Reason to Breathe (36 page)

“Can we just stop there so you can get me a
bag of ice? Then let’s go somewhere where I can walk around.”

“You want to
walk
?”

“If I stay still, I’ll get stiff. I need to
keep the blood flowing through my muscles so that I can play
tonight.”

“You think you’re going to play basketball?!
Em, I’m still trying to decide if I should take you to the
hospital. You’re pale, and you can’t hide how much pain you’re in.
And if
you
can’t hide it, then it must be pretty bad.”

“It’s because it just happened and my body’s
still in shock. I’ll be fine, I promise.” But I knew I was lying. I
was far from
fine
.

Sara drove to her house and I waited in the
car until she came out with a small cooler filled with ice, some
storage bags and a couple of waters. She handed me a water when she
entered the car.

“Let’s go to the high school, and we’ll walk
the track,” I suggested before taking several long gulps from the
bottle. “I only have to waste a couple of hours before the JV
game.”

“Are you sure?” Sara asked, still uncertain
with my decision.

“Sara, I swear, I’m okay.”

I eased my body into a controlled place where
the quivering hid beneath my skin. There was a deep ache in my head
that trailed all the way down my back, but the piercing pain was
gone - as long as I kept still.

We drove to the high school and parked near
the football field. The parking lot only contained a handful of
cars since it was still too early for anyone to be here for the
game.

I took the cooler with me as I delicately
lifted my body out of the car, gritting my teeth through the
searing pain that made my stomach flip with nausea. Sara followed
me to the field. I filled the bags with ice and lay on my stomach.
Sara placed the bags along my back and sat next to me on the grass.
We were silent for a few minutes as I lay with my eyes closed and
my head resting on my folded arms, while Sara plucked the grass
from the frozen field. I barely registered the cold December air
with the ice on my back.

“You’re shivering,” Sara noted.

“I have ice covering my back, and it’s thirty
degrees out here.”

“How long do you want to keep the ice
on?”

“Fifteen to twenty minutes, then we’ll walk
around for a while before we do it again.”

After another few minutes of silence, Sara
asked, “Are you going to tell me what happened this time? Em, I
promise not to say anything.”

“I’m not sure if I should. I don’t want you
to feel guilty if you need to lie to your mom or anyone else for
me.”

“I’ll find a way around answering,” she
promised.

“Stanford called,” I started.

“Oh no,” she gasped. “You didn’t tell
her.”

“Yeah, I didn’t tell her,” I breathed. “Then
she told me I didn’t have access to the social security money from
my dad for college; that it was her compensation for letting me
live there. I got so pissed that I had to leave the room. That’s
when she hit me.”

“What did she hit you with?”

“I’m not sure. Probably whatever she could
get her hands on.” I recalled the hard object crashing into my back
and shivered.

“You can’t go back there,” Sara insisted.

“I really don’t want to think about that
right now. I just want to focus on being able to play in the game
tonight.”

“Em, I’m not sure that you should.”

“Sara, I have to. She’s taken everything else
from me, including what I had left of my dad. I’m playing in this
game tonight,” I stated definitively. Sara didn’t argue.

We walked briskly, until I couldn’t handle it
anymore. Of course, I didn’t tell Sara this. Then I’d lie back down
to be iced. I was desperate to defeat this pain. I was going to
play in this game – nothing was going to stop me.

When cars started showing up for the JV game,
Sara followed me into the building. We stood by the bleachers and
watched until halftime when I had to change. I blared my music so
loudly in my ears, I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. Every
so often, I’d pace in the hall to keep the blood flowing through my
muscles, mostly because it hurt too much to stand still, and I
needed to escape it any way I could. I swung my arms over my head
and turned my neck side to side to keep my muscles from
stiffening.

None of the girls questioned Sara when she
followed me into the locker room to change. She snuck into a
curtained shower stall with me to help me change. She carefully
pulled my shirt over my head, and I clenched my teeth. My entire
back screamed when I raised my arms. Sara questioned my well being
again, but I ignored her. I was counting on adrenaline to make me
oblivious to the pain once the game started.

