NOVA
I was making my second cup of coffee in the staff break room at 7:42 AM, replaying the interview in my head for approximately the forty-seventh time since it aired, when Dmitri Volkov appeared in the doorway like a six-foot-four Russian apparition who had never once in his life understood the concept of personal boundaries.
He was in full practice gear from the waist down, skate guards on, his upper half covered by a worn Glaciers hoodie that had seen better decades. He had a protein shaker in one hand and an expression on his face that I recognized immediately from clinical practice as somebody who had come to deliver an opinion I had not asked for.
“Doctor,” he said, leaning against the doorframe. “You have minute?”
“I have a session in eighteen minutes, Dmitri.”
“This will tak
