PMU Boxset 2

by MacMillan, Jerica

  All remnants of his earlier anxiety burned off once he took the field, his attention taken over by the demands of play. While the defense was on the field, he couldn’t help letting his attention wander to where Elena sat with her friends. He loved seeing her there wearing his number. While he’d wanted her to come see him play since the beginning of the season, he hadn’t realized how good it would feel to actually have her there. Especially after the amount of resistance she’d put up to the idea.

  Coop had been right that it had taken some convincing, though he was a little off on how he’d achieved it. He’d waited until she was boneless and sated, sleepy and willing to agree to almost anything. Even so, she’d stiffened in his arms, a reflexive refusal on her lips. He’d kissed her before she could voice her protest, though, and used logic to convince her to see things his way. His main point being that if she wore his jersey, none of the other guys would hit on her. Because if guys hit on her, he’d have to stake his claim in other ways, up to and including getting into it with his teammates. So wearing his jersey was a way of protecting herself, but also keeping the peace on the team.

  She’d rolled her eyes at him, which had made him smile, but agreed to wear the jersey.

  They started the second half with a four point lead. So far it had been a good game. They were winning, and expected to be able to extend their lead by at least a touchdown and hold the other team off.

  The Marycliff defense forced a turnover, gaining possession of the ball again. Daniel took his place for the play that had scored them a touchdown late in the first quarter. This time Wilkins planned on passing to him. He flexed his hands, wiggling his fingers as he waited for the snap, his cleats digging into the grass as he took off down the side of the field headed for the end zone, looking back over his shoulder after he’d run at least ten yards.

  The football sailed through the air in a perfect arc, overestimating his speed just a hair. He leaned forward, bobbling the ball for half a second before pulling it in, holding it close to his body, ducking his head and dropping his shoulder, veering to the side to avoid the tackle that suddenly popped up in front of him.

  Arms wrapped around his hips. He kept moving, trying to shake off his would-be tackler, but a hit from the side took him down. Toppling sideways, the arms wrapped around his provided a fulcrum that sent him crashing into the ground head first.

  He had time to blink at the dull ache in his head and neck before the world exploded, and all he knew was darkness and pain.

  Elena stood, her hands covering her mouth as the players on top of Daniel got up one by one, leaving him lying on the field, unmoving.

  He’d been powering through the guy trying to tackle him one minute, and then he got hit from the side, taking him down. Another player from the other team had been on his way to assist with the tackle and couldn’t stop in time before getting to the pile, tripping and falling on top of the other three players.

  The ball still lay cradled between his arm and his side, a fact which Elena knew the team—including Daniel—would appreciate, but she was more concerned about the fact that his hand no longer actively held the ball. His sideways somersault through the air had been spectacular, provoking sounds of awe and disbelief from the stands.

  But he wasn’t moving.

  The refs kept the players at a distance while coaches and trainers made their way to Daniel. With four people clustered around him, she couldn’t see more than his feet, but when they twitched, she couldn’t hold back the sob that had been building while he lay motionless on the ground.

  Hannah’s hand rubbed up and down her back while she choked back her tears. This response was out of proportion to what was going on. She knew it. Matt’s gentle voice, and his hand joining Hannah’s confirmed it.

  “Hey. He’s going to be okay,” Matt said in a soothing voice. “It’s probably a concussion, but he’ll be back to normal in a week or two at the worst. He’ll be fine, Elena.”

  She nodded, appearing to agree, both grateful for his reassurance and annoyed at his casual dismissal of the concussion. She knew too much about brain injuries to be so unconcerned. But now was not the time to get into that. Lots of people had concussions all the time and didn’t undergo serious personality changes. And things had been too crowded to know what exactly had happened. Clearly he’d lost consciousness, but beyond that she didn’t know.

  Sucking in a deep breath, she forced herself to calm down, wiping at her eyes with the cuff of her sweatshirt. He’d be fine. He’d be fine. She repeated it to herself over and over, as though whether or not that were true depended on her saying it again and again.

