by Claire Angel
My team was counting on me to come through in the clutch. Therapy had made things worse and had manifested other symptoms which weren’t there before. I couldn’t argue with the results, but the by-product of revealing too much was having dangerous side effects.
I touched my nose and I could feel the blood on my fingertips. I could only hope leaving things in the past would finally give me a sense of peace.
My body could go back to normal and I would never have to discuss that fateful night. What the hell…what fateful night was like talking about? It was a light bulb moment, but it didn’t last very long.
I was basically walking around in a fog relying on the cool air to keep me from reliving something painful. Was it something I did? Was it something I said? Did somebody do something to me? All these questions were rolling around in my head and I had just cut out from my life the very person that could help me make sense of all of it.
To the casual observer, I would appear to be sightseeing, but I really wasn’t paying attention to anything around me. Getting some distance and thinking things through was counterproductive. I had started to pull off the band-aid very slowly and then I stopped with the festering psychological wound exposed. I had to find a way to temporarily close that wound or I wasn’t going to be worth anything on the field.
Chapter 9
Deborah
I had to see him again and buying a ticket to the game to see him in his element was worth the price of admission. I was pretty much invisible in the crowd watching intently the man with the number 12 on his uniform getting ready to go to war with the enemy.
I couldn’t deny the effect he was having on me in that tight little uniform. There really wasn’t much to the imagination and I could envision his body splayed out before me with nothing on.
It was easy since I had already seen him naked, but we had done very little to encourage each other to do something more physical than touch.
The ball was in his hand and he was running down the field with the expectation of his team on his shoulders. I could tell that his performance was suffering. The crowd didn’t notice anything and were only seeing what they wanted to see.
I was judging him and reading his body language like a blind man did with Braille. He wasn’t an easy man to read, but I had gotten to know him on an intimate level to understand the small imperfections. Those little details most people took for granted were right there in front of me.
I had to admit the roar of applause and the deafening stomping of their feet in the stands was addictive. I found myself playing into the mentality of wanting the blood of my enemies on my hands. I was screaming with a vocal encouragement that was almost overshadowing everybody else.
There was this certain majestic symmetry to how he made his way down the field. It was choreographed and everybody seemed to know their parts for the greatest chance of success. The stress of the game was going to make the symptoms worse, but I was hoping I was wrong.
The game continued and he was barely holding things together. I was worried and I was showing it by wringing my hands with a white-knuckle exercise. It was a very close game and the score was tied with only 2 minutes left on the clock in the fourth quarter.
The crowd had gone silent and this was going to be a Hail Mary play. Cadence pretended to take the ball, but the other team wasn’t fooled by their chicanery.
They attacked but they managed to go far enough to get a first down. Everybody knew what was going to happen and there was that thick tension in the air.
The air was cold and I could see his breath coming out every time that he took one.
This was an away game and the hometown crowd was practically screaming for him to fail. There were some diehard Chicago enthusiasts. They were dressed and painted to show the sport the respect it deserved.
These were young men and women and their hopes and dreams lie on one man’s shoulders. The cheer or jeer of the crowd was predicated on what he was going to do next.
He was running down the field with less than 30 seconds remaining. It must’ve been hard for him to juggle his responsibilities and his mental well being at the same time.
Everybody was on their feet for different reasons. It was confusing how the crowd could think anything they were going to do was going to make any difference.
I fed into the atmosphere ripe with anger and expectation. I was standing with them and I could feel the heat of their fuel burning up inside of me.
Cadence literally leapfrogged an opponent and somehow managed to land on his feet with the ball still in his hands. It was going to be a photo finish and the press was on the sidelines waiting with bated breath. The coach was going ballistic on both teams, but they were all but forgotten in the melee.
I could see how this port could be derivative of coliseum days in Rome. It was exactly like those Gladiators on the field fighting to see who was going to be the victor. This was the same thing on a grander scale.
The risk of injury was a high percentage, but nobody was going to get run through by a sword. It was still barbaric, but with rules to mitigate the possibility of somebody getting hurt severely.
It happened, but more often than not the player was able to recover in a short period of time. Concussions were nothing back in the day, but research had confirmed the human skull was fallible. It could result in brain damage or losing full control of somebody’s faculties.
I tried to see things through Cadence eyes and it finally dawned on me the reason why he had treated me with disrespect. The sport of football was his life and my interference had jeopardized a lengthy career with a bank account that would’ve been envied by many.
He would never know who his true friends were until the bottom fell out and the money was no longer coming in. I could only hope that he would retain some of his hometown values and reject a poisonous atmosphere with those that wanted to use him to further their career.
I was back in the present watching the game on the edge of my seat.
