I understand him well, though. He’s a man grieving, I can see that. I expect I’m intruding on his life, which has already been fractured and turned upside down. I’m also being brought in to provide a critical role for his son, and that has to provide him angst as well. Add to that I’m kind of dorky and I speak my mind, which I know is an odd combination. I definitely get why Zack probably isn’t very keen on me coming into his life right now.

Chapter 3

Zack

“And how does that make you feel, Zack?”

Motherfucking clichéd motherfucker.

I wish I didn’t have to use my inside voice for that sentiment, but I expect voicing it out loud would not be conducive to me getting back out on the ice.

I sit in Dr. Armand Pannaker’s cozy office in downtown Raleigh. The walls are painted in light blue and decorated with framed degrees and awards. I’m not here by choice but rather at the insistence of the Cold Fury’s management, who wants to make sure my mind has healed as well as my wrist. One visit with a psychologist, they said, so we can make sure you’re ready.

I don’t need a fucking shrink for me to know that I’m more than ready to move past the wallowing pit of sadness I’ve been immersed in, and I’m more than ready to get back into the game. In fact, I’m thinking getting back into the lineup is going to help save my sanity by giving me something more positive to focus on. I guarantee playing hockey again will alleviate the pervasive numbness that has swallowed me whole.

“Zack,” Dr. Pannaker says again, “how does that make you feel?”

I slouch down in my chair and raise one leg to rest an ankle on my opposite knee. Putting my chin in my palm, I answer him with candor. “How does it make me feel to have to sit here and talk to you before management deems me sound enough to play again? Pisses me off, that’s how it makes me feel.”

The man doesn’t react and I expect I’m not the only unwilling patient he’s ever seen. He merely nods at me in affirmation and says, “I understand. Am I the first professional psychologist you’ve seen since the accident?”

“Yup,” I answer, point-blank, and hope he gets the message that I don’t want to delve into the reasons why I didn’t feel the need to talk to someone professionally. Actually, I didn’t feel the need to talk to anyone about it.

He doesn’t cut me any slack, though. “Why is that?”

“Because I’m working through everything on my own,” I tell him simply.

“What exactly are you working through?”

Taking a deep breath, I sit up straight in the chair and place both my feet on the ground. Leaning forward, I look him directly in the eye. “I’m working through the guilt. Guilt that Gina died and I didn’t. Guilt she didn’t have her seat belt on and I did. Guilt I didn’t take a different route home. Guilt I didn’t get a chance to tell her one more time that I loved her before she died…”

My words trail off, hover in the air, and then dissipate before I get to what’s really bothering me. Something I haven’t quite started to work through yet.

“There’s something else,” Dr. Pannaker observes. “What is it?”

I shrug, not quite ready to admit out loud that one thing I’m still having a hard time even thinking about. Dr. Pannaker waits for me patiently, but when I don’t say anything more, he takes a different route. “You and Gina weren’t married, were you?”

I tense up, the muscles in my jaw locking tight. “No.”

“Why is that?”

My eyes involuntarily drop away from his gaze. “Just never seemed to be the right time. I was always so busy with hockey, and she was so busy with Ben and our home.”

“Were you two engaged?”

“No,” I answer tersely.

“Ever think about getting engaged?”

“No.”

“Make any tentative plans in your mind about getting engaged?”

“No,” I blurt out, the word tasting bitter on my tongue.

“Why not?” he asks me quietly.

Taking a deep breath in, I wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans and then let the air out slowly. This is confidential…no one will ever know what’s said in here except the two of us, and I don’t intend to ever come back. So I decide to just go ahead and unload, because the sooner I do, the sooner I can get out of here. “Because I wasn’t sure that she was the person I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with.”

“You sound bothered by that admission.”

“Yes, I’m fucking bothered by that. She was the mother of my child. What if I was wrong?”

Dr. Pannaker’s eyebrows rise in surprise. “Many couples never get married nowadays. They have solid relationships, share everything legally, and even raise children together. They do all of that with a great deal of love and without the need for a piece of paper to validate it.”

I swivel my jaw back and forth, trying to loosen the stiffness out of it caused by this subject. He’s making me think about things that I’ve pushed away and buried under denial and fear. It’s bad enough that I feel guilty that Gina is dead, but I honestly don’t think I can handle the additional remorse I’ll be made to feel if I give any validity to these suppressed feelings.

Tipping my head down, I stare at the ivory-colored carpet for a moment before looking back up at Dr. Pannaker.

“Look…I loved Gina very much. And by that I mean that whatever was in my heart to give to the woman you love, I gave one hundred percent of it to her. I miss her today the same amount I missed her the day after she died. That hasn’t diminished. But what bothers me…what really makes me feel like fucking shit, is that I just didn’t have this knowledge, you know, deep down in my heart”—and here I pause to rap my fist on my chest—“that she was the one for me. I mean that one soul mate in all the world you’re supposed to have. That’s why I didn’t marry her.”