Between Friends and Lovers

(26) Oliver

Parking my car in front of the doctor’s office, I glanced at the time to see that I had twenty minutes before my appointment. I wasn’t sure what I was thinking when I decided to get here early. But my anxiety was acting up, and I decided to help it lessen, or better yet, to have fewer things to be anxious over, so I decided to get here early.

Today was my three-month checkup with Dr. Howard. Well, it was my first checkup with her since my regular doctor was back in Shadowfall, and Dr Anderson, who had been my doctor before I moved, had retired. The change in doctors wasn’t worrying me too much. The only thing that I required was that they have no ‘friendship’ or contact with my father. Maxwell Castellanos had friends in all the ‘right’ places—his words, not mine—and that made it hard for me to be able to do anything without his friends notifying him of what I was doing.

Usually, that wasn’t a bother because I’ve never done anything that any of his associates would have to report back to him. Well, that was true if I ignored the fact that I didn’t tell Maxwell that the doctor had given me the green flag when it came to playing. When my dad kept pushing the matter, I decided to move back to Middleworth so that I could hide the truth in peace. But something that I didn’t consider was that my doctor in Shadowfall was one of my dad’s golf buddies and it would be a matter of time before he shared with him the real truth about my health.

Laying my head on the steering wheel, I started processing the terrible mistake I had made. But at the time, it was a great decision. At the time, I was sick and tired of hearing my dad talking about me playing again. Three weeks after my surgery, Dad was already asking about when I could get back to the rink. It didn’t take long for me to realise that Maxwell didn’t care about my health. He cared more about having his son, or one of them, playing hockey and following in his footsteps.

I wouldn’t say that I was shattered by the realisation. It was something I should have prepared myself for. I’ve never had a great relationship with him. He didn’t care that much about me. The only time that he had taken interest in me was when I started showing interest in hockey. Sometimes, I felt like I had taken an interest in hockey since I was hoping that he’d give me the attention I longed for from him.

And that was why I was on the fence about playing. I was now finding it hard to be able to find the love I once had for the sport. When I thought of playing, I felt my anxiety flare up. But I should start planning for what was going to happen once Maxwell found out about my lies.

My thoughts were brought to a halt by my phone ringing. I didn’t bother removing my head from the steering wheel as I grabbed my phone and answered it.

“Hello.”

“Oliver.” Alex’s confused voice came through. “Are you okay? You sound weird.”

I sat up straight and cleared my throat. “Yeah, I’m okay. What’s going on?”

“Nothing, it’s just...um.” She stopped talking.

“Alex?”

“I wanted to ask you if you wanted to hang out,” she said quietly. “I mean, it’s Friday, and I thought that maybe we could spend some time together.”

I wanted to lie and say that I would love to hang out with Alex, but that wasn’t the truth. After my realisation Monday night, I decided that maybe I needed to take a step away from Alex just for a few days. It wasn’t something I was planning to do indefinitely since we did have our agreement, and that was bound to bring us together, but I was hoping that in those few days, I’d be away from her, I’d be able to come up with a new course of action. Something that would help me in not having my feelings for her grow stronger.