MY HANDS ENCASED the hot cup of disgusting coffee as I sat in the back corner of the cafeteria by the window. It had only been fifteen minutes since I smashed that dickhead’s camera outside, and I already had three text messages sitting on my phone from Andy, unopened.
Brody rushed around the corner and peeked his head into the cafeteria, quickly scanning the room. He did a double take when he saw me and closed his eyes in relief before walking over.
“There you are.” He sighed as he dropped down into the seat across from me.
“Where else would I be?”
“Oh, gee, I don’t know… out front smashing cameras?” he said sarcastically.
I frowned at him. “How did you know about that already?”
He took his phone out of his pocket and set it on the table. “Andy texted me to hurry up and find you. Apparently some reporter from the Star Tribune tweeted that you knocked his camera out of his hand or something. There was a picture of it shattered on the ground.”
“Yeah, I knocked it out of his hand. Whoops,” I said dryly, taking a sip of the tar-like coffee. “Why did I buy this?” I stared down at the cup. “I don’t even like coffee.”
“Finkle,”—Brody leaned forward on the table and folded his hands in front of him—“are you okay? I mean, I know this whole thing has moved faster than lightning, and it’s not exactly a pleasant experience, but… how are you holding up?”
I couldn’t believe he was asking me how I was. Our friend was lying upstairs with a hole in his head and tubes going into God knows where in his body, and Brody was worried about me.
“I’m fine.”
“No you’re not.”
“You’re right, I’m not, but I will be.”
He narrowed his eyes and studied me for a minute, trying to decide if he should push me further. Thankfully, he decided against it. “All right,” he finally said, “let’s head back upstairs. Would you text Andy and let him know you’re under control, please?” Grabbing my coffee cup, he stood and took it over to the garbage can.
I picked up my phone and, without reading any of Andy’s messages, wrote back.
I’ll pay for whatever it cost, but I won’t apologize. That asshole deserved it.
We weaved through the crowded hallway and made our way back to the elevator. “Did you go in yet?” I asked once we were alone.
“For a minute.” He swallowed and stared at the drop ceiling tiles in the elevator, clearly avoiding my eyes. “I’m not gonna lie, it was tough to see. He’s pretty jacked up.”
I closed my eyes and nodded, not saying another word.
The elevator came to a stop on the third floor, and we were barely two steps from it when we heard loud crying. Brody’s eyes flashed to mine quickly. “Oh shit!”
We started walking faster toward the waiting room, but just before we were about to round the last corner, Kacie ran right into Brody.
“Kacie!” Brody gently grabbed her shoulders and leaned back, looking straight into her eyes. “What’s going on?”
“I was just coming to find you guys.” She was out of breath and trying desperately not to cry. “You need to come back. It’s bad.”
“What’s bad? What happened?” Brody asked.
“Mike. They did the EEG and a bunch of other tests.” She swallowed and shook her head, unable to say any more.
“Kacie, baby, talk to me. Please.”
“There’s nothing,” she choked out. “He’s brain-dead. Gone.” Her hands covered her face and she started to sob as Brody cupped the back of her head, pulling her into his chest.
Gone. He’s gone. How the fuck can he be gone?
Kacie had to have misunderstood something. There was no way Mike was gone. I rushed past them to the waiting room where Michelle was hysterical, kneeling on the ground and hugging herself, rocking back and forth. Taylor was kneeling next to her, staring into space with a dazed look on her face. Two nurses were rubbing Michelle’s back, trying to get her to calm down enough to take a pill. The room started to spin. Then the world started to spin. Someone kept asking me if I was okay, but I couldn’t tell exactly where it was coming from. Nurses were hustling in and out of the room, talking to each other, but all I could hear was the blood rushing through my ears.
“Sir, I said, ‘Are you okay?’” was the last thing I heard.
My head was pounding. The back of it felt like someone had hit me over and over with a hammer. Peeking my eyes open just a tad, I was relieved to be waking up in my bed, beyond thankful that it had all been a really shitty nightmare. I cringed as I craned my neck to look at the clock on my nightstand.
No nightstand. No clock.
I lifted the blue blanket I didn’t remember buying and looked down at my outfit.
Practice clothes.
I sat up suddenly and tried to look around but was overcome by the pressure in my head as I cupped it in my hands and winced in pain.
“Hey, there you are,” an unfamiliar woman’s voice said softly.
I opened one eye to peek at her, trying to move my head as little as possible. A nurse in blue scrubs stood at the end of my bed with her hands on her hips, smiling at me. “You gave us quite the scare.” She walked over to the side of my bed and gently touched the back of my head. “How’s this feel?”
The second her hand made contact with my head, I flinched. The pain was off the fucking charts.
“Shitty,” I answered, leaning my head away from her hand. “What happened?”
