The Team

I sprint towards the ball as it rolls towards me, as if in slow motion, leaving just a single defender between me and the keeper. I know I'm going to make it first; he was tied up with Adam until he crossed the ball to me, taking advantage of the big lad's size and gambling on it slowing him down.

The gambit seems to have paid off and I know this is our last chance to equalise before the full-time whistle blows: the other team played aggressively from the second we kicked-off; constantly pressing at our defence and haranguing poor old Smithy with a seemingly never-ending barrage of shots. The few times we managed to sneak the ball through to their back line, it's become apparent why they're so aggressive - their paltry two defenders needed rescue from their midfielders each time.

Now, though, it's clear. It's just me and their untested keeper. An untested keeper who's let through every shot in my top-right corner of his goal this season. Adam, my captain, is well aware of this. He's placing his trust in me, giving me the perfect line instead of going for glory himself. That must sting him, but he knows now isn't the time for that.

I'm a split second from the ball. I take a breath as I prepare to kick, my lungs burning.

My body collides with the ground, and I howl in rage and surprise. I made it to the box. This has to be a penalty. I struggle, looking for the ref as I push my hand into unexpectedly sticky mud.

The agony is sudden and intense. More intense than anything I've felt in my life. My mind goes blank as soon as I try to move, and I realise I don't know

how

I hit the ground. Had there been a crunch? Had it been in my mind? I don't know if it was real, but it was so loud and comical that I assumed it was the player that must have tackled me, making the noise as a sound effect as he clearly fouled me.

I realise my face is in the grass again, my arms having collapsed beneath me. The pain in my leg is so blinding and overpowering that doing anything other than surrendering to the oblivion of the all-encompassing feeling wasn't even a distant consideration. It doesn't even cross my mind to try to sit up or laugh it off like you're supposed to.

After an eternity of suffering, a new pain beyond even the torment I already endured lances through my leg. I vomit. I open my eyes and see the sky ahead of me, my teammates' faces forming a blurry circle obscured by the bright sky behind them; what I do glimpse is pale and ashen. I can't work out their words, but I hear shouting, screaming, and crying.

I blink again and the sky moves ahead of me. My girlfriend, Jade, is looking at me. Looking

down

at me. Her makeup scores dark rivulets down her cheeks, but she smiles as she makes eye contact with me, giving me the slightest reprieve from pain. It comes back with a vengeance, and I beg for it to end.

It does.

***

The first face I see when I wake up is Jade again. My vision is hazy, but I make out the smears of her makeup around her eyes where she's been rubbing them. The smudges don't do much to hide the dark rings around them, but her moss green irises seem to sparkle as she smiles with what seems to be genuine joy as I look up at her.

The world feels odd and the blinding pain from moments ago feels like a dull, itchy, ache, more than anything. I try to push myself up on the grass, but my hands slip as they push against the ground. The surprisingly soft and warm ground.

I look around, blinking to try to clear my eyes. I'm not on the pitch anymore, but a bed. Not my bed, nor Jade's. Sterile white and blue bedclothes in a strange expansive frame that seems to extend upwards towards the bottom like some torture device.

"Luke!" she exclaims, moving to hug me.

I'm suddenly too weak and tired to hug her back. She holds herself against me, and I feel the warm wetness of her tears as they soak onto my cheek and neck. All I can do is savour her sweet, comforting, scent.

My drooping eyes shoot open again as I remember. The game. I need to get back up and out there! I was about to score the goal that would have turned the tide. We can still make it to the finals if I get back to the pitch and take the penalty kick.

"Adam? Where's Adam?" I ask, coughing at the rawness of the words against my throat.

"He's fine. You're the one we're all worried about," Jade tells me, releasing me.

Her words carry a sharpness, as if she's disciplining me, but it's barely noticeable under the warmth and

relief

.

She hands me a translucent blue plastic cup of water and I greedily gulp it, interrupting my coughing fit. When my throat feels suitably lubricated, I try again.

"Me? I... I'm fine... I think the bastards must have... A dirty foul..." my mouth moves, but although my mind seems to be racing, the words come out sluggish.

"No. No, you were rushed to the hospital, Luke. You were in surgery. Your leg was badly broken. You've got a couple of pins in it now. It was really, really serious."

