by Mike Lupica
And it was in this moment that something happened. Something that reminded Alex why she loved sports.
She made a move she didn’t know she could.
She put on the brakes and spun around so her back was to the defender and the Palmer goal.
Then she faked a pass to Roisin with her right foot before spinning to her left.
It made the girl with the braid slip and fall in an effort to keep up.
Roisin was still there on her right, except now the defender covering her was scrambling to get between Alex and the goal, doing her best to stop her from shooting on their keeper.
Alex could have taken the shot.
But Roisin had a better one, with no one there to block her.
Alex passed her the ball, and Roisin cut loose with the hardest shot she’d made since they’d started playing together that day at tryouts, catching it so cleanly Alex was surprised it didn’t put a hole in the netting.
It was their only goal so far.
But to them, it may as well have been the winning score.
Roisin came running over. She jumped into Alex’s arms, and Alex lifted her off the ground while Roisin pumped a fist in the air.
“You about slagged me with that spin move,” Roisin said when Alex set her down.
“Gonna assume that’s a good thing,” Alex said.
“Doncha know it.”
They were back in the game.
Maria Ochoa, one of the girls who’d originally been cut, turned out to be a terrific defender. She moved up right before halftime, took a pass from Roisin, and blasted a shot of her own past the Palmer goalkeeper from thirty yards away.
Just like that, 3–2, Palmer.
Now the game had really gotten real.
26
Alex thought Coach might stick with the group that had gotten the Owls back on track for the second half, but she decided to go back to her starters, which meant the starters from last fall.
Before the game, when Alex, Lindsey, and Annie had been standing with Coach, Lindsey asked if she might think about cutting down their roster if they did have a season.
“Nope,” Coach Cross said. “Our team is our team.”
“You don’t think we have too many players?” Lindsey asked, trying to sound innocent.
But Alex picked up on Lindsey’s apprehension. She thought having more girls on the team could threaten her play time.
“You can never have too many players,” Coach replied.
Early in the second half, Adella scored again, taking the ball from Lindsey and making a quick push pass to the striker on her left. When she got the ball back, she took off, straight down the middle of the field. Made about three terrific moves, broke in on Carly, and scored easily. Right foot to Carly’s left, low to the ground, a bullet.
It was 4–2, with the Lions tugging back the momentum they’d temporarily lost.
The score stayed that way until the coaches blew their whistles to signal ten minutes left. This time Coach Cross didn’t bring in eleven new players. Just switched around some of the backs and made up a frontline of Alex, Annie, and Roisin.
“Who plays in the middle?” Annie asked.
“You do,” said Coach.
To Annie’s credit she said, “Alex played better than I did there in the first half.”
“So now I’ve got two great center middies,” Coach said. “Am I a lucky duck or what?”
The evening had gotten colder and overcast. It was one of those days, Alex thought, when winter said to spring: Not so fast. But Alex wasn’t cold. As soon as she was back out there, heat coursed through her body from all the adrenaline. It was a good game and even better competition. Now it was all about digging deep and figuring out a way to win the game. She hadn’t felt this competitive streak since football. It wasn’t until now that she realized how much she’d missed it.
It took a couple of minutes to find their rhythm, but once she and Annie started to anticipate each other’s movements, they were unstoppable. It was like ESP again. They didn’t have to worry about Roisin, who seemed to have the best feel for soccer out of all of them. She was wherever they needed her to be.
They were clicking, even if they hadn’t produced a goal.
There was a scramble for the ball almost exactly at midfield. Annie came up with it, and Roisin took off down the left side. Annie found her with an almost perfect long pass. Then Roisin collected the ball, staying onside, and drew the goalkeeper toward her, somehow finding an angle into the upper corner.
Palmer 4, Orville 3.
Plenty of time left against the team that had won the championship of the league only a few months prior. The sides looked as even as they could, even if the Owls were still down a goal.
Rashida replaced Carly in the goal with five minutes left in the game, making a great save on Adella to keep the score 4–3. Alex ran past Coach Cross.
“How much time left?” she asked.
“Four minutes” was Coach’s reply.
There was still enough daylight, Alex thought. Still too much left between them and Palmer. And suddenly it was the Owls who were forcing the action now, dominating control of the ball. It seemed as if the game was mostly being played in front of the Palmer goal.
Alex was sure she had one ball behind her, but their keeper made an unbelievable diving save.
Two minutes left.
Still 4–3.
Sixty seconds remaining.
Something Alex’s dad had once said floated back to the top of her brain.
In sports, there wasn’t just one way to keep score.
If they could come all the way back from being down 3–0, a tie would feel like a win today.
Whatever happens, Alex thought, we’re a team now.
She felt fresher and faster in her last minute out there than she had in her first.
We just need one goal.
The Lions had taken some time off the clock, controlling the ball on their end. Alex couldn’t tell how much, but she knew they only had moments to catch up.
