The smile fell from his face, and Caleb rubbed his chest, the feeling there suddenly hollow, like something had caved in.
A few minutes of silence later, Hawk glanced at him curiously. “You okay, baby?”
“Not really, no.”
They turned off on the street the condo sat on, Hawk looking over at him every few seconds, slowing the SUV. “Are you hurting from physio, or?—”
“No.” He wrapped the arm not holding the bag of food around his own chest. “It just hit me, I think.”
Huck’s brows lowered, and he licked his lips. “What hit you?”
“I’m done. I’m retired. Really done. My snowboarding career is over.” His hands shook, and his chest felt like there was an earthquake in there. It was tight, but it rumbled with sound, and his heart raced.
His vision narrowed, and his head swam, and for a minute he thought he was gonna keel over. Maybe he was going to stroke out.
“We’re almost home.” Hawk’s tone of voice was soothing, but he hovered just outside of Caleb’s consciousness a little bit. He heard it but he didn’t respond.
They coasted to a stop outside Hawk’s condo building, and Hawk put up the temporary handicap placard he’d gotten before coming around to get him out of the SUV. “Come on baby. You’ll feel better if we get inside and have something to eat.”
“Uh-huh.” But he couldn’t let go of the bag of food and he couldn’t make himself put his bad foot out of the vehicle. He just sat there, his world tilted on its axis.
“Come on I’ve got you.” It wasn’t the walker or the crutches or even the new scooter that Hawk pulled out of the car. It was the wheelchair that Caleb’d had the first day he came home. Hawk got him out of the car and into it, with the food in his lap, and walked up to the building to wheel him inside to the little freight elevator that would take them up to Hawk’s condo.
Caleb just listened to his brain, which was going rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit and tried not to just expire. All these thoughts raced through his head, but none of them stayed. He couldn’t grasp them fully and he knew his face had to be drained of all the blood because it felt cold, freezing cold.
Before he could really blink, even, he sat ensconced on the couch, a blanket tucked around him, and Hawk handed him a can of Coke. “Drink up baby; the sugar will do you some good.”
He nodded, feeling numb, and he popped the can open, taking a long swallow. Before long the caffeine and sugar actually did perk him up a little bit. Caleb took a deep, deep breath then let it out. “Wow.”
Hawk had set the food on the coffee table, and now he opened the bag and started pulling it out. “You gonna make it?” Hawk settled next to him, close enough that their hips and shoulders bumped.
“I guess so. Yeah, sorry.” Everything he’d worked his entire life for had flashed in front of his eyes, and now it was gone. Yeah, he had the medal to show for it, but he would lose so much now that he’d retired. Friends on the tour who were still viable would fade away, not talk to him anymore because it was bad luck to talk to somebody who’d fallen out because of injury. His coaches and his agent and stuff would stop calling. He would have to figure out what the fuck he was going to do with his life, and he didn’t know.
Caleb wasn’t a panicky idiot kind of guy, but all of a sudden he wanted to fucking crawl in a hole and hide.
“Let’s get some food in you. You worked hard today, and that’s enough to make you shaky and weird.”
Caleb turned to look at Hawk, his lips stiff, his hands not knowing what to do with themselves, and he curled them into his lap. “You know what this is like. What do I do?”
Hawk smiled faintly, unwrapping a burger and putting it on a plate. He had no idea where the plates had come from. They were paper so Hawk must have pulled them out of the cabinet, but he didn’t remember it at all.
“You freak out. A lot. You make a lot of pros and cons lists. You recover from the injury first, and then you move on.”
He reached over finally, knowing what to do with one of his hands, and put it on Hawk’s leg. “Jesus fuck. I’m sorry you didn’t have anybody to help you.”
“My folks were great. Don’t get me wrong on that. They couldn’t be here a lot, but they were amazing support, and I had friends from the team. They did a hospital rotation and shit.” The wry humor lay heavy in Hawk’s voice. “But I did a lot of it by myself and I’m okay. You’re gonna be okay too.”
Fries joined the burger on the plate, and Hawk handed it to him along with a napkin.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to eat now, but Hawk was probably right. It would make him feel better. Getting something in his stomach, getting a little long-acting protein into his bloodstream, would help even everything out after therapy.
So Caleb gave himself the same kind of pep talk he would give himself right before a big drop in on the pipe and told himself to just chill out. Then he took a bite of his burger, which actually tasted pretty good.
They worked their way through a good two-thirds of the food that was in the bag before he gave up the ghost and sat back, hands on his belly. “Fuck, sorry I freaked out on you.”
Hawk wiped his mouth on a napkin before balling all his shit up into one of the bags and putting it away. “I was expecting it, honestly. I was surprised it hadn’t happened before now.”
Hawk cleared his trash too before moving to sit at one end of the couch, pillows propped up behind his back on the arm. He patted his legs. “Sit with me.”