If I am

Another waste of everything you dreamed of

I will let you down.

If I am

Only here to watch you as you suffer,

I will let you down.

-Nine Days, “If I Am”

            I braced the doorway, waiting for Jiri to open the door, having hung up as soon as I rang the bell. I couldn’t explain why I was there—or why I had lied and told him that I’d called Brendan. Truth be told, I hadn’t even considered Shanny until the moment I mentioned him on the phone to Jiri. Which was unusual; he was one of my closest friends, as well as a trusted confidante. But I had laid there in bed, completely unable to sleep, and had been haunted by the look Jiri had given me earlier that afternoon, when I first got home—so scared, so concerned—and it wouldn’t leave me alone. Eventually, I’d just woken Lisa up and told her I was going to see him, and she smiled sleepily and urged me to go. She’d been telling me for weeks that I needed to let out my fears about my knee, to talk to someone about them, so she was more than happy to see me go.

            He stood there in shock for a moment, just staring at me. Fortunately, that left me a bit of time to just look at him and take in the sight he delivered. His eyes were slightly glassy, not fully awake yet, and the T-shirt and boxers he wore were rumpled. His hair was disheveled, but in such a way that it looked deliberate—it looked as if he’d just escaped a heavy petting session with some lucky girl. He gulped visibly, then moved out of the way.

            “Come on in,” he offered, pushing the screen door open for me.

            “Thanks, Jiri. I know its late and all,” I explained, “but I just…needed someone to talk to.”

            “Do you want some coffee or something?” he asked, yawning. I nodded, and he pointed me towards his living room, heading towards the tiny kitchen himself. A few minutes later, barefoot and blinking against the light I’d turned on. “Are you in pain?”

            “Not really…I’ve taken three Vicadins since this morning. It’s just a very dull ache now. I just couldn’t sleep,” I said, shrugging. I paused, unsure of what to say next, debating whether it was a good idea to come here tonight. He noticed the look of panic on my face and moved so that he was sitting on the opposite end of his couch from me.

            “What’s wrong?” he asked solemnly, eyes fastened on my own. I shook my head, stuffing the burn of fear in my chest back down inside. “Really, Steve, you can tell me. Please, I want to know what’s wrong.”

            I hesitated, then turned on the sofa to face him, stretching my leg out in front of me to keep it elevated. My foot was just inches from the part of his thigh that was left uncovered by his boxers, which he noticed for a moment, until he turned his attention back to me. “I’m scared. I’m thirty-seven years old, but I can’t sleep because I’m terrified of these dreams I keep having.”

            He raised an eyebrow, “Dreams?”

            “Nightmares, really. I get out on the ice, and I’m fine for about three strides, and then it all goes wrong. My knee gives out, and I’m lying on the ice, screaming in pain, and I can’t even move to get up. I can’t skate, I can’t play, I can’t move.”

            His mouth is just slightly open, and he’s all but stopped blinking completely, just wide-eyed and startled. In a moment, he shakes that off, and it’s as if a mask sweeps over his features. “They’re only figments of your imagination, though. Your knee is healed, right?”

            “Yes.”

            “And you just went to the doctor yesterday, so they can find out what is making you hurt, and they can fix it,” he paused, biting the inside of his bottom lip, “and then you’ll be fine.”

            “But what if I’m not, Jiri? What if they can’t fix it? What if I’ve already played my last game?”

            “What if they make it better, and your knee is stronger than it ever was, and you can play more effectively than you have since you injured it the first time, years ago?”

            Damn logic, I thought, staring back at his calm, collected face that was nothing like the one I’d seen just a half-day earlier. When in the hell had he become the strong one?

            “Stevie,” he started, and I grinned at the nickname. With his large form, and in his Czech accent, it sounded funny, but cute; it sounded right. “I have faith in you. Shanny and Boyd and Chelly and Feds and everyone else have faith in you. You are our captain, whether you’re on the ice with us all of the time or not. We can wait until you’re better, and hopefully, you can come back and get right back into the race for the Cup again. It’s going to take time, but things will be better. I can feel it.”

            I stared at him, dumbstruck. That was far too much wisdom for a 22-year old. What if he was wrong?

            And why in the hell was I so happy that he has faith in me?

            Two hours later, I was on my third cup of coffee, but I was still starting to get tired. “Well…it’s been nice, Jiri. But it’s nearly five in the morning, and we both have to be at camp very early tomorrow morning.”

            “Oh,” he said softly, looking less than confident for the first time since he opened his door for me.

            “Thank you for being there for me, and being so rational about everything. I needed it,” I told him, getting ready to stand up. I pushed myself up using the armrest, but as soon as I let the weight rest on my leg, a pain shot through it, feeling very much like a flaming dagger slicing through the flesh, burning and severing as it went. I fell back in the chair, tears leaping into my eyes, a tortured cry exploding from my throat.

            He was up in an instant, kneeling beside me. “What? God, Stevie, what’s wrong? You’re crying, oh shit…um…” he jumped back up, looking lost, “Pain relievers,” he said vaguely, and left the room.

            Jesus…I scared him, I thought, trying to keep the sobs ripping through my chest, hoping to stop the salty rivers spilling down my cheeks and onto my shirt. He came back into the room, holding a bottle of Advil and a glass of water, his eyes alarmed, his hands trembling. “Here, I don’t have anything stronger, but…it’s something.”

            I grabbed them off of him, poured three into my hand and chased them down with half of the glass of water. He handed me a box of Kleenex, but still stood there, ready to run for anything else I needed. I was taking deep, gasping breaths, hoping to stop crying. He eventually sat down next to me, hesitantly wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “Stevie…” he said softly, just by my ear, “I’m so sorry. I wish I could take all of this pain away. I wish I could make you better.”

            I sniffled, forcing the tears away, but turned into his embrace, burying my face in the area between his neck and shoulder, dampening his skin and his shirt just a little. He didn’t seem to notice, just slipped the other arm around me, pulling me closer to him, murmuring words in Czech that I couldn’t understand. Despite the language barrier, the quiet rhythm of his voice warmed me. The pulse beating in his neck slowed after a while, and his breathing softened, calming me as he relaxed. After sitting there in his arms for a long while, I pulled away enough to look at him, unsure of what to say. Here I was, more than 15 years his senior, but he was taking care of me.

            He was an incredible young man.

            I met his eyes, so blue and clear and concerned, and was left speechless. I didn’t know what to say, or what to think about the rush of confusion clouding my mind, but I followed the advice I’d given hundreds of players in my 18 years in the NHL. I followed my instincts.

            And his lips were just as soft as I’d expected.