She sighed. “You walked into the waiting room and passed out. Hit your head pretty hard too. You have a big ole bump back here.”
Waiting room.
Fuck. It’s not a dream.
“When did this happen? Where am I?” I was so confused, but the harder I tried to remember, the more my head hurt.
“Just about half an hour ago.” She gently put her hand on my arm in an effort to calm me down. “Relax. We put you in an empty bed in the ICU so we could monitor you, make sure you were okay instead of sending you off to the ER.”
It hurt like hell but I turned my head to the side to look at her. “I’m still in the ICU?”
“Yeah, we want you to rest for a bit.”
“Fuck that.” I stood up too quickly and the room started spinning again. Closing my eyes, I grabbed the side of the bed to steady myself.
“Please lie back down,” she pleaded. “The last thing we need is for you to pass out again.”
“I’ll be fine,” I snapped stubbornly. I knew she was just doing her job, but I didn’t respond well to people telling me what to do. Never had, never would.
Finally regaining some control over my body, I slowly made my way to the door, holding on to anything I could for stability. The bright lights of the hallway hurt my eyes, but I narrowed them as much as I could and kept going. I rounded the corner of the waiting room, shocked to see it full of people now. Brody and Kacie were still there and Taylor, of course, but now Louie, Viktor, and a few other guys from the team were there too, huddled together and talking quietly. Big Mike’s agent, Ross, was there as well, talking to Andy in the corner. The second I stepped into the room I felt like everyone turned and stared at me, silently judging the evil monster and what he’d done.
“Hey!” Brody stood and hurried over to me. “How are you?”
“I’m fine,” I lied through gritted teeth. Trying not to move my head too much, I looked around the room again and noticed one person was missing. “Where’s Michelle?”
“She’s in with Mike,” Brody said somberly.
My head snapped back toward Brody quickly, sending a shooting pain across the whole backside of my head from ear to ear, but I didn’t care. “Did he wake up?”
“No.” He shook his head, biting down hard as the corners of his jaw popped. Leaning in close, he put his hand on my shoulder. “He isn’t gonna wake up, buddy. That’s why Michelle is in there. She’s with him and the chaplain.”
The chaplain?
My heart starting pounding so hard I was worried it was going to explode right there in the waiting room. “The chaplain? What the fuck for?”
“He has no brain function… at all. Michelle’s decided to donate his organs while they’re still viable.”
No brain function.
Donate his organs.
My brain repeated what Brody said over and over but refused to comprehend it. How could this be happening? It was just hockey. You’re not supposed to die from playing hockey. You’re also not supposed to kill your best friend. My hands started to tingle as I wiped away a thin layer of sweat that had formed above my lip.
Louie turned away from the group and around to face me. His eyes grew huge and his jaw dropped when he looked at me. “Viper, are you okay? You look like shit.”
Ignoring his comment, I moved over to a chair in the corner, as far away from him and everyone else as possible.
I couldn’t wrap my head around what was happening. I didn’t understand it. How could a young, healthy man be alert and smiling one minute and the next his brain was gone? How was I ever going to look at Michelle or his kids again? It was hard enough when I was worried that I’d broken his arm or something stupid. I would give anything for a broken arm instead of this.
Throughout the day, people filtered in and out of the room, each going in and taking their turn saying good-bye to Mike. I pretended to be asleep most of the time so people would leave me alone. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to hug. I just wanted to be left alone.
With my eyes shut and my head leaning against the wall, I felt someone sit down next to me. “You can pretend all you want, but I know you’re not sleeping,” Brody said.
“Yes, I am. Go away,” I insisted.
“Almost everyone is gone, you know. You can sit up now.”
I opened my left eye just enough to see that the only people left in the room were Taylor, Brody, Michelle, Louie, and Ross. “Where’s Kacie?” I asked.
Brody’s elbows were resting on his knees, his hands folded out in front of him. “She’s in with Mike,” he answered quietly, wiping the corner of his eye.
I took a deep breath. “Did you already go in?”
He nodded and then looked at me. “You’re the only one left, other than Michelle, who’s going in last.”
Fuck.
I hadn’t seen Mike at all since they’d wheeled him off the ice on a stretcher, and this was the last place I wanted to have a reunion.
“I don’t think I’m going in,” I said flatly, closing my eyes again so I didn’t have to see Brody’s disapproving glare.
“What the fuck do you mean you’re not going in?” His voice was low and stern. Turns out I didn’t need to see his glare when his voice was that thick with judgment.
“Just what I said. I’m not going in,” I repeated.
“Why?”
I finally lifted my head off of the wall and grimaced as I turned toward him slowly. “Why do you think, Murphy? What am I supposed to say? Sorry for putting you here?”
