Chapter 19

“Todd!” I moaned from the training table as I did one of my most dreaded exercises. Leg lifts. “This hurts!”

“Then don’t do it,” he stated matter-of-factly, reading something on his computer. I was sitting in the training room at school doing my exercises. I was spending more time at my dorm than at Sid’s house now that school had started back up a few weeks ago, but I only went all the way down to the Fitness Center because I hated doing the exercises in my room on the gross carpet where at least thirty drunk kids have thrown up in the course of this building’s existence.

“Todd!” I whined. “If I don’t do them, then I can’t get cleared!” My crutches were propped against the wall and my knee brace was occupying a whole other table entirely.

“Well then, I guess you should do them,” was all he said, still reading his computer screen. I grumbled a little about them before settling in to push through the rest. I always saved the worst for last, and I was near the end, so they were getting increasingly more painful. Out of nowhere, Todd suddenly spoke. “I didn’t know Sid hurt his knee,” he said quizzically, turning around to look at me. I just sat there. This was the first I heard about it.

“I, uh, didn’t know he hurt himself,” I stated blankly. For some reason, him not telling me about his injury stung. “I have to go,” I said, and numbly grabbed my brace and crutches. I had the brace on in record time and was out the door before Todd could think twice about what had just occurred. I ripped my phone out of the big bag I had started to drag around with me, punched the numbers 87 and pushed send. It rang a few times before he picked up.

“Hey,” he said into my ear. He sounded tired, but I didn’t care. I was mad and hurt.

“When were you going to tell me you hurt your knee?” I practically screamed into the phone, causing people to look at me like I had just escaped from the looney bin. There was a deep sigh on his end that caused the sound to crackle in my ear.

“I was looking out for your safety,” he stated. “You have your own knee to worry about. I can handle this myself.”

Despite the fact that he meant well, I was still angry. “I’m upset now Sidney! I had to find out from Todd. Did you really think you could keep this from me?” The only response I got was a slight sigh. “Did you?” The tone in my voice softened. I just wanted him to talk to me now. I wanted to hear his voice say he’s alright.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I didn’t want you to worry about me. You have your own issues.”

“Don’t feel like you can’t tell me these things,” I said softly. “Just because I have my own knee to worry about doesn’t mean I don’t care about yours.”

“I’m sorry I was trying to do what I think is best for us,” he said huffily. I was totally taken aback by his sudden defensiveness.

“Sidney-“ I started, but he cut me off.

“I can take care of us,” he said quickly.

“I never said you couldn’t,” I said, trying to placate him.

“Then let me handle this.”

“Fine,” I said slowly. I took a chance on my next words. “I’m coming over. I need to see your knee myself.”

“I’m fine,” he said sharply.

“I’m still coming over,” I insisted.

“Fine. Do whatever the hell you want,” he spat into the phone.

“I’ll be there in ten!” I said as cheerily as possible.

“I love you,” he said grumpily. I returned the words and hung up my phone, throwing it back in my bag where it would probably take 30 minutes to find next time I needed it.
-
I showed up at his house some 20 minutes later, having had to convince Melissa that taking me to Sidney’s house was a good idea, and when I rang the doorbell, it took him quite some time to answer it. I just stood there waiting, inspecting his storm door that was calling out to me, “WASH ME!” He finally opened it, and I noticed he had an ice-pack on his right knee. He opened the door for me and I hobbled over the threshold down the hallway and into the living room where I had spent at least a month of my life. I plopped down on the couch that doubled as my bed, and patted the spot next to me.

“Sit. Show me your knee,” I said. He gave me a look that said, “I’m too tired to care.” He sat and rolled up the sweats to his muscular thigh. He proceeded to unwrap the ace bandage that was keeping the ice pack in place. It revealed a big ugly bruise encompassing his whole knee, the color of an angry plum, if plums could be angry. I lightly brushed my fingertips over it and he winced. “What’d you do?!” I asked, astounded.

“I got jammed into the boards in my last game. I didn’t think much of it, but now it’s killing me.”

“Did you show the trainer?” I asked. Hockey players have a tendency to hide their injuries and play them off as less severe than they actually are. I wanted him to be OK. I didn’t want him to end up like me, on crutches for months.

