Kiss Me

The phone number was for some reason, eerily familiar on my phone screen. Pressing the red decline button, I set it back onto my nightstand and situated my body back into a comfortable position so I could fall back asleep quickly. Not two minutes later, the screen lit up bright once again and the blaring ringtone of “The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, stunned me out of my light sleep and back into a sitting up position.

The same number, once again.

It wasn’t a number I had saved; it wasn’t a number I was able to recognize off of the top of my head; and if it hadn’t been for the fact that this was the second time they called back at nearly a quarter to midnight, I wouldn’t have bothered to pick it up.

“Hello?” I answered; my voice deep with sleep.

“Haley?” The voice was familiar, yet I still couldn’t put my finger on who exactly it was. “This is Mario. Mario Lemieux.” Ha. That was why I remembered it. Fighting all urges to hang up the phone (yeah, that’s pretty damn rude, I know) I slowly took a deep breath and wiped the sleepies out of my eyes.

“Hi, Mario. How are you?” I tried to act as cordial as I could. Every time I had met Mario he had been exactly like what I had heard growing up in nearby Columbus, Ohio: intelligent, friendly, and caring. His demeanor on and off the ice seemed to be parallel; a friendly face to all.

“I’m sorry to call you this late at night, Haley, but I was wondering if you were able to do me a favor.” Uh-oh, I didn’t exactly like the sound of that one. Picking at the corner of my nail, I criss cross applesauce’d it, and tucked my cell phone underneath my right ear.

“Shoot.” I replied back steadily as I waited for what exactly this favor was going to ensue. Turns out it was going to be my worst nightmare.

“Listen, before you say no just listen to the entire pitch. Please Haley.” I grunted in response and shook my head. I really wasn’t going to like this. “Sid was injured a couple nights ago in the Winter Classic, I’m not sure you watched it or anything,” I didn’t. I hadn’t watched much hockey in the past few months, in actuality. “But anyways he was hit pretty hard by one of their players, anyways to keep a long story short, he was hit again tonight in the game, and he’s hurting pretty bad.”

I wasn’t exactly piecing together where I was fitting in the equation.

“Alright...” I spoke quietly as the view was somehow becoming more apparent.

“Sid is asking for you. We need to get him to the hospital and he won’t talk to anyone. He keeps saying that he’ll only talk to you…” I sighed a deep and perturbed breath. I should’ve known. “… I know you’re busy, Haley, but if you could just talk to him for a minute or something, get him to get to the hospital, we would really appreciate it.”

This was not something I was in the mood for, yet Mario was practically begging.

“Okay, hand him the phone, I’ll speak to him.” There was a pregnant pause on Mario’s end of the line.

“See that’s the problem,” I didn’t actually see a problem with it. “He wants you to come down here.”

At that point a big, ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ almost escaped my mouth and I placed Mario on mute to let out a loud scream. Really didn’t want to have to do this. Really. Taking him off of mute, I controlled my strong urges to begin cursing, and obliged to the request.

“You owe me, Mario,” I spoke like I had known the man my entire life. He laughed quickly but then returned to his calm demeanor.

“Call this number when you’re down at CONSOL and I’ll have security waiting to let you in.”

After we had exchanged our goodbyes, I casually tossed my phone onto the white comforter, wishing that it had only cracked into a thousand pieces before I had received that phone call, and began throwing on odds and ends clothes that I found in my closet that were still able to fit me.

*****

“Right this way, Miss. Cahill,” The burly security guard with a balding mullet led me down a winding hallway and into the inner bowels of the CONSOL Energy Center. I had been here many times before that I probably would have been able to find my way around just fine with out him.

Mario met me at the door of a large office, and smiled gratefully as I adjusted my sweater around my hips and belly, and took a deep breath. “You really owe me a big one,” I joked once again before turning the knob of the door and thrusting myself onto a situation that I shouldn’t have been anywhere near.

The first thing I did when I entered the room was turn on the lights. Immediately I was stunned with how large the room was and how unfamiliar it looked. Most of the rooms in the CONSOL, at least on player levels, I had been semi familiar (check that as just recognizing a big ass Penguins logo everywhere) because of the need to consecrate the place like a brand new house once it had opened earlier in the season—his idea, certainly not mine.