I look at Jade in disbelief. There is no way that could be true. I just feel a bit dizzy from where I fell, and tired from the exertion of the pitched game. I would know if I had broken a bone. If I had had surgery.

"What?" I almost laugh, coughing again.

She nods, running a hand through her dark brown hair to tuck it out of the way. Her lip quivers as tears form in the corner of her eyes.

"You were taken by ambulance, Luke. They were talking about blood loss, and... there was so much of it. I could see your bone."

I laugh again. I can't reconcile what she's saying with what I'm experiencing. I know that she would never joke about something like this, but it couldn't be real. It doesn't feel real. Her unusually pale face betrays the truth of her words.

I see past her as she straightens, tying her long hair where strands of it have tumbled loose. I see the thing that's been hanging just out of view since I woke up. The evidence had been right in front of me the whole time. I'm propped up in a hospital bed, one leg covered by the blue sheet, like the rest of me, but the other leg is elevated and strung up. My entire shin is covered by a cast.

I don't understand. I try to move my leg and see movement under the sheet as my toes wiggle. I try to move the other one. The broken one.

Nothing happens. It hangs in front of me like an object. Something that isn't part of my body but an ornament, or piece of furniture. It is completely immobilised and my efforts to move it are barely even met with a tingling sensation.

"I..." I gasp, feeling the smile dying on my lips.

"Yeah. It was really serious," Jade whispers, kissing me gently on the cheek.

She rests her head on my shoulder, draping her arms around me as I try to process everything. She seems exhausted.

"Did we win?" I ask quietly, breathing in Jade's scent, suddenly drained.

"No. It was called off because you were injured," Jade replies, speaking into my neck, not raising her head.

I grunt, letting my heavy eyelids sink closed.

When I wake up again, Jade's talking to a tall woman in a white coat. I can't make out what they're saying at first, but they see me stirring and Jade gestures towards me, stepping back.

The woman moves to my side and begins shining a light into my eyes, manipulating my head as I try to shy away from the piercing brightness.

"It's nice to see you awake, Luke. We were worried about you. How are you feeling?" The woman asks, releasing me and nodding to herself.

I compose myself, taking stock of my body and trying to work out how I feel as a whole. My head still spins.

"I feel fuzzy, like I'm trying to think through cotton. My leg aches, and I can't move it," I admit. "But it doesn't hurt like before."

"Yes, we gave you quite a lot of pain medication, so that you could get some sleep while we worked on you. You had quite a bad injury. We had to put some pins in your leg."

"Pins?" I look over at Jade, who mentioned something like that when I woke up before.

"You had a severe fracture. It will be explained to you in due course by the specialist, but the short version is that we've had to use some metal rods and wires to realign the bones in your leg."

That removes some of the fuzziness in my head and I feel a wave of ice pass over me.

"Will I be able to play again?" I ask, mouth going dry.

A pit of ice opens in my stomach; although I put it down partly to nausea at the surgery and foreign bodies now inside me, it's mostly due to fear at my recovery and what this means for me.

"We will assess your condition and do all we can to ensure that you are fully healed and able to continue with living a normal life."

I glance over at Jade again, looking for reassurance. As she gives me a sad smile, I notice for the first time that the hem of her summer dress is covered in what looks like mud, and her knees are stained green and brown from where she must have been kneeling in the grass.

It's almost a physical sensation as I let their words finally sink in.

"How... How did you... Did I have surgery? How long has it been?"

"You've been here for about twelve hours, Luke. The operation wasn't complicated, although you lost a of blood, due to the nature of the compound fracture and location. But you're not in any danger now."

Jade must have been here the whole time, not even going home to wash or change.

I turn my head to Jade, "Are you okay?"

She laughs despite the situation, smile reaching her eyes this time, and wipes a tear away. "I'm fine, Luke. It's you we're worried about."

"Okay, Luke," the doctor clears her throat to get my attention again. "I've just got a few checks to run, and then I'll leave you to rest for a little bit."

The drowsiness I had felt since waking up seems to rise as if in response to her, but I nod.

"What's your name?" She begins.

"Luke. Luke Parrish," I answer.