  After what seemed like forever, but was probably just a few minutes, the coaches and trainers backed off, one of the trainers helping Daniel to his feet. He held a hand up to the crowd, which erupted in cheers at his wave of reassurance. But Elena felt less reassured when one of the trainers drew Daniel’s other arm across his shoulders and helped him off the field, Daniel obviously leaning on the trainer for support.

  She sat down hard, her hands over her mouth again. Would every game be this bad? How many more games were there? She didn’t think very many, but even so. She didn’t know if she could stand watching this happen again.

  And what if she wasn’t there? Would she know if he got hurt? Would he tell her right away, or would she have to wait to find out after he got home? What if he got hit hard enough or enough times that he started having problems? And that only accounted for this season. And yeah, he’d said he’d be student teaching next fall, so he wouldn’t have time to play.

  But what if he listened to Coop and decided to go for the Regional Combines? Or what if he got scouted? Coop had said that since Chris got drafted, there’d been noises about NFL scouts coming to their games. What if that actually happened? Would he want to go pro? Who was she kidding—what football player would turn down the chance to keep playing the game they loved if offered the opportunity?

  A gentle squeeze on her arm brought her out of the swirl of questions going in circles in her head. Matt squatted next to her in front of Hannah’s seat, his blue eyes concerned. “Hey. He’s going to be okay, Elena. The team trainers are good. He’ll be put on concussion protocol and they might send him for a CT to be safe, but I’ve seen guys hit harder than that and they were fine. He’s going to be fine.” His voice carried the weight of authority and conviction, and Elena wanted to believe him. But she’d been told before that someone she loved would be fine.

  And the last time she’d talked to her mom, she’d said that her dad had refused to continue therapy, had panic attacks almost every time he had to get into a car, and had become more firmly ensconced in his spot on the couch. Hardly anyone’s definition of fine.

  She wanted to believe Matt, his gaze encouraging and sincere. But she knew better.

  Shaking her head, she stood. “I can’t—” She swallowed. “I can’t do this. I have to go.”

  Matt stood too. “Elena, wait—”

  She shook her head again. “I have to go.”

  Stumbling over the legs of the other students in the stands, she muttered, “Excuse me,” and, “I’m sorry,” to everyone between her and the aisle, her only goal to get out of there as fast as she could.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  She made it as far as the sign for the bathroom before she was stopped by someone calling her name. Good thing most people were still watching the game, otherwise she might’ve caused someone to run into her.

  “Elena! Wait up!”

  She turned to see Hannah hurrying toward her. Steeling herself with a deep breath, she prepared to argue with her best friend about why she couldn’t watch the game anymore.

  “I have the keys. Do you want me to take you home?”

  And that sucked all the wind out of Elena’s sails. She deflated, crumpling in on herself, her arms coming up to wrap around her.

  Hannah stepped closer and rubbed Elena’s back. “Hey. It’s okay. Whatever you need to do, we�
�ll do. Do you want to go to the car?”

  Nodding, Elena let Hannah steer her toward the exit nearest where they’d parked. They’d brought Hannah’s car, though Matt had driven. Elena had rolled her eyes hard when he’d insisted on driving. Hannah hadn’t seemed to care, though, so Elena kept her mouth shut. It had seemed easiest for them all to come together, that way she could go to the party with Daniel afterward and they wouldn’t have an extra car. Now she kind of wished she’d driven herself. She felt bad taking Hannah away from the football game and time with Matt. He’d been gone a lot the last few weeks, but had made an effort to schedule his latest trip to end in time to come to the homecoming game.

  Elena cleared her throat as they walked through the parking lot, the wind picking up and reminding them that it was late October now. “I’m sorry.”

  Hannah’s head snapped around, confusion on her face. “What? Why?”

  After a feeble gesture toward the stadium, Elena let her hand drop. “For ruining the game for you.”