“Yes. They took an MRI, but all the knee checks came out find. My knee’s still tight. They say all the ligaments are intact.” I mulled this over, thinking about my own knee. The thought of him having to go through what I did killed me.

“I really hope you’re OK,” I said, melting into him. “I’m just worried you’ll have to go through what I did. It all seems so similar.” I was starting to get upset, actually upset, and he picked up on it. Despite his crappy mood, he was still the Sidney I knew, and he wrapped his arm around my shoulders and brought me to his chest.

“I’ll be alright,” he said gruffly. “This is why I didn’t want to tell you,” he said, kissing my temple. I looked down and all I could see was the huge brace on my knee and the ice pack on his.

“Look at us,” I said with a laugh. “We’re like broken toys. Like Woody and Jessie from Toy Story.” I didn’t think he’d get the reference, but he laughed a genuine laugh, not that fake tin-y laugh he does, but his actual girlish laugh. That alone made me feel better. Just hearing his laugh made me laugh, and before I knew it, we were both laughing uncontrollably. Our laughter slowly died away, and I somehow ended up in his lap.

“Oh, I like you,” he suddenly said, catching me off guard.

“Well, I love you.”

Chapter 17

The first week after surgery was an excruciating smudge on my memory. I was always one of those do it yourself people, and having to have someone else do everything for me was killer. Even though I was extremely grateful that Sid put his things on hold for me, it killed me to not be able to do anything.
My nauseous-ness didn’t cease for at least three days, so every time I got up and moved, I took a bag with me, preparing myself for the inevitable anesthesia induced vomiting. Everyday I’d feel just fine on the couch, eating and joking with Sid when he was home, but as soon as it came to getting up to go to the bathroom, my day would be ruined. I took to drinking very little fluids to keep myself from having to move.
The office chair was still my preferred choice of mobility seeing as my hip was sore from where they injected the blocking agents. Anytime I tried to raise my leg myself, I’d have to stop due to an immense amount of pain that would shoot up my hip and through my torso. It seemed as if everything but my knee hurt; my hand hurt from where they initially tried to put the IV, my hip hurt, and my head hurt.
-
Christmas was a dull blur due to an excessive amount of pain-killers I had taken the night before. The block had worn off on my knee in the middle of the night and I had woken up on the couch in tear-worthy pain.
“Sidney!” I screamed, even though he was asleep on the next couch over. He sat up and looked around before realizing it was me that had yelled.
“I’m here! What is it?!” he asked, right by my side within seconds. Tears were leaking out of my eyes by now.
“My knee hurts!” I wailed. “I need my pain-killers! Now!” He had moved them back into the kitchen because I hadn’t needed them, but at my words, he was sprinting into the kitchen, feverishly looking through the cabinet with his other medications. As soon as he found them he was back by my side unscrewing the cap. I was close to sobs by this point. The pain from my knee was radiating up and down my leg; it honestly felt like someone was trying to drive an ice pick under my knee cap.
“Here,” he said handing me a pill and a bottle of water.
“I’m going to need more than this,” I managed between the waves of pain.
“Here’s another,” he said without hesitation. I put both pills on my tongue, took a swig of water and swallowed before I had time to think about how big the pills were. He stood over me until the drugs kicked in and I felt myself getting woozy and finally drifting back off to sleep.
-
Exactly a week after my surgery, Sid drove me to my physical therapy appointment. I had yet to bend my knee and I was not looking forward to doing so. Sid walked me in and sat with me until they called me into a high-ceilinged room with multiple training tables, all with pillows.
“Don’t be nervous,” he said, picking up on the fact that I was practically shaking. “I’ll be in the car when you’re done.” He kissed my forehead before I crutched myself through the doors and over to a curtained off table where I was told Ken would see me shortly. Ken? What kind of a name is that? I’ve never met a Ken in my life. Like Malibu Barbie and Ken. I busied myself with picking at my hangnails that had gotten out of control the past week and staring around at the small area I was in. There was hand sanitizer on the wall to my right and a chair on my left. Just as I was beginning to inspect the ceiling and the array of lights, Ken walked into my little cubicle of cloth. He was relatively tall with short brown hair and a mulberry colored birthmark residing on one side of his neck. He wore wire glasses and had a serious air about him.
“Alright, so you had knee surgery when?” he asked, pulling up a rolling chair I failed to notice. I swallowed and took a breath.
“A week ago.”
“How’s it feel?” he asked, his seriousness abating a bit.