She nods and continues.

"How old are you?"

"Eighteen, almost nineteen."

"What colour is your hair?"

"Err, dirty blonde, I guess."

"Eyes?"

"Blue."

"Height?"

"About six foot two."

She continues asking me simple questions and makes me follow a pen and a small torch with my eyes, nodding as I complete each task.

I suddenly feel more tired than I ever remember feeling before, as if the tasks were gargantuan labours.

"Okay, good," she says eventually. "I'll leave you to rest for a little while. When... get... specialist..."

Her words taper off as my head lolls back into the pillow, eyelids once again leaden.

"Thank you..." I whisper, not quite sure who it was directed at, before slipping into the darkness again.

***

This time when I wake up, I feel different. My leg hurts and my mind only feels foggy from sleep, rather than the bone-deep fatigue from before. It still takes a few seconds before I remember where I am.

I hear voices and look around as my eyes adjust, blinking, before opening fully.

I'm no longer propped up, instead lying on my back, and looking up at the ceiling. The rest seems to be the same though: the same bed. The same room. My leg is still elevated and encased in plaster.

I try to sit up and Jade is at my side before I know it, pressing something to make the bed whirr mechanically as the top begins to rise. I smile gratefully at her and take in the scene.

As well as Jade, my parents, and my captain and best friend, Adam, all stand around the room.

"All this for me?" I force a smile. "How's the other guy?"

There are a few laughs, and I can tell they are borne from relief rather than humour. Jade squeezes my hand and smiles at me, a tear rolling down her cheek and cutting another channel through her extremely smudged make-up.

"How are you feeling, sleepyhead?" she asks.

She looks like an angel, even with makeup blotted and smeared all over her. Her mousy hair is gathered into a messy ponytail still, allowing me to see the deep purple bags under her panda eyes. Even in this state, she's still one of the most gorgeous women I have ever seen.

"Ah, not so bad. I'll be back on the pitch in a few weeks," I croak with false gusto.

"Take it easy, lad," Adam scolds me, unusually sombre. "No need to go all big man on us after that ruckus."

"I'll be okay," I say, hoping it's not a lie.

Someone with a deep voice seconds my attitude, "You can't keep a good man down."

I clock my parents again, fully, standing towards the end of the bed. How long had I been out for them to get down here?

"Da?"

"Yes, Luke," he says, stepping forward to take Adam's proffered place.

"How are you both?" I ask, looking between him and my mum.

"We're fine, Luke. Don't you worry about us. We're here for you."

"Look at this guy," Adam drawls. "Leg snapped in half and he's asking how the rest of us are."

"It's not snapped. I've got pins and shit," I protest.

Jade gasps, but my parents don't bat an eye. I don't register until later that I've spoken uncharacteristically coarsely in front of them, something my old mum would usually give me a hiding for.

"Yeah, you'll have some wicked scars for sure," Adam grins, flopping down into the only chair in the tiny room.

The other three crowd around me.

"Has she gone home?" I ask my mum, nodding at Jade.

"Not yet. I'll go home and have a shower later," Jade says before my mum can speak.

"Go now. Mum's here," I tell her. "You look worse than how I feel."

"Don't be so rude or I'll give you a clip round the ear, even in your state," my mum admonishes me.

Jade shakes her head, and my mum takes her hand, and they share a moment of comfort. Before I can say anything else, the door opens and what I assume to be a doctor or nurse walks in, different from the one before.

"Luke," he says. "Good to see you awake."

"I can tell you that it's not great to be awake, doc," I reply quickly, thoughtlessly.

"How are you feeling? Are you in pain?"

"Yeah, my leg hurts quite a bit. My head feels clearer though."

"Good. Good. You're probably going to feel groggy for the rest of the day, but we've had to keep you heavily sedated so that we could work on you, and make sure you didn't move too much and hurt yourself."

"So, anyone care to fill me in on what happened, and the damage?" I ask.

My parents glance at one another, but the doctor smiles at them and gestures as if 'I told you so'.

The doctor turns to me, sighs, and moves closer, a clipboard suddenly in his hands, "You had a severe compound fracture, which means that your bone broke through the skin and -"

I stop listening immediately. My stomach twists as I look at where my leg is encased in plaster. Jade said something about the bone before, but I thought she was taking the piss.

