Going Mental: Part Four

Renée knew that she was going to lose the staring contest, so she caved and huffed, “Why are you making such a big deal about this?”

“Because I can’t believe you didn’t tell me! I didn’t even know you were thinking about quitting, let alone that you would up and do it like this. And anyway, isn’t it customary to put in a two-weeks’ notice?”

Brandy had stopped at Renée’s house with a bottle of Chardonnay and hopes of finding out why she had yet to call Dave after last week’s surprise set up. Instead, she had walked in to find her best friend on the couch, her left leg stretched out with a heating pad over her knee and her MacBook Pro perched on her lap. She was in yoga pants and a matching, form-fitting top. It was a sad sight, even for a Tuesday evening. Renée was getting lamer and lamer in her old age—content to sit at home alone with nothing to do, and nothing Brandy could do could stop her transformation into a no-fun spinster.

“For normal jobs, yes. But this had special circumstances. Just trust me, it was for the best.” Renée stood and gathered up their empty wine glasses. She had to gingerly take baby steps because her knee was killing her. It always did when rain was coming. And in Vancouver, it seemed like it was always raining.

“Okay, fine, whatever. But no back up? Nothing waiting in the wings? Girl, you’re crazy. In this economy?”

“I’ll be fine, Brandy. I have some money saved, and I’ll find something.” She set the glasses in the sink without rinsing them, quiet for a moment as she thought. “Maybe it’s time for a change anyway, time to try something else. I’m feeling a little burnt out, I think.”

“Something else? Are you nuts? You get your Ph.D., and now you don’t want to be a therapist anymore?”

Renée shrugged, not feeling up to arguing. After a week of not having to get up early, dress uncomfortably, and listen to guys lie to her, she really enjoyed the break. She felt calmer and definitely more relaxed. “I liked all those classes I took in university, it was interesting, and... I just didn’t know what else to do and went with it. But I never really loved it.”

“Do you think I love marketing? No fucking way, but that doesn’t mean I just up and quit because I don’t like it.”

She sighed and closed her eyes as she debated on trying to explain. Renée didn’t really want to disclose the true reason why she quit, nor could she, but she also knew that Brandy wouldn’t stop bugging her about it until she got a better answer. As she weighed her options in her head, she was interrupted and didn’t have to make the decision: there was a knock on the door.

Renée limped from the kitchen and peeked through the peephole. It surprised her to see the man on her front porch. “What the....” She slid back the deadbolt and undid the chain. “Kevin, what are you doing here?”

“Hi, Dr. Carlyle. I did it.”

“Did what?”

He smiled, obviously proud of himself and kind of giddy. “Wrote my letter. I wanted to tell you.”

“Wrote your—you mean to tell me that you came here to tell me that? How did you even find my house?” She huffed and put her hands on her hips. “I can’t believe this.”

“I know it’s kinda late, but you were right. Once I started writing it, things clicked. And—”

Brandy poked her head around the door and tried to figure out what was going on, and Kevin clammed up once he saw that they weren’t alone. He felt a little embarrassed that he was intruding on something. “Uh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“It’s okay, I was just leaving,” Brandy replied, slinging her purse over her shoulder and giving Renée a quick squeeze. “Call me, okay?”

“Wait, Brandy, you don’t have to go—”

“It’s fine, John’s waiting for me. Good night.” She nodded at Kevin as she slipped by him and headed for her car.

He gave Renée an expectant look, like a little kid waiting for his parent’s move. She didn’t want to be burdened with talking to someone that late into the evening after sharing a bottle of wine, but a big enough part of her was curious about Kevin’s energy and excitement over completing his assignment. It had been a long time since she had doled out advice to someone that had been taken to heart like that.

“Would you like to come in?” she asked finally, taking a step back and gesturing toward her living room.

“Thanks. I do appreciate this, Dr. Carlyle. I just, I wanted to tell someone.” He walked into the room and took a seat on the coach, where Renée had been stretched out earlier. She turned off her heating pad, placed it on the coffee table, and then sat on the chair that faced him. Crossing her legs, she folded her hands in her lap in her therapist position.

Kevin reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope, which he held out for Renée to take. She hesitated, knowing that whatever was written was going to be personal and heart wrenching; the gesture of sharing it, even with a therapist, was a big step forward in dealing with his grief.

