Page 94 of Off-Limits as Puck

Back in my apartment, I pour wine from the emergency bottle I keep for exactly this kind of day. The client files spread across my coffee table mock me with their mundane concerns—relationship anxiety, family communication issues, academic stress. Problems with solutions. Problems that matter to the people living them but feel impossibly small after destroying everything for love.

I grab the nearest file—Jennifer and her holiday weight concerns—and tear it in half. Then another. And another. Paper flies everywhere, session notes and treatment plans and intake forms scattered like confetti at the world’s saddest party.

When I’m done, my living room looks like a therapy practice exploded. Months of careful work building this new life reduced to shreds of paper and wine-stained tears.

My phone buzzes. Dr. Rutledge again.

Sarah:Saw some social media posts. Are you okay?

So it’s already online. My humiliation, viral and permanent, tagged and shared and commented on by strangers who know nothing about who I was before Reed Hendrix walked into my life.

Me:I’m fine.

Sarah:You don’t have to be fine, Chelsea. This is too much! I can’t believe how much of a deal everyone’s making this.

Me:I slept with hockey’s most notorious bad boy player and biggest bachelor who doesn’t sleep around. I know why I have all these haters. All these people wish it was them in those photos.

Mia:Jealous bitches!

Emma:Want to talk?

What would I say? That I’m drowning in the shallow end of psychology, treating problems that feel like puzzles instead of the complex human disasters I trained for? That every time someone recognizes me, I remember exactly how much I’ve lost? That I wake up every morning hoping today won’t be the day another video surfaces, another photo leaks, another piece of my dignity gets auctioned off to the highest bidder?

Me:I’m handling it.

Sarah:If you’re not going to talk to us, you should go to therapy.

Therapy for the therapist. How perfectly circular. Except what would I say? That I’m grieving the loss of a relationship that never existed? That I miss a man who’s moved on so completely he’s calling me a distraction in international press? That I destroyed everything good in my life for fifteen minutes of feeling alive, and some days I wish I could do it again?

Me:Thanks, but I’m fine.

I’m not fine. I’m broke, professionally exiled, and apparently unable to buy groceries without becoming a viral sensation. I’m living in a beige box in Phoenix, treating people’s minor anxieties while my own major depression goes untreated.

But I’m also free.

Free from my father’s expectations and my own need to be perfect. Free from the pressure to be Dr. Clark instead of just Chelsea. Free from the illusion that playing by the rules guarantees you win.

I gather the scattered papers, thinking about Jennifer and Marcus and all the other people who come to me seeking permission to want what they want, to feel what they feel, to be messy and human and imperfect.

Maybe that’s enough for now. Maybe helping other people figure out how to be honest about their needs is worth more than treating elite athletes who think emotions are weaknesses to be managed.

Maybe building something small and real is better than maintaining something big and fake.

Or maybe I’m just making peace with failure because the alternative—fighting my way back to respectability—feels impossible from here.

My reflection in the dark window shows a woman I’m still learning to recognize. Messy hair, wine-stained shirt, surrounded by the debris of her former ambitions.

She looks tired.

She looks defeated.

She looks human.

35

Exile tastes like protein shakes and the kind of silence that makes you question whether you still exist.

The Boston Blizzards training facility is state-of-the-art—all glass and steel and the subtle promise that redemption is possible if you’re willing to work for it. I’ve been here three weeks now, skating through drills like a ghost, kept away from media and fans and anyone who might remember why Reed Hendrix is a liability instead of an asset.

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