“Turn off the god damn lights!” He growled with his back towards me. From the doorway of the room I noticed his head stuffed far into his hands, and the hood of his sweatshirt was pushed up over his messy brown curls. Stepping back on my feet I held my ground and told him what was up.

“Listen here, Sidney,” I spat with a little more venom and velocity than I had initially planned on. He turned his head towards me quickly and I realized his eyes were rimmed red and he was pushed back large tears. Still my own demeanor did not back down. “I got a call in the middle of dead sleep to come down here and talk to you. I’m here, I’m down here, I shouldn’t even have to be, but I’m here. You don’t get to talk to me like that.” It was going to be my way or the highway.

“I just--” His attitude was already being copped and before he could even go on any further I stopped him.

“Don’t get an attitude with me.” I wasn’t feeling hurt. I was feeling angry. His demeanors soften just a little bit and I was able to tell how open and scared he really was.

“I’m really sorry, Hale.” His reply was short and sweet, and between everything I couldn’t tell if he were apologizing for copping a major attitude with me or for what he had done a couple months before. His eyes flickered between my lower region and my eyes and all I wanted to do was walk out. He had given up, not me.

“What’s wrong?” I asked as I lowered myself down the wall and next to him. My hand lay slightly on his fingertips but it was only for reassurance and nothing more. He sighed and ran his hands through his head as he winced. A headache was one thing that was wrong.

“I’m so dizzy and my head hurts. I can hardly stand up, Hale, I feel so sick.” I pulled my hand away from his and pursed my lips.

“How did you get hit?” I asked.

“I--” He thought for a long time, finally give up. “I can’t remember?” I couldn’t tell whether or not his response was a question or an answer, so I continued to ask him questions.

“How many fingers am I holding up, Sid?” I asked cautiously. His eyes again flickered, this time between my eyes and the hand where I was holding up two fingers. He contemplated before finally making his answer.

“Four.” He sounded confident until he saw my face pull into a curve. “That’s not right?” I shook my head quickly but patted his shoulder reassuringly as the small knot in my stomach began to get larger.

“What is the year?”

“2010.” This time I didn’t strangulate my face.

“The president?” He smiled.

“Obama.” I let out a small sigh of relief. One out of four wasn’t the best odds.

“You know you need to go to the hospital and get checked out, right?” I asked him as he took a drink of the water bottle sitting next to him. At least if anything he was keeping up on his fluids. He nodded and let out a deep sigh. I of all people knew how much he hated anything that dealt with medicine; it always did leave me wondering how exactly we had worked so well for so long. I pulled myself back up the wall and dusted the back of my yoga pants off before walking back out of the room and into the hallway.

“What did he say?” Mario asked with baited breath. Around him were a couple of the other players and members of personnel I had recognized. Everyone stared at me with blank looks and I couldn’t blame them.

“I’m not a medical doctor, obviously, but I’ve seen patients come into the ER looking like this, and he has all the classic signs of a serious concussion. He needs to get looked at.” The brief stints I had worked floors on the neuro units had also helped me relay on that discovery.

“Is he willing to go now?” I nodded my head.

“Let me go say goodbye to him.” I spoke quickly before returning into the room. He was sitting on the desk with the lights dimmed and his hood still pulled over his head. His arms were crossed around his massive chest and his face looked tired.

“I’m really, really, really sorry Haley,” The apology was abrupt and wasn’t something I was expecting. This apology definitely wasn’t because of his attitude. I vowed myself not to get upset; to get affected by it. This was what he did: apologized and didn’t mean it. He was a serial apologizer. I shook my head.

“It’s really okay, Sidney.” I spoke calmly and quietly as I looked down at the ground. Avoiding eye contact seemed like the best plan at the time. “You should probably get to the hospital now.” I reminded him as I could sense the tension in the room. His face dropped.

“I have one question?” I nodded my head. “Will you come and keep me company? You know I don’t like hospitals.” The cheesy puppy dogface was hard for me not to laugh along with and even harder to say no too. I knew I probably shouldn’t have gone. I needed to go back home and get sleep, but something told me otherwise.

“Sure.” I replied back as Mario walked into the room with one of the paramedics.