  With a tilt of her head and tightening of her lips, Hannah communicated how silly she thought that reason was. “Yes, because I’m super into football. It’s my life.”

  Elena snorted. “Fine, then for interrupting your time with Matt.”

  Hannah chuckled. “It’s not like we were enjoying time alone or something, Elena. You don’t need to apologize.” She paused a moment, glancing at Elena again as they approached the car. “If you want me to leave you alone, though, just say so. I know you process best on your own. But you’re my best friend, and I have to make sure you’re okay.”

  Shaking her head, Elena had to look at the leaden sky and blink rapidly to stave off the onslaught of tears. “God. I haven’t been okay in so long that not okay has become the new normal.”

  Hannah let out a low noise of distress. “Elena …”

  “Don’t.” Elena squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head again. “I know, I sound pathetic. Don’t make me feel more pathetic by being all sympathetic. There’s nothing you can do to make it better. There’s nothing anyone can do.”

  When she opened her eyes, Hannah’s green eyes were still filled with concern, but she didn’t say anything. They’d made it to the car, and Hannah pushed the button to unlock it, both of them climbing inside. They sat staring out the windshield until Hannah broke the silence. “Do you want me to take you home?”

  “What about Matt?”

  “I can come back and get him when the game’s over, or he can get a ride with Lance and Abby. He wanted to stay and see if he could find out what’s going on with Daniel. He said he’d text me to let me know.”

  Elena drew in a deep breath, a combination of relief and dread filtering through her. She wanted to know how he was, but at the same time she worried that he might be worse off than everyone wanted to believe. Herself included. She’d let Matt’s words reassure her somewhat, but deep down she was scared shitless that he would have major long-term problems from that hit.

  There was no rhyme or reason to who recovered fully and who didn’t, a combination of location and the force of the impact itself plus individual response to physical stress seemed to determine the extent of the injury. Watching from the stands, it was impossible to know any of those things. Everything had been such a tangle of bodies and limbs that it had been hard to tell what had happened anyway. All she knew was that when the other players had gotten up, Daniel had been left on the field unconscious. And she knew that was bad.

  So she nodded. “Okay. Tell him thanks for me.”

  “Sure.”

  Another pause. Elena could feel Hannah looking at her, but she kept her attention focused on her hands.

  “You never answered my question. Do you want to go home?”

  Elena thought it over. “Um, not really.”

  “So what do you want to do?”

  Finally looking at her friend, Elena saw that the look of pity had gone from Hannah’s face. Gracias a Dios. She couldn’t handle pity right now on top of the riot of emotions inside her. Not that she handled it well any other time. But today was especially bad. “I know it’s dumb, but can we just stay here? I don’t—”

  “Sure.” Hannah glossed right over the inarticulate pause, acting like nothing was weird about wanting to sit in the car for the rest of the game.

  They stayed in the car, alternating between periods of silence and talking about the school year, their breath fogging up the windows. They avoided the topics of family and relationships. Matt texted updates when the fourth quarter started and the game ended, calling a few minutes after the text letting them know that Marycliff had won.

  Elena had snorted at that. Leave it to Matt to think they might care about who won when her stomach was tied up in knots waiting to hear how Daniel was doing.

  “Hey, babe,” Hannah answered when Matt called. She glanced at Elena, then back at the steering wheel. “Yeah.” Pause “Okay.” Pause. “Yeah, we’re still in the parking lot.” Long pause. “Okay, I’ll let her know. See you in a few.”

  Elena had her thumbnail between her teeth, a bad habit she’d managed to quit in high school. Except for when she was stressed out and waiting on the edge of her seat for information. She’d chewed her fingernails to the quick this summer during her dad’s surgery. And now she’d started again while waiting for Hannah to get off the phone and tell her what was going on. Fuck. This thing with Daniel was supposed to be casual, a way to shut off her brain and escape when she needed to. It wasn’t supposed to turn into this.