She watched as Annie moved up to meet Adella, trying to slow her down, as Adella crossed into the Owls’ end of the field.
Alex could either double-team her and force her to pass or attempt to guess her next move, which was near impossible for someone with seemingly limitless range . . .
Alex took a chance, though, and guessed that she would pass.
She felt like a defensive back in football, trying to read Adella’s eyes, choosing to drop back into coverage.
Sure enough, Adella went for a long pass.
Alex stepped in at the last second to cut it off.
Defense into offense.
Just like that, she was running up the field at full speed, heading toward Palmer’s goalie.
She took the middle of the field. Annie faded off to her right, Roisin still on the left. They were in perfect alignment, like a flock of geese in the sky.
Alex got past one defender.
Then another.
She saw a streak to her right, Adella getting back into the play, almost caught up with Alex.
Alex tapped into one last gear she didn’t know she had.
With a quick glance, she spotted Annie, open to her right.
Alex didn’t hesitate. With the Palmer keeper still focused on her, she push-passed the ball over to Annie, who was faced with a ton of empty net to the keeper’s left.
Annie took a much bigger swing with her leg than she needed and nearly missed the goal wide right.
For a split second, Alex, from her angle, thought it was wide right.
It wasn’t.
The ball clipped the post, but only a little, giving the keeper time to dive and nearly get a piece of Annie’s shot.
The ball was just inches out of her reach, though.
Owls 4, Lions 4 at the final whistle.
27
Lindsey decided to host a team meeting at her house that Saturday afternoon to discuss fundraising ideas. It was all hypothetical, of course. Coach Cross hadn’t heard about approvals yet, and the idea of a boys vs. girls scrimmage hadn’t even made it as far as the boys’ coach. But the girls were confident and wanted to be prepared from the moment they got the green light.
Over the phone, Alex’s mom asked if she could attend. She’d participated in a few recent 5K runs to benefit various nonprofits and knew a thing or two about raising money.
“I don’t want to miss out on all the fun,” Liza said.
It was a small gesture, but one Alex couldn’t help but be moved by. Her mom. Coming to a soccer meeting. Like everyone else’s parents. As if she’d been here all along.
The whole idea of it made Alex warm all over.
“Who said any of this is going to be fun?” Alex said. “Besides, we don’t even know if we can pull it off.”
“My money’s on you, kid,” her mom said, then told her she’d pick her up a little before three.
When Alex hung up, she called Gabe and asked if he was up for some light tossing in the backyard.
“I don’t know, Alex,” he said. “Don’t think I’m ready for that.”
It had already been over a week, and Dr. Calabrese had cleared Gabe for light exercise.
“Come on,” Alex said. “I’ve been walking up and down the halls with you every day. You’re due for a little football action.”
“You know what they say,” Gabe said. “Fake it till you make it.”
“You don’t have to run,” Alex said. “You don’t even have to move around. We’ll just throw a ball back and forth like we’ve done a million times.”
“When I didn’t have a bad knee,” Gabe reminded her.
“It’s not a bad knee,” Alex said. “It just misbehaved that one time.”
“Maybe in a few days.”
“Gabe,” Alex said, leveling with him. “When your left knee is ready for baseball, which it’s going to be, your right arm needs to be ready too.”
“I just don’t want to rush things,” Gabe said.
“I talked to my mom,” Alex said. “She basically said that if you can walk, you can throw.”
Alex paused.
“You’d be doing me a favor,” she said. “I need someone to help break in my new catcher’s mitt!”
“Oh, so suddenly you’re a baseball player, huh?” he joked.
“Well, somebody needs to keep up with you.”
“I assume you won’t take no for an answer?”
“Bingo.”
His mom dropped him off a half hour later. He wasn’t ready to start riding his bike just yet, even though Dr. Calabrese and Liza had told him that riding a real bike was as good for his knee as riding an exercise bike.
Alex knew what was going on. Gabe had never gotten seriously injured playing sports. A few times he’d gotten banged up in football, having to limp off the field. But that sort of thing happened to everybody. This was different. Gabe had told Alex—on more than one occasion—that he was afraid of getting hurt playing baseball, because that would mean having to forfeit football season. The fear of needing surgery paralyzed him. Suddenly the boy who always expected the best was now fearful of the worst.
Alex kept telling him that he was making too much of it. That he was a rock star when it came to sports, and he would rock rehab just the same.
But always, he’d have the same response for her: “It’s not your knee.”
This always made Alex feel a little queasy. The guilt would come flooding back, and she couldn’t help but wish that it had been her knee instead of Gabe’s.
Trying to shake the thought from her head, she concentrated on them being together in the backyard again, like old times.
“You really haven’t thrown yet?” Alex asked as they walked out onto the grass.
“By myself,” he said, “in my yard, using a bounce-back net. But even then, I forgot my knee and reached for a ball that’d bounced to my left. Felt a twinge or something, like I’d put too much weight on it.”
