Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 86068 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86068 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
“My agent is the one who found me. I had sent him a message thanking him. He busted down my door and found me before…” His voice trails off. “He got me the help I needed. The team put out a stupid fucking statement saying I was taking an indefinite leave of absence from the team for personal reasons.” The anger now fills my body. “They asked everyone to respect my privacy. I hung up the skates, sold my house, and never looked back. Got some therapy and then more therapy. Adopted Beatrice, who is secretly my support dog,” he says with a smile. “At this point, I’m convinced she knows how to speak and just doesn’t talk to me, hoping I will stop talking to her.”
“Would you ever go back?” I ask, and he smiles. “I can’t not ask this.”
“I don’t know,” he admits. “My agent thinks I should.”
“What do you think?” I hug my legs to my chest, waiting for him to answer.
“I think that they failed me,” he says without skipping a beat. “In more ways than one, they fucking failed me. They were supposed to be a family. They were supposed to have my back.”
I get up and go over to his side of the sun pad and sit in front of him. He just looks at me, his gray eyes even more blue with the tears that came. “I don’t know much about other teams but,” I say softly, “I know my father treats every single player on his team as if they were his own. I know that my uncle Justin is doing that now. I know that Dylan, Michael, and Cooper feel it in Dallas. You got the shit end of the stick.”
“Maybe. I just think more should be done for us. When you join the NHL, you think you are automatically king shit. There should be people there for you to talk to. People should be in place in case it gets to be too much. The whole thing needs to be more in your face. There should be so much more done for us.”
“Maybe that person should be you,” I urge him, and he laughs. “Maybe after all of this.” I want to touch his face with my hand, but I don’t. “The only person who can do it any justice would be you.”
CHAPTER 20
XAVIER
“Maybe,” I tell her, “I just think that there should be more done for us. When you join the NHL, you think you are automatically king shit. There should be people there for you to talk to. People should be in place in case it gets to be too much. The whole thing needs to be more in your face. There should be so much more done for us.” I’ve never been this open about the struggle before. Sure, I told my therapist, but after her, I haven’t even told Miles. Actually, scratch that, Beatrice also knows because I’ve told her little bits here and there. When Vivienne asked me the question, I wasn’t sure I was ready or able to tell her. I didn’t think I would tell her everything, but something about sharing it with her made it better.
Knowing she could google me and come up with the half-truth, the only thing I wanted was her to know my side of the story. I wanted her to know my truth, the whole truth. Reliving it was a lot less hurtful than the first time I told my therapist, maybe because it wasn’t so raw. Maybe it was because I’ve grown past it. Perhaps it was because I knew, deep in my heart, I had done nothing wrong. At the end of the day, the system they preached about failed me. I can’t even imagine how many other people it failed.
“Maybe that person should be you,” she tells me, and I laugh. “Maybe after all of this.” She sits right in front of me, and I can feel her heat on me. “The only person who can do it any justice would be you.”
“You would be an amazing sponsor,” I inform her, and she looks at me, her face not smiling. “If the whole editing thing doesn’t work out for you.” I can see the change in her right away.
“I need you to ask me what I do for a living,” she tells me, and I can tell from her tone she’s serious, which also confuses me.
“I thought we already went over this.” I laugh at her, and her face doesn’t even crack a smile. “Fine.” I take a deep breath. “What do you do for a living?” I ask, knowing the answer she told me the other day.
“I’m an author,” she shares nervously, looking down at her hands. “As in I write books.”
“For other people?” I ask. “Like a ghostwriter?”