Hours after the game had ended, Joe Ingles carefully pushed open the door to the visitor’s locker room. The TV cameras and reporters were long gone; nobody would know about his exploits. Inside the locker room, it appeared that all the Celtics players had left as well, and Joe was disappointed; the player he had wanted to talk to was not here. There was no activity, no sound at all. Except…
Joe could hear the sound of a single shower running in the distance.
He followed the noise through the unfamiliarly-laid-out locker room until he came to a gleaming white expanse of tile lit by fluorescent lights. Rather than peek his head around the corner, he called out, “Gordon, mate, you in there?”
“Leave me alone,” replied a desperately sad voice that Joe recognized instantly
“Your new buddies might be willing to do that for you, but this old buddy isn’t going anywhere,” Joe answered, stepping into the shower area to find a naked Gordon Hayward sitting miserably underneath a scalding stream of water, his knees folded up to his chest.
“I’m broken, Joe. It’s over,” Gordon said softly, his voice nearly fading away into the sound of water splashing onto tile and skin.
“You’re not broken, mate,” Joe answered. “Your leg’s probably healthier than it was before you broke it.”
“No. Not my leg,” Gordon said, pointing at his head. “I’m broken in here.”
Joe didn’t have an immediate response to that. He wasn’t a therapist. Instead, he did all he could think of to do, which was to squat down and put his arm around his friend’s shoulders, soaking his clothes in the process. “You’re just fine. All you need is time. Your teammates should understand that.
Gordon rested his head against Joe’s chest. “They keep telling me that. But my wife…she doesn’t understand. I can see it when she talks to me. It’s like talking to a stranger. I just don’t know…do I even love her anymore?”
“Even if she doesn’t, you have a lot of friends that still do love you, mate. Even in Utah.” Joe’s grip on Gordon tightened comfortably.
Gordon chuckled bitterly. “It’s funny. Sometimes I can’t tell if I even still like wom-” He cut himself off there, realizing he had said too much.
Joe looked his ex-teammate in the eyes. “No. I get it.” Their faces were very close together now.
“Joe…” Gordon whispered.
“Gordon,” Joe responded simply.
There was a sudden voice from the hallway leading to the shower area. “Yo Gordon, you still crying in here? The bus is leaving soon.” Then, Terry Rozier’s face appeared in the entryway. “Whoa. Sorry. I’ll, uh, just leave now.” And he did.
The moment was broken. Joe patted Gordon on the back one more time, then stood up. “Remember. If you’re feeling things in here,” he said, patting his heart. “They’re true whether you want them to be or not.” And before Gordon could get in another word, he, too, left.