Sacrifice

Chapter 5

Ryan sat in the hospital bed with his head pounding and squinted eyes thinking about what this would mean for his season.

"How long am I out for?" He asked the doctor.

"Well we should probably wait a month minimum before another test. You should be symptom free by then and ready to start working out before going back to playing contact hockey." The doctor replies to him. Ryan looked down at the floor, closed his eyes and let out a big sigh. He had put in so much work over the summer to get in the best shape he's ever been in. All the time spent in the gym to get stronger felt like a waste of time. Ryan knew the team would struggle without him in the line up during an important time of the year. If your team struggles in the first month its very hard to crawl out of the abyss of the league.

On the drive home with his dad Ryan shed tears in silence.

"You'll bounce back from this buddy, you always find success from adversity." His dad said to Ryan breaking the silence. Ryan didn't respond though.

"On the bright side at least you get a couple weeks off school." His Dad added. Ryan hadn't even thought about school yet. Missing a month after one week of school would put him so far behind in each of his courses. He worried that Alyssa would forget about him and his friends would move on for good. Not to mention the amount of extra work he would have to put in to catch up in all his classes.

Three days had now gone by of Ryan laying around in bed with the lights off. It was tough for someone with such a busy life to suddenly do absolutely nothing for multiple days in a row. No TV, no phone and no activity. Ryan couldn't imagine anything worse than living in this isolation for the next few weeks. The worst days of concussion symptoms usually last around two weeks before he would be able to try light activities like going for a walk. As he was alone in bed with his thoughts his phone rang unexpectedly. Ryan knew he wasn't supposed to use his phone but checked who it was anyways. He was still sensitive to bright lights so he squinted at his phone and saw it was Alyssa. "Hello?" Ryan says quietly.

"Hey Ryan I'm sorry to bother you but I heard the bad news and I hope you're alright." The sound of Alyssa's voice made Ryan smile.

"Thanks Alyssa, I really appreciate the call from you. I'm doing fine just extremely bored that's all." Ryan replied.

"Okay good, History class isn't the same without you! I'll help you out with homework when you're back." They both laughed and said bye. Ryan didn't expect that call at all, not even his closest friends had checked in to see how he was doing. It made him think about who really cares about his life and that phone call meant a lot to him.

Two weeks had gone by and now Ryan could go for walks and periodically watch TV. He drove to school to meet with his teachers and pick up some homework. On the way into the school he saw his group of boys standing in the usual spot talking and laughing. As he approached they all looked at him and were surprised to see him. "Ryan!" A couple boys yelled out. Ryan received a few texts from his friends earlier in the week checking in on him but he wasn't sure if they really cared.

"We missed you buddy, how's the head?" Kyle asked.

"I'm a lot better I'll be back at school next week probably." Ryan answered.

"Come with us to McDonalds for lunch, we're all going." Trevor said with a big grin.

"Yeah sure, sounds fun I just have to grab my homework first." Ryan hadn't had McDonalds for a few months because of the team strict diet plan, but since he wasn't playing he figured it would be fine. His teachers were surprised to see him and all asked the same questions about hockey and concussions. He had a huge stack of papers from each class and new he would struggle with all of it. He left the school with his friends and drove off to lunch. Ryan was stressed out about all the work he had ahead of him, and was disappointed he didn't get to see Alyssa at school.