The adrenaline did tunnel my focus when I was
finally on the floor, helping me disconnect from the pain. I
refused to concede to my burning muscles and the lightning storm in
my head as I dribbled down the court, calling out the next play.
Passing to the open teammate, squaring up to take a shot, following
through with a rebound, and charging back to switch to defense,
where the bodies bumped to gain position: that was all I
concentrated on as the time ticked away.

I was surviving on adrenaline, and that would
only carry me so far. As the second half progressed, it became
harder to concentrate. I wasn’t reacting as quickly to passes or
charging for the steals as I usually did. I passed off the ball
more, instead of taking the shot. During a timeout, Coach Stanley
asked if I was okay. I explained that I fell on some ice earlier,
and it was bothering me a little. He suggested taking me out of the
game. I adamantly assured him that I was fine and could keep
playing.

It was a close game. Probably closer than it
should have been, and I blamed myself for that, knowing I had no
right to be on the court. But I was afraid to find out what would
happen if I stopped.

There was under a minute left in the game,
and the lead kept changing by one with each possession. After a
timeout and about thirty seconds on the clock, we had possession of
the ball and were down by one point. I dribbled down the court,
sending the offense in motion. I passed to Jill at the top of the
key, who dribbled to the center of the paint and bounced it to
Maggie along the baseline. Maggie noticed my clear shot from behind
the three point line and popped it back out to me where I squared
up to the basket, jumped, and let the ball roll off of my fingers.
The defender jumped alongside me, swiping at the ball, which barely
sailed over her fingertips. Her arm landed on my shoulder hard,
knocking me back so my heels were no longer beneath me when I came
down to land.

My breath rushed from my lungs when the floor
made contact with my back. My head bounced back, colliding with the
waxed surface. The cheers faded, and the images on the court
blurred. I blinked my eyes as the colors ran together until there
was only black.

I was moving quickly, but my legs were still.
There was something around my neck, and I couldn’t move. I heard
the murmuring of voices but no words. My eyes wouldn’t open. The
cold air hit me, sending a shiver through my body. I was enveloped
with the piercing bolt that ran along my back and into my head.
Then I fell into the darkness again.

“Emily, can you hear me?” the soothing male
voice asked.

I pulled back from the blinding light as I
felt a cool touch on my lid.

“Emily, can you open your eyes for me?” the
voice requested.

I blinked my eyes open, squinting to keep
them protected from the bright light above me. I glanced around at
the faces above me. There was something beeping over my head, and a
hum of voices surrounded my space.

“Emily, I’m Dr. Chan,” the soothing voice
said. I focused on the gentle, round face of the man leaning over
me. “You’re in the hospital. You took a fall during your basketball
game and hit your head.”

I groaned in admission to the pain.

“My back,” I whimpered.

“You’re back hurts?” he confirmed

“My back,” I whimpered again, the tears
rolled across my temples. I couldn’t turn my head with the brace
holding it in place.

“We’re going to take some x-rays to see
what’s going on,” he informed me.

“Sara?” I searched for her amongst the
faces.

“Who’s Sara, honey,” a rosy faced nurse
leaned over to ask.

“My friend, Sara McKinley,” I whispered
between moans. “I need Sara.”

“Your aunt and uncle are on their way,” she
assured me.

I groaned louder.

“Sara, please,” I begged.

“I’ll see if I can find her,” she comforted
me.

There were more voices, and then I was
moving. The fluorescent lights blurred above me as I was wheeled
through the maze of corridors. There was a figure at the end of my
bed, but I couldn’t see a face. The tears continued rolling down
the crevices of my eyes and into my ears. I made an effort to
contain the moans, but they escaped every so often on their
own.

A team of bodies wearing blue and white
lifted me onto a hard platform. As I was rolled onto my back, I
screamed out in agony. There was
nothing
that could hold it
back. A nurse gently turned me onto my side to examine the source
of my torturous cries and let out a breath.

“Her back is badly bruised,” she
reported.

