Playing the Game of Love

I know I posted one a couple of hours ago but I couldn't resist putting this one up too lol.

November 4th, 2010
Wednesday
Ristuccia Arena, Wilmington, MA
7:46 P.M.

“WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED!!” Milan turned to see Tuukka, back in his clothes standing on the ice looking shocked. Milan felt his mouth dry up, unable to answer. He looked back down at Raina whose head was by now resting in a puddle of her own blood. He felt sick to his stomach. For the first time in about eight years Milan felt tears coming to his eyes.

“I- Just- She-” Milan ran through his hands through his hair in frustration. Tuukka realized Milan had been the one to knock Raina over. Tuukka’s face got red with rage.

“You’re horrible,” he said to Milan. Tuukka came over and lifted Raina from the puddle of blood. Her hair was soaked in it and it was getting all over his sweater. Tuukka thought nothing of it as he carried her gently in his arms. Tuukka had always hated the sight of a lot of blood but he pushed away his disgust. “I’m taking her to the hospital, I’ve got to get there fast she’s losing a lot of blood.”

“I’ve got to come,” Tuukka turned and yelled at him.

“No you’re not, you’re sick for doing this to her. She could be dying right now.” Milan didn’t listen; he followed Tuukka outside still in full hockey gear and skates. He knew the cement was ruining the blades of his skates but all he could think about was getting Raina to the hospital. More tears streamed down his face as he knew he could be responsible for her life. He was the one who had lost control and pushed her. Tuukka slid Raina’s body into the back seat of his SUV, not caring that the seat was going to be ruined with blood. Milan got into the passenger seat. He ripped off his skates and began taking off his gear.

“What did you do to her?!” yelled Tuukka.

“We got in this huge fight and she shoved me and I shoved her back and she hit her head when she fell.”

“She could be dying Milan!” Milan looked back at Raina who had turned strangely pale. Her hair was heavily matted with blood, and Tuukka’s seat was soaked through with it. They pulled into the parking lot. Tuukka didn’t bother to find a parking space instead he drove right up the entrance. Still sweaty and gross from practice Milan got out as Tuukka took Raina from the back. Tuukka rushed inside with Raina in his arms followed by Milan. Tuukka ran to the desk and said

“Yes right away!” the woman called down a stretcher and the doctors arrived and took her away on it. The woman at the desk said to Tuukka

“Can you tell me who she is?”

“Yes, Raina Julien. I think she split her head open. She fell down while skating and hit her head.” Tuukka knew the woman thought he was lying. Raina couldn’t get as critical of a wound as she did without a pushing force that had thrown her down harder and faster. Milan stood awkwardly behind Tuukka in his own thoughts. Why had he let himself get so out of control? His anger from Raina attacking Brittany had boiled over. Brittany had told him she had gone over to Raina and tried to be nice to her but Raina had refused and told Brittany to go away. When Brittany had done so, Raina had thrown the candle at her. He was beginning to not believe Brittany and it made him feel even worse about the fight. If Brittany had been lying Raina could be sitting in a hospital slowly dying because of him.

The woman asked for more info on Raina like her address, parents, numbers, etc. Tuukka and Milan sat down in the waiting area.

“We need to call Claude and tell him,” said Tuukka.

“What are you going to tell him?” said Milan in a quiet broken voice.

“I’m not telling him anything, you tell him, I’m going to park.” Milan took out his cell phone and called Claude. The ringing seemed to painfully go on for forever as he waited. Finally he picked up.

“Milan do you know where Raina is?”

“Ya, um, hi Claude,”

“Hi Milan is Raina with you?” Milan swallowed the lump in his throat and tried to keep his voice steady.

“We’re at the hospital.”

“What? Why!” Milan decided to lie and said

“While Raina was fooling around with me after practice she fell and split her head open. Tuukka and I drove here because she was bleeding a lot. But now she’s being taken care of.”

“Oh my God, we’ll be right there!” Then Claude hung up. Right as he hung up an incoming call from Brittany came in. He answered.

“Where are you?” she said

“I’m gonna be a little late.”

“Why?”

“Because um,” he didn’t want to upset her and being up Raina. “Claude kept us awhile longer and I’m going to the grocery store.”

“Oh alright,” she said. “Anyway I wanted to know if you wanted to go on a cruise my family invited us on. It’s down the coast of Mexico. I know it’s sudden, we’d be leaving this Sunday and coming back next Monday afternoon.”