“Pretty good… I haven’t bent it, so I don’t really know. It feels fine just sitting here,” I rambled. I had to make myself shut up. Whenever I’m nervous, I ramble, and something about being there in such a tiny space with a not unattractive man, getting ready to do excruciating physical therapy, made me nervous. He just looked at me and laughed, all seriousness gone. It was then that I noticed the gold band on his left ring finger, and for some reason, that relieved some of the nervous energy I had.
“Alright, we’re going to start off with some simple things like heel slides and leg extensions,” he said, getting up and moving the curtain back to its original resting place against the wall. “Why’s that on your brace?” he asked, getting up and really looking at it for the first time.
“It’s a dish towel. The brace was hurting, so I put a dish towel to keep it from rubbing and chaffing. It looks dumb, I know, but it helps…” I trailed off. I was rambling again.
“I know what it is. I just had no idea why it was there,” he stated, with a small laugh. I just nodded in agreement. He assigned me my exercises and before I knew it, and with a minimal amount of pain, I was done and had my brace back on, ready to leave.
“I’ll see you in a few days,” Ken said as I crutched outside to where Sidney was waiting in the Range Rover. I still couldn’t get over the name Ken. I backed into the door leading outside to open it and made my way to the car. Snow was beginning to fall, and it just dawned on me that it was New Years Eve. The days had blurred together and I was losing track of time.
“It’s New Years Eve,” I said to Sidney as I got myself in the car.
“I know,” he said, kissing me quickly. “We’re going to have some fun.”
“Sid, I can barely move. I’m not going to have some awkward sex with you,” I snapped.
“I never said anything about sex,” he said grinning at me.
“Oh, well, what do you have in mind?” I asked him.
“You’ll just have to wait and see,” he said and kissed me again before driving in the direction of his house.
-
Nothing really special jumped out at me when we got back to his house, other than the fact that I had practically moved in without having to lift a finger. Every time Melissa brought me something, she’d bring another change of clothes along with my iPod or whatever it was that I demanded.
“So what’s the surprise?” I asked him as I plopped myself down on his couch and arranged my foot up on a pillow.
“I have to make it first,” he said. “Don’t be so pushy.”
“Oh, so you’re making it…” I said with a neutral tone, trailing off, letting him draw his own conclusions as to what I meant by it. It could have meant multiple things, one of which: Gross. Whatever it is I don’t want it now. Another: Yippee! There’s nothing I enjoy more than something made by Sidney Crosby. Or even this: I’d rather choke on a spoon. He chose to think that I was insulting him, and he was right.
“Your attempt at pancakes wasn’t so good on Christmas,” I said, backing up my insult.
“I got Geno to help me this time,” he said defensively. “He’s a good cook.”
“So are you hiding him in a closet or something?” I asked jokingly, but when Sid’s face turned a bright fuchsia, I knew he wasn’t kidding. “Sidney Crosby!” I said with a smile. “You snuck a Russian hockey player in to help you make me dinner? That’s actually really sweet,” I said, my tone softening. “So where is he? I’ve never met him,” I said, but then realized that I probably looked like a mess.
“I’ll go get him,” Sid said, excited that I wasn’t mad at him. Even I couldn’t predict how my emotions and personality would be day-to-day, and it didn’t help that I had gotten my period a few days before. I was at the mercy of Mother Nature and the hormonal roller coaster I was now forced to ride. I would be happy to ride a roller coaster any day, but if it was accompanied by hormones, I’d have to pass. Sid came down the stairs with Evgeni Malkin in tow. It was then that I realized just how short Sid really was. Geno towered over Sid at six foot three, and Sid was, at best, 5’11”. I was normally on the more generous side of 5’10”, but I never thought anything of it since Sid and I are the same height, and I never felt the need to wear heels, so it never really mattered to me.
“I cook food,” were the first words out of Geno’s mouth when he saw me. He flashed his crooked grin and continued in his broken English. “Sid say he need help. I say I cook,” he said with a shrug.
“Thanks Geno. I really appreciate you helping Rachael Ray over here,” I said with a laugh. Sid just glared at me and Geno looked confused. “That’s a compliment to you Geno,” I said, and he smiled at me while Sid shot me another look.
“So, Geno, help me out here man,” Sid said, tearing his gaze away from mine. “I need help with this roast.”
“I cook,” was all I heard Geno say before I decided I needed a nap.
-
I awoke to the smell of cooking roast, not burning roast, around 6:00 and looked towards the kitchen to make sure I was in the right house. Then I remembered Sidney wasn’t really cooking. It was Geno’s work.
“How’re you boys doing in there?” I yelled in the general direction of the kitchen as I turned on the TV to get ready to watch the ball drop.
“Good!” a mixture of Sid and Geno’s voices yelled back at me.
“It smells good,” I remarked from my place on the couch.
“30 minutes more!” Geno yelled from the kitchen. I settled myself into the couch to wait out the 30 minutes until it was time for me to do my favorite activity: eat.

