champ : Vince Dunn

p a r t t w o

November 16th, 2018.
St Louis ➜ Las Vegas
— — —

"Good luck Kay."

"Thanks Colton, I gotta start getting ready to leave, so I'll talk to you later." I sighed, setting my phone down. "Alright, keep me updated." "Yea, I will."

We said our goodbyes and he hung up, leaving me to finally get ready.

It had been six weeks since I broke my arm.

I was currently in Seattle, back home. I had a ton of time to work on college, and had pushed myself to finish over half the work I needed to do, finally.

Today was my check up appointment. I would be able to find out an estimated time for when I could be back on the ice, so I couldn't be more excited.

I had woken up in a bit of pain, but I brushed it off, assuming it was just sore from being in the cast.

I took nothing but some ibuprofen, and ignored it.

— — —

"It's not healed."

"What?"

"Look," he pointed at the screen, "it's not completely healed." He shook his head.

"What do you-" "Hold on, hold on." He put his hand up, stopping me, "there's bigger things you need to worry about." "What do you mean?"

"How's your arm feeling?" He asked, turning the screen away. "It's in a little bit of pain, but it's fine I guess?"

"Pain from what, what did you do?"

"I don't know? It started hurting after carried in groceries last night, figured I had just carried something heavy." I shrugged, not realizing what I had said.

"You pulled it." He showed me the screen.

"Pulled it?" "The one thing we told you not to do, was to pull it." He nodded, sighing.

"So what now?" I asked, playing with the sleeves of my hoodie. "If it doesn't heal on its own, then surgery." He shrugged, looking at me.

"How long will it take to heal?" "It depends."

He went on to explain it all, the whole time I sat there, fighting back tears.

"So how can I heal it the fastest?" "Surgery, but the healing process after that, you'll be out for another.. ten weeks maybe?" He nodded.

"Fuck." I ran a hand through my hair.

"Well that's- we recommend the ten weeks, it might be different with the nhl rules, I mean.. they could pull you from this season." He shrugged.

"I know," I mumbled, "how soon can I do the surgery?"

"Everybody says the sooner the better, but in my opinion, I'd say wait until Thursday, and then come in, we'll see where you're at, and then we can go from there."

I bit the inside of my lip, not knowing what to say.

"But of course it's up to you, if you want it done sooner, without the checkup, then we can do it as soon as tomorrow." He shrugged.

"I'll just come back Thursday, I gotta talk to coach anyway, we can just see if I can't get anywhere without the surgery." I nodded.

"Alright, that works," he nodded as well, standing up, "I'm gonna get these printed, we'll get you and your coach a copy, then you're good to go." He shot me a smile.