“I can’t I have hockey,”

“Pleeeeaase,” she begged.

“I can’t just not play the games this week, I HAVE to go.”

“Fine, do you mind if I go?”

“Go ahead, have fun,”

“Alright, be home soon.” She hung up and a few minutes later Tuukka came in with Claude and Raina’s mother Karen. They both looked extremely concerned. Tuukka must have told them a similar lie to what he had because Karen said

“Tuukka told us what happened, and how you were playing around.” Tuukka glared at him still angry. A minute later a doctor came out of the elevator and walked over and said

“Are you Raina’s family and friends?”

“Yes,” said Claude. “How is my daughter?”

“She’s definitely going to be alright,” Milan felt relief crash down on him. “She cracked her head open pretty badly but we stitched it up without having to shave her head. You can take her home tomorrow afternoon. I suggest when she does get home that she stayed in bed and rests for awhile. We just wanna keep her overnight to make sure she’s completely fine.”

“Thank you so much doctor, what time tomorrow can we come get her?”

“3:00 will be fine. We’ll have finished the final tests on her head and brain.” Claude shoke the doctor’s hand and then said

“We’re going home and we’ll be back tomorrow morning to see her, you two are welcome to come if you like.”

“We’ll be here,” said Tuukka. Milan followed Tuukka back out to his car. They both sat in silence until Tuukka said

“Where do you want me to drop you off?”

“Back to the rink to get my stuff.”

“It’s not gonna be open.” Milan looked at the clock to see it was already 11:30. He hadn’t left anything so important there he had all of his gear. He had left his clothes there which would be picked up by someone on the team for him.

“You can drop me off at my place then.” Tuukka stopped at the lobby entrance without saying anything to each other Milan took out all of his gear and then said

“Bye,” Tuukka didn’t answer. Milan shut the door of the car and walked into the building. He couldn’t help the feeling of wanting to breakdown when he got into the elevator. He let more of his tears escape from his eyes. He couldn’t believe he had put his hands on her like that. She would probably never forgive him. He felt like absolute scum. He had always been taught to never put his hands on a woman. He still loved her and wouldn’t blame her is she didn’t forgive him.

Raina came to around 2:00 in the morning. When she first opened her eyes she had forgotten what had happened to her. All she knew was she was in a bed. Severely confused she tried to sit up in the darkness but felt a sharp pain in her head and fell back to her pillow. She realized she was in a hospital room. Her memory then came flooding back. Milan’s angry face in hers, he had been the one to push her and now she was in the hospital because of it. She put her hand on her head and felt a thick bandage binding it. The thought of Milan scared her, she had never seen him like that before expect against opposing hockey players. They had never truly gotten mad at each other, only annoyed.

“Nurse?” she called out into the silence. Her room was dark and the only light was flooding faintly in from the hallway. “Nurse?” she called a little louder. Yet again nobody called back to her in the darkness. She felt a little creeped out with how silent everything was. She’d been in a hospital bed before, when she had her tonsils out. But she had awoken to her family and friends around her. He saw a window on the wall behind her, and tried to get up and look out at the city. Ignoring the pain she was able to sit up enough to see the lights of the Boston Bridge and the stream of cars traveling over it. She saw the Garden with a spotlight on the large picture of Chara and Thorton on the side of the building. She slid back into her bed and remembered she had her phone on the inside pocket of her sweater. She took it out and only found one text message from Jeff. It said

‘Hey what are you up to?” hoping he was still awake she texted back.

‘I’m in the hospital.’ As she tried to sit up further she felt the painful discomfort on her head again.

“Nurse?” she called again. She wanted to know what had happened. Who had brought her here? Did her parents know? Suddenly a nurse came in and said

“Oh you’re awake how are you feeling?”

“My head hurts, what happened?”

“You split your head open when you fell.”

“Who brought me here?”

“Your friend Tuukka, your parents know you’re here too.” Raina smiled. Tuukka was a true friend. The nurse left and Raina listened to the tapping of her heels as she went down the tile hall. Soon she could no longer hear them leaving her in silence. Jeff texted back,

‘For what?!’

‘I fell and cracked my head open.’ Raina sighed in boredom and slid back down onto her bed. She had soon fallen asleep again and stayed that way until 7:00 that morning.
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Thanks for reading :) I'm going to be putting more chapters up a lot more frequently as I near the end of the story.