"- inserted into the bone and hold it in place. You will not be able to walk, at all, until we remove the pins. That will be after six weeks."

"Six weeks? But, what about the season... finals..."

"Six weeks minimum. There's no need to rush anything."

"But..."

"Luke, your leg was broken. The bone was partially outside your body. It's a miracle that you were brought in so quickly, that your operation went so smoothly, and you don't need any external casing," the doctor frowns down at me from behind his notes. "You are young and healthy. This will feel like a long process, and there will be times when you will be frustrated at the progress. You will want to rush it, or even give up when you're feeling weak and not up to doing your physio. But the human body is very resilient, and I expect that if you follow all of your instructions to help your recovery, then in about six months you will be fully recovered."

"Six months before I can play again!?"

The doctor stares at me, as if I've asked to grow a whole new leg. His face softens eventually, and he lowers his notes before answering me.

"Luke, it was a significant break. You're going to have a long recovery. That will include physiotherapy and possibly more surgery."

"But he

can

play again?" Adam asks from behind him.

The doctor turns to regard him, before returning his gaze to me, "That is up to the patient. We'll see how your recovery is progressing with our follow-up appointments."

"What are the odds?" I push, trying to tamp down the feeling of panic.

The doctor sighs, his expression grave.

"There is no certainty. You will need a great deal of support, and I would suggest that you don't think too far ahead. Just focus on your recovery and your treatment. You'll be walking absolutely fine if all goes well."

"Just walking, doctor...?" Adam prompts, on his feet again.

"I have no way of knowing whether or not you will be able to continue playing football that soon. The important thing is that you focus on your recovery. You need to walk before you can run, as they say."

"You said it could be another six weeks before I can even try and walk!?"

I look around at the grave faces turned towards the doctor as he continues to explain the treatment; outlining the process that I would be going through, but I can't hear the words anymore, just a rush of static as my thoughts race.

'Six weeks before I can walk, let alone play'

is all I can think.

I lay there, stunned, as the doctor discusses with the others the care and attention that I was going to need.

I know I should be paying attention. That it was

my

life, my body. But it's too much for me. I can't process what's happening, what's already happened to me, and my brain switches off. I collapse into a state of numbness, the room falling away from me.

Distantly, I notice Adam almost sheepishly say something and gesture to me before sidling out of the room.

Finally, the doctor leaves, letting Jade and my parents surround me again. Jade shares a glance with my mum, but they don't exchange words.

"It's a long process, son," my dad says, placing his hand on mine. "You'll be back up and playing at the end of it."

"We'll be okay," Jade gently tries to reassure me, taking my other hand.

***

The first step of recovery went well, yet was one of the worst periods of my life. I had to return home for the final month or so of university, and I

obviously

missed the end of the football season. Fortunately, I could complete some of my courses online, so I was allowed to continue into my second year without much fuss.

Jade and Adam visited me the first weekend after I returned home, and Jade continued visiting me every following weekend until I could walk again. By that time, it was the summer holidays, and she could visit me at her leisure.

Jade. My girlfriend. My angel.

My teammates take the piss out of me being in a relationship at uni. Adam constantly gloats that he's with a different girl as hot as Jade every week, but I take that as a compliment more than anything. The rest of the team isn't much better. While it isn't like the American College Football™ experience you see on all those Netflix programmes, the team still attracts a certain culture and, to be frank, is never at a loss for women. But that comes from being physically fit and passionate about something, I guess.

I met Jade at a freshers' event before term started and we hit it off immediately. She wasn't quite my 'type', at the time; not being a rail thin bleach blonde with a bitchy streak, but she redefined what my 'type' was. Or maybe I just grew up when I moved out and left most of my college friends and history behind.

When I met her, Jade was bubbly and had a nervous energy around her which I think she may have been channelling into self-assuredness. That, or her nervousness bolstered her natural impetuousness. The first words she said to me were a stuttering mess, but I'll never forget them:

"Hey, do you want to come visit me in prison?"

When I gave her a perplexed grin and a significantly arched eyebrow, struggling for an answer, she continued.