Brody stared down at the floor and sighed. “No, of course that’s not what you’re supposed to say, but I think you’re going to regret not going in. I really do.” He lifted his head toward me. “He was your best friend, Viper. Don’t you want to say good-bye? Tell him you love him? Anything?”
I sighed.
Do not cry.
Even before I walked through the sliding glass doors, I could hear the rhythmic beeping coming from inside Big Mike’s room. I knew that what I was about to see would be permanently burned into my memory. It wasn’t something I wanted to see once, let alone forever. But Brody was right—I would always regret it if I didn’t go in.
I took a deep breath.
Do not cry.
The beeping got louder as I pulled back the privacy curtain. Mike was lying still in the hospital bed. I stopped and stared at him, surprised by what I saw. He had a big bandage wrapped around his head, and other than a small white tube going up his nose and a blue hose taped near his mouth, he looked like he was sleeping, not brain-dead. The machine next to him hissed as it went up and down. I watched it for what felt like an hour.
Up and down.
Up and down.
Up and down.
Up until that point, I was mad at myself for what had happened, but being in that room with him, I started to get pissed at everything else too. We were in a hospital, a good fucking hospital. There had to be something they could do for him. Hockey doesn’t kill people. The longer I stood there staring, the longer that machine would move up and down, which meant the longer he would be alive, which meant the better chance he had of waking up. He just needed time. Mike was one of the strongest guys I knew, and he could absolutely come out of this; he just needed time.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” a voice from behind me said.
I turned to see a nurse in blue scrubs frozen in the doorway, but I didn’t say anything back.
“I just need to check his vitals real quick, then you can have all the time you need, okay?” She smiled cheerfully as she passed me and walked over to him.
All the time I need? I need forever. Okay? Can you make that happen?
“Is he in pain?” I asked.
She pressed her lips together and looked sadly down at Mike. “No, he’s very comfortable.”
He’s not comfortable.
I watched her as she moved around him in a practiced way, like she’d done this a thousand times before. I had no clue what she was doing, and honestly, I didn’t care. Unless she was going to wave a magic wand and wake my best friend up, I just wanted her to leave.
While she was doing whatever she was doing, I walked over to the small blue chair they had in the corner of the room and sat down.
Why was everything in hospitals always blue? Blue scrubs on the nurses, blue furniture in the rooms, blue curtains hanging on the windows, blue blankets on the beds. No wonder blue has always been such a depressing fucking color.
I pulled back the curtain and looked out the window next to me. It was sunny as hell outside and that pissed me off all over again. What pissed me off more were the people I saw going about their days, acting completely normal.
Two women sat on a blanket eating and laughing.
Bitches.
A man sitting on a bench pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and turned the page in his book.
Wonder if he’s a doctor. Maybe he can save Mike.
“Okay, I’m done here. Take your time.” She squeezed my arm as she walked by my chair. I never even looked up at her. I’d never despised a woman’s touch more than that very second. Closing the curtain and knowing I couldn’t avoid it for much longer, I lowered my head into my hands and sighed. I was supposed to be saying good-bye to my best friend, but all I wanted to do was run out of the room and down the hall and forget the last three days had ever happened.
Do not cry.
“I’ve never said good-bye like this to anyone before,” I said in a shaky voice, still staring down at the ground. “I don’t know how to begin or what to say.”
I paused, half expecting him to sit up and answer me.
“How did we get here?” I finally sat back in the chair and looked up at him. “A few days ago we were sitting at my house, not playing poker, and now we’re here. One stupid bet led to this. One stupid bet plus my stupid pride.”
Another long pause while I stared up at the ceiling. Every muscle in my body ached from the tension I felt sitting there in that room with my dying best friend.
My brother.
“I’m sorry, Mike. I’m so, so fucking sorry.” My eyes stung as they started to water, but I didn’t care anymore. “I wish I could go back. I wish I could take that hit back. I’d wear that fucking tutu every day for the rest of my life.” Tears ran down my cheeks, and they felt good. So fucking good.
“This is just so fucking unfair. I did this. I should be the one lying in that bed, and you should be going home tonight with Michelle and the kids. I hope you know I would give anything to make that happen.”
My mind raced a mile a minute.
“I have to make that happen. I have to find a way to make this right. One of the last conversations we ever had, you teased me about having a cement heart. I have to prove that’s not true, and the only way I can do that is to take care of Michelle and the kids for you.” I hurried over to the bed, my blood rushing through my body as I took his hand. Practically begging, I continued, “I mean it, Mike. Whatever they need until Maura is eighteen. I’ll be the stand-in. I won’t be near as good as you would’ve been, but I’ll do it.” I let out a sob, something I hadn’t done in years. “I’ll do anything for you. I love you.”
Mike died at 7:21 p.m.