“Prop her on her side,” Dr. Chan directed
from my feet.

I slid into a tube and closed my eyes,
concentrating on breathing evenly to cope with the suffering. The
corners of my eyes were raw from the never ending seeping of tears.
I remained in that area of the hospital for a time I could not
judge, with the rolling, and the clicking, and the doors opening
and closing.

Eventually, the hands of the team eased me
back onto the forgiving cushion of the bed, supported on my side to
provide some reprieve from the torment that had overtaken my body.
Exhausted, I closed my eyes.

“We’re waiting on the results of her x-rays
before we know if there’s any damage,” Dr. Chan explained to
someone. “You’re welcome to stay with her, and I’ll be back when I
have the results.”

“Sara?” I whispered through the grogginess. I
opened my eyes when we rolled to a stop. A curtain was pulled
around me, concealing the people on the other side.

“Hey honey,” the soothing voice of the nurse
greeted me. “Your aunt and uncle are here.” I averted my eyes, not
finding the comfort she hoped that news would provide me.

“Sara? Did you find her?” My tone was
anxious, and her concerned expression recognized it.

“She’s right outside,” she promised. “I’ll go
get her.”

“You can’t keep me from seeing her,” an irate
voice yelled. “She’s my daughter.”

My heartbeat accelerated, picked up by the
quick beeps on the machine above my head.

“Relax, Rachel,” George instructed
firmly.

“What’s wrong with her?” she demanded
heavily. I recognized her slur. My jaw tightened. What was she
doing here? How did she even know?

“I don’t think this is the right time to be
talking to you,” George responded.

“You can’t keep me from her. She’s my
daughter,” my mother declared. Then she went on to berate George
and Carol about how they didn’t love me, with expletives only my
drunken mother could come up with.

“M’am, I need to ask you to come with us,” a
deep masculine voice demanded.

“Get your hands off me. You can’t touch me. I
need to stay here with my daughter. Get off me.” The angered voice
trailed away, until it was cut off completely when a pair of doors
closed further down the hall.

“Emma?” Sara whispered, peering in through
the curtains. My flittering eyes found Sara’s pale face and her red
rimmed eyes.

“Sara!” I wept, lifting my head. The movement
forced me to moan in pain, causing Sara to wince.

“Ow. Try not to move,” she whispered, pulling
up a chair to sit beside me. She pressed her lips together and the
line between her eyes deepened as she searched my agonized face.
“I’m so sorry.”

Her eyes filled and she quickly swiped away
the tears with the hand that wasn’t holding mine.

“I’m glad they finally let me see you. It
felt like I was waiting forever.” Her voice quivered. “You scared
me.” The tears welled in her eyes again, and she looked away to
conceal them.

“I’ll be okay,” I assured her, but I knew
seeing me on a hospital bed wasn’t very convincing.

“You didn’t look okay when you were lying
lifeless on the floor of the basketball court. I don’t think I’ve
ever been so scared in my entire life.”

“I slipped on ice and fell down the stairs at
my house,” I told her quietly.

“What?” Her forehead crumpled, not
understanding.

“How I hurt myself,” I explained. “I fell
down the stairs on some ice.”

“But Em, everyone saw you fall during the
basketball game - I mean
everyone
,” she explained, still
confused.

“Look at my back,” I encouraged.

Sara walked around to the other side of my
bed and gently lifted my basketball jersey.

“Oh!” Sara exhaled upon seeing the bruising.
“I knew you shouldn’t have played. Have they given you anything for
the pain?” She returned to the chair to hold my hand, her face
paler than when she entered.

“Mm mm,” I indicated in a negative through my
pressed lips, trying to hold back the groan that would give away
just how miserable I was.

“Okay, Emily,” Dr. Chan declared, pulling
back a section of the curtain.

“Hi, I’m Dr. Chan,” he introduced himself to
Sara.

“I’m Sara McKinley,” she offered in
return.

“Is it okay if she stays in the room while I
go over this with you?” he asked me.

“Yes.”

“Well, it looks like you’ve had a couple of
injuries today, huh?”