Page 86 of Out Of Time

Brown placed a sure hand on Max’s shoulder, and that simple act of kindness poured an overwhelming amount of comfort and reassurance into Max.

“You got this,” Brown said.

Max looked up; all the boys were looking at him. Waiting. Watching.

He had left them in the dark long enough.

Max stood, running anxious hands through his thick red hair, the words sitting on the tip of his tongue.

Brown patted his back, and repeated his words, “You got this.”

Max looked around, these men, these teammates, these Condors—they were his family, his constant, hishome. He somehow hadn’t realized it until it was too late, and for that, he would never take them or this opportunity to have known them, sharing this locker room and this arena with them, and the wins and the losses with them, for granted ever again.

He loved hockey.

He loved this team.

He…wouldbe okay.

“So, as you all know, I’m not a man of many words,” he started, happy a few of the smart-asses on the team made jokes of agreement at his statement—it was a much-needed ice breaker. “But sometimes all we have left to give is our words. I guess that’s what I’m here to do, I’m here to tell you the truth. A secret I have selfishly kept from you, hell, a secret I tried to keep from myself. Denial is an ugly thing, but oblivion was whereI chose to hide for the majority of this season. Over the past few years, I have noticed small signs that my vision was not as strong as it had been in the past. These were things I think many people face in their lifetime, things that can be fixed with glasses or a procedure.” He paused, and Brown gave his back another reassuring pat.

“But as time went on, I started to notice my performance struggle on the ice because of my vision, which led to severe anxiety. I started to notice that this was something more. It was more than struggling to see at night, or floaters when the lighting suddenly changed.” Max took a deep breath, steadied his voice, and went on. “I went to see an eye doctor under the radar, and he saw something in my eyes. Something bad. He told me I needed to see a specialist, which instantly freaked me the fuck out. But what scared me more was the look on his face. I knew from his look that whatever he saw wasn’t good. I knew at that moment that this wasn’t going to end well for me. Before I left his office, he told me to try and contact my biological father, and that he might have answers for me.”

Several men in the room gasped, they knew his story, they knew enough about his past to know that Max had never met his real father.

“I tracked him down and the doctor’s suspicions were confirmed—my father is legally blind.”

The whole room grew eerily quiet, their breaths held, even their hearts seemed to pause beating to allow Max to go on.

“My father has a condition called retinitis pigmentosa, and along with his red hair, he passed this on to me as well. Iwillgo blind. This outcome is unchangeable, unfathomable, and heartbreaking. I will spend the rest of the season on injured reserve, and I think we all know, without me having to say it, what comes after that.”

The team’s captain, Patrick Carter, made his way to Max, bringing him in for an embrace. Brown stood next, and hugged Max as well. Slowly, one by one, his team packed in around Max until the ever-growing hug he was at the center of was completed, every player in the room wrapping their arms around the next in solidarity for Max. The locker room remained silent, and Max knew this was their way of saying goodbye, in true Max fashion, with words being too hard to speak.

Because words were hard when you were losing a game, but words were impossible when you were losing a teammate.

Coach was the last to join the hug. Max looked up from the sea of heads lowered around him in the embrace and found his coach looking back, a single tear running down his cheek accompanied by the proud smile of a father.

Max found himself sitting in his garage at home while the rest of his team were across town taking the ice at the Condors arena for a practice he wasn’t a part of. The paperwork for his medical leave sat on the seat next to him, his years of dedication and training summed up in a neat manila folder; it felt like a smack in the face because that folder made it official. He was counting down the days until he was no longer an Anaheim Condor, or an NHL goalie. The only two things he had ever known himself to be.

He was supposed to be signing his big bridge contract this year, not announcing his retirement.

This wasnotokay.

He wasnotokay.

And this time, Max knew it was okay to not be okay.

The team had taken it harder than he expected. The questions they asked were all ones he’d readied himself for, all questions he had asked himself a million times already: Is it treatable? Is there a medicine that could cure it or slow it down? Can you play a few more games? Can you finish the season?

The answer was no.

Then there was the hardest question: Will this be your final year with the Condors?

The answer was yes.

The hardest yes he had said since he had decided to live a life of yeses.

His phone buzzed, and he knew it was Remi. She both worried about him and remindedhimnot to worry. She was the only thing keeping him grounded at this point, and he couldn’t help but think back to the day they met and wonder if some higher power had it all planned out for them, for her to come into his life just when he needed her. He remembered sitting on his bed after he had broken the lamp, and the way his body came alive at the simple brush of her finger against his—his connection to her was instant.

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