Page 86 of Playing the Field
Maybe that’s why I lose a tiny bit of focus. Maybe knowing Dario has made up for my mistake earlier allows me to pull my mind off the accelerator for the time it takes to look up at the team box. I shouldn’t be able to discern one person in the crowd, but Gracie isn’t any person. She’s the salve to my aching heart, and I’m certain it’s her standing in front of her seat looking down on the field. It’s not like we can make eye contact at this distance, but I convince myself that we can.
“If you feel a wave of sadness…” Bern’s advice jumbles in my brain, and I can’t remember whether I’m supposed to outrun my feelings or put them into the game. All I know is that the Michigan team is playing the ball up the field on three passes, and our midfielders are chasing their dust.
I back up, moving closer to our keeper, watching how the ball is being played, looking for the first opportunity to head it off if someone takes a shot. One pass to the wing, another back to center, I move forward. The ball goes back to the winger, who takes his shot.
It’s clean, but it hits the side post and ricochets back to our defender, who tries to clear it. But a Michigan attacking mid clips it, and it heads back toward our goal. I see red. I see Gracie. I run at the ball and the player who’s getting too close to the goal.
Slide tackle.
All ball.
But the attacker loses his footing and lurches toward me, taking us both down right at the side post. I feel the harsh scream of metal against the back of my head mingled with the din of the crowd, a tangle of cleats, and the smell of close-cropped grass.
And then everything goes dark.
CHAPTER 44
Gracie
“He’s groggy,but he’s awake.”
I take my first deep breath since I saw Hunter go down. Even from a few hundred yards away, I heard the sound of his head hitting the metal goal post. I can still hear it.
My first thought was that no one hits their head that hard and survives. My second thought was that if anyone could survive, it’s Hunter. Purely out of stubborn determination.
And then the thought that has been ricocheting in my brain ever since—I didn’t respond to his last text to say I love him. If he never recovers from the crushing blow to his skull, he won’t know that I’ve never wavered in my feelings for him. That thought has haunted me ever since.
As I’ve sat here around the clock, I can’t stop the barrage of awful images. How the blow knocked Hunter out cold. How he had to be carried off the field on a stretcher with the entirecrowd holding our collective breath, watching his unmoving body, which is normally so strong and full of vigor.
How I tried to block out the chatter I could hear in the stadium—or maybe I was projecting my worst fears—people wondering if he was okay, if he’d ever be okay, if he’d open his eyes only to stare blankly, if he’d live to play in another game.
How I pushed through the crowd and used my team credentials to get access to where the medical team was assessing Hunter before an ambulance took him to the hospital. How I stood there with all the other concerned members of the Devils and understood that keeping our relationship under wraps meant I had no claim on him. Maybe I never would.
It didn’t stop me from driving to the hospital and planting myself here until I could get a definitive word about his condition. Kyler, who left on a last-minute work trip to Bali, has been blowing up my phone for information. I keep telling him I have none.
“Ms. Albright?”
The male voice from across the room has a quiet, lilting tone, as if from someone accustomed to delivering bad news.
“Yes?” I look up, ever hopeful.
“I’m Dr. Sanchez. I’ve been monitoring Hunter’s condition since the accident. He has skull fractures and severe bruising, but no internal bleeding. He made a big improvement last night. He’s awake in the ICU.”
“Really?” I light up with the thrill of hope. But it leaves just as quickly. “What does that mean? Like, he’s awake physically, but what’s going on mentally? Would he know me if I went in there? Am I allowed to go in there?”
The neurologist, a kindly woman in her fifties who’s been out here twice before to tell me Hunter was still undergoing testing, smiles patiently while the questions fire from my brain to my mouth. I’m sure she’s answered them numerous times for theDevils managers and teammates who have been here around the clock, checking on Hunter’s condition. I’m the only one who hasn’t gone home, though. I can’t. I need to know if he’s okay, and I need to lay eyes on him rather than hearing the news from someone else.
“We’ll be doing another CT and an MRI, but I’m optimistic. He asked about you.”
“He did?”
She nods and motions me in the direction she came from, and we walk down the sterile hall of the hospital silently while I figure out what I want to know before I see him.
“Is there anything to know about his…condition?”
“He has a bad concussion, and because he took the blow to the back of the head, it caused bleeding that pooled in the soft tissue around his eyes. It’s common to get raccoon eyes from the type of hit he took, but don’t let that concern you. It looks worse than it is. All the neurological tests came back fine. As I said, no bleeding in the brain.”
I’ve been here at the hospital for nearly twenty-four hours while they stabilized him and ran all the neurological tests needed to check for brain damage.