He declared his intentions with one arm outstretched before him to block any opposing team member from coming closer. Cadence was using muscle memory driving for the touchdown with those plays drilled into him. The exhilaration could not be contained when he finally made it to the goal line.
There was only one second left and he had brought home a championship opportunity. The crowd was aghast and they sat back down dejected feeling the loss like they had something invested into it.
I didn’t want Cadence to lose that sense of wonder. He was the kind of man that didn’t take anything for granted.
I felt small in a sea of voices, but I couldn’t keep my enthusiasm from breaking out in a huge grin on my face. My elation was stunted and I didn’t want to kick the other fans while they were down.
I couldn’t understand how Cadence could resort to the path of least resistance. Risks were worth taking when they were in the capable hands of professionals. My fear was that he was going to somehow find himself selling out to the highest bidder without consulting every variable. Money could be the root of all evil.
I had faith in him and I knew that he could persevere with the tools that I had provided him with.
His victory was short lived and I could see something was wrong by the way that he was standing there in the glare of the lights. His eyes were unfocused and he didn’t seem to know where he was looking around confused.
He dropped to his knees and it took the trainers a moment to understand what was going on with him. They rushed to his side with the medical staff standing by. Cadence was on the ground looking up, but I couldn’t be there for him in his hour of need.
I frantically pushed through the crowd, shoving and making a spectacle of myself in a mad rush to give him the moral support that he was looking for.
I got down to the sidelines while the crowd was thinning. They were all in a state of shock, grumbling under their breath about how the team had disappointed them. They showed th
eir disappointment by shaking their heads in disbelief and raising their fists in anger.
“Sorry, but only Authorized personnel beyond this point.” An overzealous guard being paid minimum wage decided to enforce the rules.
He was a brute and could blot out the sun with his form. The blue uniform made him feel powerful and he was feeding on the adrenaline of the crowd. The ring on his finger told me that he was a committed man, but his self-worth was built on the power that he could exude.
“I’m his Physician and you are preventing me from helping him. Do you really want his death on your conscience?” I asked him and he became flummoxed with no clue what to do next.
I showed him my credentials and made him believe it with my tone of voice a bit more authoritative than I was intending. I crossed my arms defiantly.
I just had to make him believe I belonged. I knew that he was debating whether or not to call his supervisor, but he didn’t want to appear to be unable to do his job. He finally relented and allowed me to pass.
They had him on a stretcher and there was an oxygen mask over his face. Every time he took a breath the inside of the mask would fill with vapour. His concern was seen by the way that he was a gripping the stretcher with his fingernails turning white with the effort.
He saw me and his expression softened
They were trying to push me aside, but I wasn’t moving. I got a grip on his hand and he squeezed it pleading with me not to leave him alone in unspoken words. He was having problems breathing.
“I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. They’ll have to drag me away from you kicking and screaming. I need you to tell them that I should accompany you to the hospital for a complete evaluation. I know some good people that will gladly do me the favour of moving you to the front of the line. We can bypass all the red tape.” The coach was trying to pull me away, but I looked at him with a glaring expression that would have frozen anybody to the spot.
“I don’t care for your journalistic integrity. I know you have backstage access, but this is taking things a little bit too far. You need to learn some restraint and understand where the line is that you don’t cross.” The coach hissed and became quite the force to be reckoned with.
“I would take your hand off of me unless of course, you want to lose it. I would be more than happy to send you back with a stump.” It was a veiled threat, but my demeanor made him take a step back to reassess the situation.
He motioned for security and the guard that I confronted earlier decided that it was better to air on the side of caution.
He had his hand firmly clasping the Billy Club at his hip, fingering it ready to bring it out in a show of force to make me back down from any further confrontation. He was over thinking and taking his cue from the coach who was ultimately going to talk to his boss.
“I want this woman physically taken off the field.” The coach grumbled and was using his position to bring a sense of stability to an otherwise chaotic environment. “I don’t know how she got on the field. She should’ve been on the sidelines with the rest of the press. I have a responsibility to protect my players from this kind of scrutiny,” The coach said brusquely, but he didn’t try to take matters into his own hands.
Cadence took off the oxygen mask against doctor’s orders. He took a deep breath and motioned for the coach to come closer with a hook of his finger.
“She’s staying by my side and I don’t want to hear anything more about it. Don’t test me and you did say that you had the responsibility to protect me. Having her here is making me feel better. I’m trying to be nice, but don’t test my patience. It’s wearing thin. Don’t make me go over your head to the owner of the team. You know I have her on speed dial,” He said harshly, holding his gaze with his eyes narrowed and his upper lip curled into a sneer.
Chapter 10
Cadence
I had her by my side, holding my hand and making demands of the paramedics on duty in the ambulance. I felt bad for what I had said a few hours earlier and I didn’t know how to go about apologizing for my outburst.