Chapter 16

Jess's Point of View
The first thing I did when I got to Sid’s house from the hospital was open the door of his Range Rover and puke. “Oh God,” I moaned to myself. Sid got out of the car and stepped over my puke to rub my back.
“Dr. Carr said that you’d be nauseous.”
“He could have warned me beforehand,” I said, anger and frustration filling my voice.
“Don’t worry,” Sid said, his voice washing over me and soothing my rigid body. “Now come on, sit up, let’s get you inside eh?”
“Can’t I just sit here?” I whined, sitting back in the seat.
“We have the couch all set up and everything inside, come on.”
“Fine.” I ran my hand over my mouth to wipe up any excess vomit on my face as Sid handed me my crutches. I grabbed my leg and swung it out the door to leg it clunk against the side of the Range Rover. Sidney grimaced as I stepped down with one foot onto the pavement. I got the crutches in place and attempted to get up his front walk, but couldn’t. My right leg just dragged along the ground, making it difficult to move forward. “Sid, I can’t do this,” I said, defeated.
“I can carry you,” he offered. I thought about it for a second, but that seemed too hard.
“Do you have like, a roll-y desk chair or something?” I asked, slightly dizzy from my attempts at movement, grabbing his mailbox for stability.
“Yeah, hold on.” He ran in the house and returned seconds later with a huge office chair. “Here, sit down and hold your leg up, I’ll push you inside.” He got me all the way up the walk to the stairs, where he had to stop for a break. “You know, you’re not light,” he said, and sat down on the steps.
“Imagine carrying me. Now get me in the house. I’m getting woozy,” I snapped. These meds did not have a nice side effect on my attitude. He seemed to be sympathetic to my needs because he picked himself up off of the steps and proceeded to drag me up them in the chair. We must have been a sight. Him pushing me in one of the biggest chairs I’ve ever seen in my life, and me holding my right leg out straight in front of me. Attractive. He managed to get me to the couch where I promptly collapsed and fell asleep courtesy of the medications that were still wearing off.
When I woke up it was around 7:00, there was a blanket draped on top of me and a note taped to my forehead. I pulled it off, dazed and confused. In a quick scrawl, it read:
Hey baby, I hope you’re OK. I had to leave for my game. The remote’s on your lap. I’m on FSN. I talked to Melissa and she agreed to be on call in case you need anything. I’ll be home around 11. Your pain meds are on the table near your head and your crutches are lying on the ground in front of the couch. There’s bottled water next to the pills.
-Sid
I looked around. Everything was exactly where he said it would be. The water and pills were on the end table. The crutches were on the floor, and the remote was in fact, in my lap. I taped the note onto the closest wall I could reach, to remind me that someone would always be looking out for me. My next move was to grab the remote and switch on the TV to FSN. The game was just starting. I made it through the first period before dozing off again to be woken up by Sid slamming the door.
“We lost,” he said upon throwing down his bag.
“How do you know I didn’t watch it?” I asked groggily.
“You look like you just woke up,” he said, coming over and sitting in the desk chair used as my means of transportation.
“Yeah, that could be a clue,” I managed before letting my head fall back onto the pillow. “I’m hungry…” I started, but he cut me off.
“Should you be eating? You threw up as soon as I got you home…”
“I feel fine. I’m really hungry!” I complained, putting as much emphasis on really as possible.
“Fine. Do you want apple sauce?” he asked, walking over to the kitchen and rummaging through the pantry.
“YES! That sounds amazing!” I said, rearranging my leg on the pillow it was propped up on. He grabbed the apple sauce and a spoon and brought it over to me. “Thanks,” I said, ripping the top off and shoveling it into my mouth.