“I won’t make you reach,” Alex promised. “You may remember from football that I have a rather accurate arm.”
That at least got a smirk out of him.
“Hard to forget,” Gabe said.
He hadn’t been wearing his brace at school the past few days, complaining that it itched, and he really didn’t need it anyway.
But he was wearing it now.
“We’ll stick to baseball today,” Alex said. “I promise.”
He had carefully paced off sixty feet between them, the distance between the pitcher’s mound and home plate. It was technically sixty feet six inches, Gabe said, but neither one of them was going to be able to tell the difference.
At first, they just soft-tossed, Gabe barely striding at all with his left leg as his arm came forward, the way he would if he were pitching for real.
“Don’t you put more strain on your arm when you don’t use your legs?” Alex asked.
“Now you’re an expert on pitching?” he said, half in jest.
“Ouch.”
“Hey, if I’ve got a sprained knee, you can have a bruised ego.”
“Touché.”
“And now she’s a fencer,” Gabe said, throwing his hands to the sky.
Eventually, as he loosened up, he began to stride normally and throw the ball harder. Alex watched him and realized what a great quarterback he would have made if that were his ambition. But he’d always wanted to be a receiver.
Catching in one sport and throwing in another. The perfect balance.
Baseball had never been Alex’s game. But she loved being out here with him, getting into a catcher’s crouch and using her mitt to give Gabe a target, even calling out balls and strikes.
One time when she called a ball, Gabe said, “I want a new home plate umpire.”
“Boo-hoo,” Alex said. “The complaint department is closed.”
“So that’s the way it’s going to be?”
“Don’t make me throw you out of this game, young man,” Alex said with pretend authority.
Before they’d started, Gabe said he only wanted to throw about fifty pitches total. But the more he got into it, the more Alex knew that promise wouldn’t hold.
He threw harder now, the ball coming to Alex at top speeds. The pocket of the mitt popped with each catch.
She didn’t ask him if he was glad he’d come, because it was obvious by the look on his face.
“One more batter and then we’re done,” Gabe called to her.
“Deal,” Alex said.
“Get ready,” he said. “Gonna bring it.”
He burned one in for strike one. Alex didn’t even have to move her mitt.
Did the same for strike two.
He’s ready for baseball, Alex thought. Even if he won’t admit it.
When he reached back to give it something extra for strike three, his left foot slipped on the grass.
He went down.
Hard.
The memories of his fall on the soccer field came back in a rush as Alex ran for him.
What would happen if he’d hurt himself again? Or made the injury worse? She’d been the one who’d invited him here to throw. It would be her fault . . . again.
She crouched down at his side and saw his hand reach for his knee.
“Are you okay?” Alex asked, hoping beyond hope that he’d say yes. That it was nothing.
But that’s not what he said.
28
It turned out Alex’s mom was already on her way to the house, as she and Jack were scheduled to have lunch together. Alex thought it was like having an orthopedic surgeon who makes house
calls.
She had Gabe lean on her as they came inside, even though he insisted he was fine on his own.
“Not doing so good in your yard lately,” he said in her ear.
Alex had never been happier to see her mom. Liza had Gabe sit on the couch and rest his leg on the ottoman in the living room. Then she spoke to him softly, as she had him make small movements with his leg.
“Does that hurt?” she’d ask. “How about this? Feel anything when you do that?”
“The only time it really hurt was when I landed funny,” Gabe said. “Except it wasn’t funny when it happened.”
She had him do minor leg lifts then, one after another. Finally, she asked him to stand and put as much weight as he could on his left leg.
“Not bad, right?” Liza said.
“No,” Gabe said, then looked at her quizzically. “But the way you say it makes it sound like you knew it wouldn’t be.”
She smiled at Gabe. “I’ve got a terrible poker face,” she said. “What happened today—not the slip, but the way you felt afterward—is just a normal part of recovery. What you probably felt was nothing more than scar tissue trying to heal up.”
“But how do I know my knee isn’t going to feel like that every time I pitch?” Gabe asked, a note of concern in his voice.
“It won’t,” she said. “I’m not comparing what happened to you to a muscle pull, Gabe. A sprain is technically more severe. But after people have pulled muscles, they think that area of their body will never go back to normal. But it always does.”
He sat back down.
“How am I going to play if every time I’m going to be afraid of hurting my knee again?” he said.
“I can’t tell you what to be afraid of,” she said. “It’s your knee, your body. But Alex told me about the way you were throwing today. Fearlessly. Without giving your knee a second thought. So if you ask me, what happened today was nothing more than a speed bump, and you’re totally on track to start the season on time.”
“Sure,” he said, without much conviction.
He’s hearing her, Alex thought. But he’s not believing her.
Alex asked him if he wanted to stay for lunch, but Gabe politely declined, saying he just wanted to get home and relax. Alex’s mom offered to drive him, and though he was grateful, he said he’d call his mom to come.