“I’m going to be with you every step of the way. They will get you stabilized and into a room post haste. I was afraid something like this was going to happen. You were moving too fast to recover that you didn’t take time to understand the underlying reason.” She never let go and I could see this was more than a professional courtesy.
“I appreciate how you have my best interest at heart. I know this might sound selfish, but I hope this doesn’t hurt my chances for that huge endorsement deal. They were in the stands watching my every move and this could make them think twice about taking me on as the face of their company,” I mumbled through the mask.
They wanted me to stay quiet, but I couldn’t do that. Getting agitated over the smallest detail was something I was known for. It came with the territory of having the huge burden of responsibility on my shoulders. I wasn’t some innocent lamb being led to the slaughter. I consciously knew what I was getting myself into and I walked willingly into the lion’s den.
“I don’t want you to think about that and concentrate on getting better. We both know why this happened. You discovered something about yourself that scared you. Attempting to push me away was a mistake and we both know it.” She could see right through me and being the voice of reason was something that I desperately needed.
Her eyes conveyed a professional detachment combined with an intimate connection that neither one of us wanted to say anything about. I wanted to scream it from the rooftops, but there was no way to know where her head was at.
There was no excuse for my behaviour. She had already pinpointed the reason for my words of discourse. I was scared, but that was neither here or there. She didn’t deserve to have my biting words affect her. Hurting her was the last thing on my mind, but it felt more preferable than the alternative of getting to the bottom of my mental issues.
The ambulance rolled into the hospital and I was wheeled right through to a back room where two doctors were waiting for me. They attached me to several different machines to monitor my heart and other bodily functions. The oxygen mask was replaced by an IV drip and they could obviously see that I could breathe on my own.
“You should count yourself lucky that you have a friend like Deborah in your corner. I don’t normally get out of bed on my day off for anybody. It doesn’t look like there’s anything physically wrong with you. I would say you had an acute panic attack and hyperventilated until you could hardly breathe. I’m going to order some tests to rule out certain things, but I don’t detect anything out of the ordinary.” He didn’t mention his name and I read the tag on his scrubs affixed to his chest.
“It looks like I have become a captive audience of one. I can see from that smug little smile on your face this is exactly what you wanted. That’s not how I wanted you to get into bed with me, but I guess beggars can’t be choosers.” I made a joke and she smiled with this blush to her cheeks that had me almost laughing inside at her expense.
“Dr. Green is the best in his field and he will rule out any discrepancies. I’ve known him for years and we have consulted each other on several different cases. We tried dating, but it never worked out. We made better friends than lovers.” She looked around and Dr. Greene had left with whoever was shadowing him.
It was probably an apprentice program and the young man was learning on the job by being thrown feet first into the deep end.
“I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am. I should never have talked to you like that, but I didn’t know what else to do. You were only trying to help and I played it off like you were trying to hurt me. You have this real confidence that is fucking hot. Pardon my French. I would hate to say anything that would offend your delicate sensibilities.” I was being very careful and I didn’t want to say anything that would end up being misconstrued.
She was looking over my chart and even though her main interest was in psychology didn’t mean that she
didn’t have a vast knowledge of the human anatomy from the inside out.
Her training came from medical school.
I don’t know what compelled her to come down from the stands, but I was glad that she did. I saw her from the moment that I stepped onto the field after giving a rousing speech to the rest of the team in the locker room.
She probably didn’t recognize that there was this spotlight over top of her. Nothing could hide the blazing beauty shining in her eyes. I had this laser beam of focus and having her there didn’t make me nervous. It made me excited to be able to share with her my passion and to experience it through her eyes.
“I know you didn’t mean it, but it hurt to hear you say those words. I should’ve known that any man’s ego can be bruised easily. I thought you were better than that, but I shouldn’t make those assumptions. I will take your apology in the spirit that it was given,” She groaned and I found that my feelings for her were complicated.
I couldn’t give what I was feeling a name. There was no way to explain it without delving deep into a pool of feelings that were better left unsaid.
I wanted to rewind and there was no quick fix for what was ailing me. I was running hot and cold, but there was no method to my madness. The short fuse could be lit by the slightest provocation. I tried to keep it together, but sometimes it wasn’t easy when people got on my last nerve.
I was trying to convince myself that I was physically strong and that whatever was affecting me had to be something to do with low blood sugar. It would be easier and the doctors could treat me for such a condition.
“I believe that you are a victim of saying one thing and meaning another. I’ve ignored this for long enough. I want this to be over with, but there’s still some work to be done. I don’t want to overreact, but the images concern me. I know the only way to get the clean state I’m looking for is to unburden myself. I’m giving you the freedom to do what comes naturally.” I couldn’t believe I was saying the words.