“Slow down,” he said, leaning back in the desk chair. He looked extremely tired.
“So, how was your game,” I asked warily.
“Horrible,” he said, eyes closed, head back in the chair. I left it at that, not wanting him to blow up at me. For the past few days, he’s been blunt and to the point. There hasn’t been any joking or having fun, but then again, it was Sid. His lack of participation in extra curricular activities annoyed me sometimes and I found myself pressing him to go out and have fun.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I said suddenly, staring at him, and more importantly the chair. He opened his eyes and brought his head forward, but it took him a second to process what I needed him to do.
“Oh, OK, here, sit. I’ll push you,” he said, scrambling out of the chair. I butt-hopped my way into the chair with the help of my arms and he pushed me through the kitchen to the bathroom. About halfway there, I started to get extremely hot, my skin got clammy and my head began to spin, and I don’t think it was due to the medications.
“Sid,” I said, panic filling my voice.
“What?! What is it?” he asked, stopping my forward motion and coming around to look at my face which I could imagine was like a ghost. I had that horrible gut feeling and my lips began to tingle.
“Get me a bag,” I said, trying to keep my mouth closed.
“What?” he asked, clearly confused.
“A plastic bag. I need a bag,” I said as quickly as possible. He whipped one out of what seemed to me, his back pocket, and the second my hands opened it, I had my head in it and I was throwing up all the apple sauce I had just eaten. I hunched over myself, right leg straight out on the floor in front of me. I groaned and sat up. Sid was there with a wet paper towel to wipe my face. “Thanks,” I mumbled into the towel. He didn’t say anything about the fact that he told me not to eat the applesauce; he just took the towel out of my hands and pushed me the rest of the way to the bathroom.
“Can you do it yourself?” he asked, hovering beside me as I hopped on one foot into the bathroom using the doorframe and the bathroom counter as support.
“I think I’ve got it,” I said as I plopped myself down on the toilet, with my sweatpants still on. “I just need to figure out how to get these off…” I said, looking down at my legs before looking back up at Sid. His eyes were gleaming and I realized why he was so mopey the past few days.
“You’re mad because we won’t have sex for awhile,” I said matter-of-factly. His face burned a bright red and he looked at the floor.
“That’s not why…” he said, clearly embarrassed.
“Yes it is. We can’t do anything physical until I can walk,” I stated as I began to shimmy the sweatpants off.
“No! Well, that is playing a part,” he admitted. “We’ve been losing, and you and I can’t do anything, you know, fun, for awhile.” I had the sweatpants to mid-thigh by the time he was done talking and looked up at him for help. I decided to ignore the “fun” comment for now. “But I can always help you undress,” he said, his normal tone coming back.
“You’re so horrible. Just get my sweatpants off.”
“You got it,” he said and leaned in to kiss me. I pulled away from him and he stopped, puzzled.
“Are you forgetting I just puked in a trash bag?” I asked, slightly amused.
“Oh, I well… I’m tired,” he stated as he yanked my sweats down to my ankles, revealing a huge knee brace with a water bag underneath it to ice my knee.
“Oh God,” I moaned, taking in the contraption for the first time. “This doesn’t even look good! I look like I just had my whole leg repaired!”
“Don’t worry,” he said, repeating a phrase of mine I had been telling him lately. “You’ll get through this. I’m here for you.” He placed a kiss on my cheek before backing out of the bathroom and leaving me alone.
How was I going to manage this? I asked myself, still staring at the huge ominous brace that now resided on my leg.