She leaned forward and took the envelope, carefully opening it. There were three sheets of papers inside, both the front and back filled with tiny, printed chicken scratch. Renée didn’t read it, but she did scan the pages. Several words popped out at her. Friend. Wish. Sorry. Love. Miss. Brother. She folded the pages up and slid them back into the envelope. “This is great, Kevin.” She felt proud of him for taking her advice to heart—and it made her feel good, too.

“When I sat down to write it, it was hard at first. I didn’t know where to even begin. There was so much for me to say,” he gushed out, taking the letter back and pushing it back into his pocket. “Once I got started, it all came out. And you were right. It felt good to get it out. And I know what I’m going to do with it.”

Renée smiled. It really touched her that Kevin was being so positive. She had recommended the controlled purging of his emotions because she had hoped that he’d have just this reaction. “I’m happy to hear that. How do you feel now that you have your thoughts and feelings on paper?”

“Better, I think. I’m still... saddened by the whole thing, but having something in my hands, something tangible that I can hold, it makes me feel, see, there’s not even a word to describe it.”

She understood what he meant without him having to say it. When she told him to write a letter, she gave him an opportunity to lend a voice to a facet of his personality that didn’t expressed often. He was able to see it, which made it more real—and once it felt real, then it had to be reckoned with. Once it felt real, then it wasn’t silly or stupid or weak to do something to deal with it.

Kevin continued, “And really, I just wanted to thank you. I’m not over it, I know that, but it’s a start. A good start. This is gonna be a tough season without Ryp, since it’s the first one without him, but it doesn’t feel so daunting anymore.”

“It’s good to hear that. What I’d like to hear also,” she segued, “is that you’ll continue counseling by seeing the team therapist. You’re right in that it’s going to be a difficult experience throughout the entirety of the season, so you’re going to need steady support—”

“Oh, yeah, that’s why I have this,” he answered, reaching into his other pocket. He produced a single sheet of paper, which he handed over to Renée.

“A waiver,” she sighed, glancing down at it. She recognized it easily, having seen it before. She had hated to see it because it used to mean that she was losing a patient. Whenever a player brought one to her, it meant that they were pursuing outside options and excluding the Canucks’ resources in their treatment. Now, it meant she was gaining a patient. Kevin had already signed it. There was a blank left for her signature, if she was willing to do it. She set it down on the coffee table between them and resumed her position.

“I don’t like the new guy. He comes off so pretentious, and he doesn’t listen. And when I talked about Ryp, it felt wrong. I mean, he didn’t know him, never met him, and I don’t want him to think of him like some statistic or something. He was my friend.”

Renée tilted her head to the side and tried to be sympathetic. “I can tell you, as a professional, that—”

“I know what you’re gonna say, that he’ll understand or whatever because he’s trained to, but it’s different with you.” Kevin inched forward on the coach. “You were there for the team, so you get it.” He paused and cleared his throat before he slowly added, “And I Googled you. So I know you get it. Really get it.”

She narrowed her eyes at him as she unfolded her hands and grabbed the arms of the chair. Her nails dug into the fabric tensely. She was offended slightly but mostly unnerved. “You Googled me?”

Kevin nodded. “Yeah. I did.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to know who I was going to be talking to.” He was very matter-of-fact about his reply.

“And what, pray tell, did you find?” she asked sarcastically.

“A lot. I was surprised by what I found out about you, Dr. Renée Carlyle. Not only did you graduate from McGill, undergraduate and Ph.D., but you played hockey there for the Martlets.” She cringed, but that didn’t stop Kevin from laying it all out. “You didn’t play a lot of games and only played for parts of two seasons, but your stats were good. So then I checked YouTube, and saw a couple videos uploaded. You were good. You had moves I’d expect to see in the pros. I’m not gonna lie, it was a surprise. I never would’ve expected that from you. But see, I can respect that—you know the game, the demands, the expectations, the stress, because you’ve been there. Now I’m not just talking to a shrink, but a hockey player.

“But there is one thing I don’t get. Dr. Carlyle, there were talks about you making the Olympic roster for 2002. The Olympics.”

Renée shook her head. “Okay, that’s enough. End of conversation.”

