Blindsided

03 - Heartbreak

A/N: As usual, I'd love to hear all of your thoughts on the chapter and don't forget to vote at the end!

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Due to the somewhat complex terminology of hockey, I have included some definitions that some readers may not already know. If I miss any and you feel lost or are just curious, feel free to message me!

1: Breakaway - A breakaway is a situation in hockey in which the player with the puck has an advantage to skate with the puck. They either have no more than one defensive player between them and the goalie, or none at all. Breakaways are used to develop scoring opportunities for the team with the puck before the out-of-position defenders can catch them.

2: Flames - The Calgary Flames are a Canadian-based hockey team and are part of the National Hockey League (NHL). They are commonly referred to as 'The Flames'.

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A lot of things changed after that night. We were all still best friends, but the guys never slept over at my house anymore. My parents said that Jared wasn't allowed, so the rest of the guys didn't feel right staying over either. I understood where my parents were coming from, but I still felt guilty that things were changing.

Simon still stayed the night sometimes, but my mom made him sleep in the guest room. He would sneak into my room after she and my dad went to bed. We would talk about hockey and watch reruns on the ports channel until the sun came up.

Jared and I had been dating for a little over a year when another girl joined our hockey team. Her name was Cally Radovsky and I felt kind of threatened by her at first. She turned out to be an awesome person, so I got over it pretty quick. I had always felt jealous that the guys got to crank their music and party in their dressing room and I had to get dressed alone. Now I had someone to do that with too. Coach put us on the same line and for a month Cally, Alex, and I led the team in points.

Near the end of the season, we were playing a pretty tough team. Coach split Cally and I up whenever we played them so that we would have four guys on our line to protect us.

Cally was on a breakaway, everyone was screaming, and we were one goal from breaking the tie. As soon as she got into the other team's zone, their defense bodychecked her into the boards. Because I was on such an adrenaline rush, I couldn't hear anything besides the blood rushing through my head. But there wasn't anything else to hear because the entire arena had fell silent.

Because the team didn't have a female coach on the bench, I had to go with Coach to check her out. I couldn't breathe. There was something about the way that she was lying that scared the shit out of me. I didn't even hear her crying. We got to her and she was breathing, which was a good sign, but her eyes were closed. Nothing like this had ever happened before.  

Nothing ever happened to the guy that hit her, but Cally shattered her collarbone and had a major concussion. She didn't get to finish the year, and neither did I. My mom made up her mind that she wanted me to quit the moment she watched Cally being brought out on a stretcher. She refused to even let me go to practices.

I begged her. I cried for hours, for days. It felt like my eyes were always wet with tears. I did anything I could think of to convince her to let me play hockey with my friends again. She wouldn't budge. Every time I tried to talk to her about it, she'd tell me to think about Cally and the pain that she had to go through.

I had gone to visit her in the hospital after she got hurt, but it hurt her just as much as me to not get to finish the season. When she got out of the hospital, she stopped talking to me and avoided me if she saw me at school. I still went to all of the team's games, but in between periods I would go into the bathroom and cry. It hurt to watch my friends play the game without me.