Loved Twice by the Hockey Star novel · Chapter 12 of 32

Chapter 12: Nineteen

Erik skated me off the ice with his arm around my waist so I wouldn't fall.

He didn't stop to take his skates off.

He walked through the tunnel and up the concrete stairs to the parking lot on his blades, chewing up the rubber mats, and the equipment manager ran after him with his shoes.

Dag was still standing on the carpet at center ice, holding the ceremonial puck.

Nobody had asked him to drop it.

We were on the sixth floor by four.

The doctor met us at the door of 614 and explained it in the hallway in four sentences.

Tomorrow morning, chemo stronger than anything Ingrid had had before.

Eight days of it.

Then nothing left in her blood to fight with but what Erik gave her.

"She'll be sick," the doctor said. "Sicker than you've seen her. And then on day zero, his cells go in, and we wait for them to find their way home."

"How long?"

"Two weeks. Three. Every day she's in that room, she'll be one cold away from losing everything."

Erik nodded.

I watched his hands shake against his jeans.

Ingrid was sitting up in bed doing a puzzle with Jodie.

She looked at us through the glass and frowned.

"Why are you both making that face?"

Erik went in first.

He sat on the edge of the bed and told her the truth, in words a six-year-old could hold.

Strong medicine.

A hard week.

Then Daddy's cells, going in through her line like a blood transfusion, to build her new blood from scratch.

Ingrid listened to the whole thing with her chin on her knees.

"Will it make my hair fall out?"

"Bug, your hair's already out."

She touched her bald head and considered this.

"Then I'll be the only bald one in the hall again," she said. "The kid in 610 got his back."

Erik looked at her for a long moment.

Then he stood up.

"Jodie," he said. "You run a salon, right?"

Jodie's eyes went wide.

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