“That’s something that everyone dreams of, but not everyone gets to do it. You have to be selected, make the cut. You were so close, and you just walked away.”

“No, I did not walk away,” she corrected, riled into responding to him. Once the words left her mouth, she realized her mistake. “This is inappropriate. If I’m supposed to be your therapist, Kevin, then my life is off limits. It’s irrelevant.”

“How is it irrelevant? It’s perfectly relevant. And besides, you’re not my doctor yet. Please, I want to know. I have to know.”

“This has nothing to do with my ability to help you. You just have to trust me and trust the process.”

“If you want me to trust you, honestly, I have to know how you left it all behind. How you could do it, give up the dream. You’re a hockey player. Hockey players don’t just give up.”

She closed her eyes. Everything inside of her screamed to stop; not only were her therapeutic instincts telling her that she needed to maintain the air of professionalism, but she also didn’t want to relive that particular portion of her past. But when she opened her eyes and looked back at Kevin, she knew she couldn’t completely dismiss it. He already knew much more than any of the other Canucks had—because none of them had bothered to look up what was considered public knowledge. If he really wanted to know the whole story, she was sure that he could find it somewhere on the Internet.

“I didn’t give up. I didn’t leave it behind. You can’t say it like that. I wanted to play in the Olympics, of course I did. It’s just that I got hurt, and....” Her voice faded out as she fought the surge of emotions welling up inside her. While she had moved on from those years and got on with her life, it still hurt to think about. After all, it had been her dream for the first nineteen years of her life; it had been a part of her for so long that she thought she’d never be able to reflect back without being sad.

“What’d you hurt?”

“My knee.”

Kevin looked at her expectantly, waiting for a more thorough explanation. “Well, what happened?”

Taking one long, deep breath, she began. “My first year at McGill, I hurt my knee. There was a divot in the ice by the net, and I tripped and slid feet-first into the boards. I don’t know exactly how it happened, but my knee popped. My ACL. They told me I didn’t need surgery, but I missed the rest of the season. Which sucked, but I focused on making it back for my sophomore year.

“We were playing Concordia when I got hurt again. They were our rivals. I know everyone thinks girls’ sports aren’t as competitive and physical, but we got up for this game. I went for the puck along the boards, and I got pinned. My knee got pinned. Tore my ACL again. This time, I needed to get it surgically repaired. The doctor assumed that it didn’t heal properly the first time, which was why it tore again and was worse that time around.”

Renée sighed. “Needless to say, I missed the Olympic camp. That was it.”

Kevin was quiet for a few moments, absorbing the information. “Man. That sucks.”

“Yeah, it did. It sucked.”

He pushed for more. “So, what happened after that? Why didn’t you play again?”

Renée looked down at her hands. “The time between when it tore the first time and getting the surgery did some damage, the meniscus wore down. Even after my ACL was repaired, after rehab, it didn’t feel the same. I didn’t have the same range of motion. Playing wasn’t the same. I wasn’t the same player, I couldn’t do the same things on the ice. The doctor was worried about what would happen if I injured it again, so playing on less than one hundred percent wasn’t really an option for me because the chances of reinjury were so high.”

“Oh,” he murmured apologetically. As an athlete, he knew the severity of that news; a hockey player always wanted to play, but there were circumstances in which he or she would need to walk away. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Too bad that isn’t on Wikipedia. It would save me the grief and aggravation of retelling it.” Once she realized how rude and unprofessional her comment was, she went on to finish her story. “Obviously, it was a tough adjustment to make. I, too, had to seek counseling to help with the transition. Well, I was forced into it my by parents. I refocused my energy on school, and pursued sports psychology to help people like I had needed.” Renée left out how unhealthy it was to switch from one obsession to another. With nothing else to occupy her time, she delved into her schoolwork. It wasn’t until after she had graduated with her doctorate that she had discovered that she didn’t love psychology like she had loved hockey. However, she hadn’t known what else to do, and she was such a dedicated individual that she couldn’t stand to not have a purpose or a goal in mind.

He nodded and glanced down at the coffee table. Kevin reached for the form and looked down at it. “So, will you sign it?”

She held out her hand, not wanting to let all that have been in vain. How could she send him away after all that? “Yeah, I’ll sign.”