” Mack’s face was growing redder by the second.

  “Mack,” Coach Peterson snapped. “Go wait with the rest of the guys.”

  “Rest of the guys?” Josh asked as Mack glared at him once more before throwing the door open and stomping out.

  “A few of the guys from the team are in the waiting room,” Coach Peterson clarified.

  “I’ll bet the hospital is loving that,” Josh snorted. He knew how his teammates could be. Loud. Obnoxious.

  “Son.” Coach Scott put a firm hand on his shoulder. “Mack said you weren’t feeling well earlier. Tell us, how long?”

  Josh blew out through his teeth, but before he could answer, a woman in a bright white lab coat stood in the door that Mack had left open.

  “I’d like to know that myself,” she said, flipping through the papers on her clipboard before finally looking up. She smiled, revealing perfect teeth, but then let it drop as she glanced back down at her papers. “Hello, Mr. Walker, I’m Doctor Johnson. I expect full honesty from all of my patients. So…” she stopped expectantly.

  Josh sighed, knowing how much of an idiot he was about to reveal himself to be. “My first episode was about a year and a half ago, during summer training.”

  Coach Peterson stood shaking his head while Coach Scott just opened his mouth in shock before closing it again.

  Doctor Johnson didn’t miss a beat. “And by episode, you mean what exactly?”

  “Waves of extreme dizziness. Pounding heart. Blurry vision. I just chalked it up to fatigue.”

  “Well,” she said. “It most certainly was not fatigue. How often have you experienced these episodes?”

  “They were rare at first, but more frequent lately.”

  She nodded and made a note before turning to the two coaches, who still stood in silent shock. “Why don’t you go get some coffee? I need to speak with my patient.”

  When they were gone, she shut the door and then wheeled a stool towards him. She sat down, crossed her legs, and set the clipboard on the table nearby.

  “I’m going to be frank with you.” She leaned forward, her eyes softening. “You’ve been very lucky thus far. Playing hockey with your condition is very dangerous. Young players have died trying.”

  That shook him. “Just tell me what’s wrong with me.”

  “You have something called ventricular tachycardia.” She shifted in her seat before continuing. “I’ll explain it the best I can. The bottom chambers of your heart are called the ventricles. They fill will blood that is then pumped to the rest of the body. When the electrical impulses that control your heartbeat are disrupted, causing it to speed up, the ventricles don’t have enough time to fill with blood.”

  “So, the rest of my body doesn’t get enough blood?” he asked.

  “Exactly.”

  “How long until I can get this fixed and get back to the game?” he asked. “I’d hate to miss the playoffs.”

  “Josh,” she said before pausing for a long, drawn out moment. “There isn’t some magical cure for this. You can’t play.”

  “What?” he sputtered. “But…” He stopped, unsure what he could say to convince her. He had to play. He just had to.

  “What I’ve just told you only explains the episodes. It’s most likely caused by an underlying heart condition. From your tests, my money is on hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, but I need to do some more tests.”

  He didn’t even ask what that condition was. His brain was too overloaded to take in anything else. But, she didn’t stop. She had to twist the dagger one more time.

  “If you step onto that ice again, you could die.”

  Words clogged in the back of his throat as they sat in silence for a moment longer.

  “I want to keep you until morning for observation,” she said quietly. “We’ll get you out of the emergency room and up onto a different floor soon.”

  With one more pat on his shoulder, she stood, flattening the crease in her lab coat with the palms of her hands. “Would you like me to get someone from the waiting room for you?”

  “No,” he said, leaning back. “I just… can’t.”

  She nodded in understanding before leaving him to the silence of his thoughts. Through all the big words she’d thrown out, the only ones he truly heard were “You can’t play.”

  Was this how his dream ended? Sitting in a hospital gown by himself after lying to everyone for months, without even his girl by his side?

  Chapter Nineteen

  Taylor hadn’t stayed for the rest of the game. As soon as she could, she wound her way through the arena and out to the parking garage. Her mom and Evie tried to come with her to make sure she was okay, but she just wanted to be alone. They thought she was headed to the hospital. She should have been going there. If she was a better person, she would have. Instead, she selfishly went back to her dorm. Abigail wasn’t there, so she was able to shut the door and block out the world.

  Taylor tossed her coat and purse to the side as she leaned up against the solid door and slid her back down it until her butt hit the floor. Huge, ugly sobs came out of her small mouth as her chest heaved painfully. She clutched at the hem of her shirt and angrily kicked her shoes off, flinging them across the room.

  It was a wonder she drove at all, let alone across the city to get home. She thought she’d be cried out by now, that her eyes couldn’t possibly hold any more tears after months and months of it. She wasn’t crying f
or Danny anymore, that was something. No, this was one hundred percent Josh. When he went down on that ice, she didn’t expect him to get back up. She knew that was morbid. She knew she needed more faith than that. But, she was operating off experience here.

  Danny’s death had taught her that when something went wrong, it went really really wrong.

  She should have known something was up with Josh. That day at the river stuck in her mind. He’d promised her he was okay.

  Her mind took a turn into anger even though she knew that wasn’t fair. He was lying in a hospital bed, maybe alone. He was probably more scared than she was about what happened. She should be there. She knew that, but rationality wasn’t home. It didn’t exist behind a veil of tears.

  She crawled across her floor and then climbed into bed, sinking into the mattress, falling asleep atop a pillow that was damp with tears.

  A fist pounded on her door a few hours later, waking her from a fitful sleep. She groggily got to her feet and pulled it open.

  Her dad instantly pulled her close and wrapped her in a tight hug. His eyes scanned her face, taking in her red rimmed eyes and streaked makeup.

  “Sweetheart,” he breathed, resting his chin on top of her head.

  “Dad,” she cried. “I don’t…” the rest of the words didn’t come.

  “Shhh, it’s okay. Everything is going to be just fine.”

  She pulled away from him and hurriedly cleared her stuff off the desk chair so he could sit.

  “Have you…” she hesitated. “Did you see him?”

  He nodded, smiling sadly. “He’s fine. It’s a heart condition.”

  “Like Danny.” She thought she said it inaudibly, but his smile dropped, the pain of that time returning to his eyes. Her dad had loved Danny too. He loved all his players, but Danny was special. Just like Josh. She suddenly realized how her dad must have felt as he stood over Josh on the ice and looked down into his face. Did he have flashbacks too?