Six years ago Billie Sampson made a choice. She made a choice and she chose skiing over home, over friends, over a social life, and over her childhood sweetheart Patrick. At first it had seemed like the right decision but now that Billie was injured...
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Monday morning I got up to catch the bus so I could get to my doctor's appointment. My knee was getting better, but slowly, and lately it felt like it had plateaued, it didn't hurt like it did at first but improvement had slowed. I made my way to the medical building and was led into a patient room where I changed into shorts. The doctor moved and poked and prodded at my knee.
"I don't like this swelling" He said, "I thought it be gone by now. I think we might need to go for another scan make sure there's no new tears or anything else going on."
"So still benched then?" I sighed, I just wanted to get back to training, to skiing. I could feel tears pricking at my eyes but I didn't want to cry, I'd cried enough overt his injury.
"I'm afraid so, we'll check back when we have the MRI results and then we'll go from there. I nodded, thanked the doctor and left. The rest of my training group was in the gym later and while I couldn't do a lot of the session I could still do some upper body and core weights and workout my good leg. It was one of the only times I got to train with the rest of the group, with other people. I was having a hard time being injured; I was spending a lot of time alone or with only the physio, and without full-time training I was hyperaware of the things that were missing in my life. I was almost 25 and I'd never had a real relationship while people I had gone to high school with were getting engaged and married and having babies, I hadn't even finished college or university. I often felt like I had put my life on hold to be an athlete and since my athletic pursuits weren't really panning out the way I wanted them to I couldn't help but wonder if I should have done something else. If I wasn't skiing would I be living with a boyfriend? Would we be thinking of getting married? Would I have a degree and a full time job? Some days I wished I could go back and see if things could have turned out better if I had gone the more traditional route.
I was just getting off the bus outside of the sport centre when my phone rang. "Hey Beater" I said checking my caller id before I picked up, "What's up?"
"Hey Bill, I know you say you guys aren't really a thing but I thought you should know before you show up to the gym and everyone's talking about it" Brittany was talking really fast and I didn't understand anything that she was saying.
"Brittany what are you talking about, what's going on?" I stopped walking still outside the sports center building.
"Jackson had a crash doing a training run today" She said slowly, I sighed and closed my eyes,
"A bad crash?" I said hesitantly, my heart was suddenly beating hard and fast and I could feel the anxiety rising, it had to be bad if she was calling me about it.
"Yeah" She said quietly. "I think he was awake by the time the stretchered him away but Kyle said it was ugly and they're worried about broken bones and concussion since he was in and out of consciousness."
"Shit" I whispered and I couldn't explain why but I felt like crying. I didn't know what else to say so I didn't say anything, I knew that me and Jackson weren't together but he was still my best friend.
