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Nikolai

Itookitasapersonal offence that fresh air and exercise actually helped with my depression.

My therapist had suggested forest walks, and I hated hated hated that they made me feel better.

The audacity!

I caught myself scowling at the forest as if I had beef with every single fir and laughed uncomfortably.

Someone explain to me how I got lost in a damned granite labyrinth in the middle of Germany, and how the fuck I ended up on this lonely forest path?

You are fucking useless, Nik. You can’t even go on a walk in nature without messing things up.

I huffed derisively at myself again.

Come on, Lorenz. Get a grip on yourself. One minor inconvenience and you’re being a whiny bitch again. Stop it.

It was about time I got better, too.

My brain has been in a weird place for the last couple of months. My life grew darker and darker until the Big Sad drowned out every good thing in my life.

When not even the dogs I occasionally ran into on my way to the rink could lift my mood anymore, I knew I needed help.

Like any good hockey player, I’d told my coach, and he had answered.

Jerke had stared at me impassively for a long moment, then the man went into emergency mode.

Within a few minutes, he had arranged an appointment at a local hospital. He took me off game duty but still wanted me to be there for training.

“Physical exercise is the most important thing you can do when you are depressed. And we have to maintain your routine, son. We’re in this together.” He had gripped my shoulder and squeezed it. “We need you, Nikolai.” Not ‘Lorenz’ like he usually called me.

Nikolai. Son.

Before I had gone to see him, I wasn’t sure if it was the right move. But my gruff coach acting as if my mental health was the most important thing to him already made me feel marginally better.

The hospital set me up with a neuropsychiatrist: Doktor Theodor Schmidt.

A low snort escaped me. I’d expected an older man, maybe tall, lean, and with white hair. Instead, Schmidt turned out to be a Badger hybrid with a colourful mohawk and eighteen visible piercings who wore round glasses.

Not my type, but pretty cute.

Halfway into our first session he scheduled me in for more tests and gave me a piece of paper filled with tree outlines.

“What’s that? Colouring in for adults?”

He grinned at me and nodded.

He gave me an outdoor challenge. I despised him—only a little—for guessing that gamification was the way to motivate me to do almost anything.

Except for guitar lessons. My mother had tried to get me to play. But hockey had always won. The sound and feel of the ice under my blades, my team, the fans, the happiness that came with the sport… Hockey was my first love.

I stomped down the forest trail as if it had personally wronged me. It felt like the entire world hated me which probably explained the extent of my mindfuck.

You’re suicidal, Nik, admit it.

But three weeks into their emergency plan I was sure that wasn’t the case. I didn’t want to die. I just needed help to get out of that dark place.