  She clenched her hands into fists and stuffed them between her legs, forcing herself not to chew on her nails. She didn’t need to chew her nails. He’d be fine. And … Damn. She couldn’t lie to herself that she didn’t care that much after all. She cared a hell of a lot, and that freaked her out as much as Daniel getting knocked out during a game.

  Hannah turned to face her after hanging up the phone. “That was Matt.”

  “Yeah. I got that.”

  Smirking, Hannah continued. “Anyway, he said they took Daniel to the hospital for a CT. Coop’s coming out with Matt and will take you to see him.”

  Elena sucked in a breath, provoking a concerned look from Hannah.

  “You want to go see him, right? I mean, you were so upset about him getting hurt I figured …” She trailed off, waiting for Elena to respond, but she didn’t say anything, just stared at her friend, mute. “I mean, if you don’t want to go, you don’t have to. We can just tell Coop that you can’t handle hospitals and to have Daniel call or text when he can.”

  “No.” Elena shook her head. “No. I’ll go. I want to see him. I need to see him.”

  She needed to reassure herself that he was okay. And she needed to figure out what to do about the fact that she cared about him so much, but she couldn’t handle watching him play or knowing that he risked getting his head bashed in every week—no, every day. They practiced almost every day. And he was a receiver. Players would be trying to tackle him every game. Not like Chris who played defense. Who did the tackling. Not that he couldn’t get hurt, but everyone wasn’t trying to run him down every practice, every game. She couldn’t handle it.

  A rap on the driver’s side window startled her, then Hannah’s door opened, revealing Matt. “Hey. Coop’s here.” His eyes focused on Elena. “Ready?”

  Was she ready? Not really. But she didn’t think she’d ever be ready to visit someone she cared about in the hospital. Not after this summer. And no amount of time would make her ready to have the conversation with Daniel that she knew she needed to have.

  She swallowed and nodded. First she had to make sure he was okay. She’d deal with the other part after that. Acid stung the back of her throat at the realization that if he wasn’t okay she’d have to wait a while to have that conversation. But what would she do in the meantime? God, this was a mess. How did this happen? This wasn’t supposed to happen.

  Her fingers managed to unlatch the door, and she stepped out, locking her knees to fo
rce her legs to hold steady. She could do this. She had to do this. She’d survived worse. She’d get through this, too.

  Coop stood there, his dark hair wet and slicked back, his blue eyes radiating concern instead of their usual teasing merriment. She forced a smile, hoping to reassure him that she was okay, at least.

  He shifted the strap of the bag hanging off his shoulder. “Hey. I’ve got Carter’s regular clothes. They took him in his uniform. I figure he’ll want to change before he goes home.”

  She nodded when he paused, expecting a response. She didn’t know what to say.

  “I’m parked this way.” He tilted his head to one side and turned, starting in the direction he’d indicated.

  She followed behind him, turning to wave at Hannah as she left. “Thanks, Han. I’ll let you know when I’m on my way home.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Just let me know if you need anything.”

  “Thanks. I will.”

  Coop had stopped, waiting for her to catch up to him. They walked wordlessly to his car. As they walked, she realized she had no idea what kind of car he drove. Didn’t know anything about him, really. He liked to tell dirty jokes, and the fact that he hadn’t cracked one yet worried her. And he bragged about his conquests. Did he consider her a loss? They’d danced once for a while at a club. He’d been more interested in Hannah, but Hannah had bumped into Matt that night, the first time they’d had a chance to talk since she’d seen him at her internship last semester.

  That all seemed like a lifetime ago. She didn’t know if Coop even remembered her from that night. He’d never said anything, and she didn’t bring it up.

  He slowed, his hand going into his pocket and pulling out a key fob, the lights flashing on an older Ford Focus when he pushed the button. She watched him toss his bag into the back seat before climbing in.

  The silence stretched between them as they navigated the traffic leaving the stadium parking lot. They’d missed the worst of it, but there was still some. Neither of them said anything until they’d parked at the hospital, and Coop broke the silence.