by Holly Hart
"You trying to weasel out of it, boy?" the coach grunted back at me, cold and uncaring. I bit my tongue – he was an old school trainer, the kind of guy who didn't believe in newfangled things like sports science, and certainly didn't care much for what his players were telling him about their bodies.
"No, coach," I said honestly, "I'm just saying—"
"That's your problem, Rodriguez," he snarled. "You’re always just saying something. Get in the circle."
I shrugged, throwing him a dirty look the moment his back was turned. Sometimes, I thought, it felt like Madrid was actually paying him to screw us over. He was a Neanderthal and had no place in the modern game. Except, unfortunately, I mused ruefully, he did. Specifically, he was in charge of me.
I got into the circle, nodding curtly at my teammates. "Ready?" I grinned. "You’re going to have to be."
Rodrigo chuckled. "Never give up, do you Alex?"
"With skills like these," I grinned, dancing lightly on my toes, "why would I?"
The coach's whistle cut through the banter, and it was on. I took my place in the middle of the circle, adopted a crouched position and waited. Rodrigo kicked the ball first. It went left, then across, then back, and just like the first time they put me in the circle, I waited. After months training with these men every day, I knew how they moved, and could even take a wild guess at what they were thinking. I saw the way Rodrigo's bodyweight shifted fractionally onto his left foot as he prepared to play a pass with his right, the way Stefan seemed to panic when the ball came in too fast.
The soccer ball pinged back and forth, and I finally made my move, rushing at Rodrigo. He grinned and calmly played a pass across the other side of the circle. I swore.
"You're not the only one who's got skills, my friend," he shouted.
Ten passes. Then twenty, and I was increasingly aware that I was beginning to look like a fool. I chose my target – Stefan. He was the new boy – only recently promoted from the training academy, still wild-eyed and wet behind the ears. I saw the player with the ball shift fractionally and prepare to pass it to him.
I didn't wait.
I rushed towards him, sticking out my leg to tackle him and take the ball.
Stefan’s inexperience showed. He panicked, and instead of giving up on his chase for the ball like any experienced player would, especially in training, he doubled down and charged towards it, going in hard, with the studs on his cleats showing as he barreled towards me. I felt him clatter into me, then the studs on the bottom of my right cleat connect with the turf, digging in like I was standing in quicksand and refusing to let go. My bodyweight was still stuck powering inexorably forward, but the powerful muscles on the front of my leg seemed for the first time not to have the strength to do my bidding.
My brain clocked what was about to happen before my body did.
My knee gave out before the turf relinquished my studs.
I screamed.
"Alex!" Rodrigo yelled in horror, but I barely heard it, scarcely recognizing the familiar echo of the word over the scream of pain from my leg and the pounding rush of blood in my eardrums.
It was a season-ending injury. I knew it.
"Hey, buddy," Rodrigo said, doing his best to nudge me out of my depression, "they've got some American channels. What do you want to watch?"
I buried my head under the pillow, breathing in the sterile, antiseptic scent that reminded me exactly where I was – Barcelona Municipal Hospital. As if I could forget.
"I don't give a shit," I groaned. "Choose anything."
"Okay, my friend." The sadness in Rodrigo's voice said what he couldn't – it positively dripped with sympathy, and it was almost more than I could take. Of course, I couldn't send him away – hell, the last thing I wanted to be was alone, especially in a place like this, but every time I saw Rodrigo walking around unhindered, I felt bitter and jealous.
How was it fair that he was fine and I was not?
"That stupid fucking coach," I spat angrily over the familiar sound of an American news presenter. "I told him this would happen."
I sensed, rather than saw, Rodrigo turn in surprise. "What are you talking about? How could you know?"
"I told him. I fucking told him," I hissed. "My leg was feeling tight all day – tired. I've played too many matches without a break, and my quadricep needed a break – but what did he say?"
Rodrigo spoke in a hushed, sympathetic tone of voice. "I know, my friend."
"Do you?" I snapped, tossing the pillow I was hiding behind across the room and blinking back angry tears. "It's easy to say, but do you know what this means?"
Rodrigo sat back, chastened. The moment I finished shouting, I felt ashamed. Those weren't the actions of the kind of guy I wanted to be. Still, my body was suffused with so much rage – so much anger that I couldn't do anything about, that something had to break. Normally, in times like this, I'd go running – and I wouldn't stop until the rage had burned through me like wildfire. I wouldn't be doing that for a long time. The thought made me feel sick.
My ears pricked up as a familiar face appeared on screen. All too familiar.
"And now our Barcelona correspondent, Diana Lopez, is on the line to talk about a terrible accident in training. Diana?"
Diana looked tired and shaken, her makeup scarce, and what there was, was hastily applied. "That's right, Mark," she said haltingly. "We don't have a lot of details yet, the club is keeping quiet, but what we do know is that Alex Rodriguez suffered a severe injury in training today and is likely to be out for some time."
I bunched my fist up into a ball and squeezed it until the knuckles bled white. I hadn't even considered that Diana would have to report on this – and it hurt, but in a way that I hadn't expected. Looking at her up there, clearly worried about me and yet still forced to do her job pained me for her sake, not mine.
"You want me to turn it off, my friend?" Rodriguez said with a concerned expression on his face, pushing himself out of the chair beside my bed and reaching for the remote.
I grabbed his arm. "Leave it on."
"What does this mean for the rest of his season?"
"That," Diana sighed sadly, "is the key question right now, Mark. The truth is, we really don't know. He's in the hospital as we speak, awaiting the results of a scan on his knee – but from what I hear, the prognosis isn't good."
The anchor asked another stupid question – but one I hadn't considered. "And what does this mean for Alejandro's chances of making it to the World Cup?"
"It's fucking Alex," I spat in frustration. Rodrigo half-rose once again to turn the television off, but quailed beneath my glowering glance. I turned my eyes back to the TV, and I could tell by Diana's startled expression that she hadn't considered the prospect. Hell, nor had I, and it was my knee!
"Like I said, Mark, we just don't have the details at the moment, and I don't want to speculate. But if he doesn't make it," she sighed, "it doesn't spell good things. Alex is far away our best player, as you know."
"Thanks, Diana. Sad news, but good to know you're following it closely for WBC."
The camera panned back to Mark, the anchor, and he quickly finished up before the WBC Sports logo flashed onto the screen and the channel cut to ads.
Fuck, the World Cup!
I needed something to distract me. "Where's that doctor?" I hissed to Rodrigo, the pain suddenly returning to my knee. "Shouldn’t he be here by now?"
"I'll go check," Rodrigo said, looking relieved to have an excuse to leave the room. I couldn't blame him – the last thing any professional athlete wanted was a reminder of the ultimate frailty of his only asset – his body.
My head barely felt as though it had sunk back onto the pillow before he returned, complete with a white-suited doctor carrying a clipboard. It was so stereotypical I wanted to laugh.
"What’ve you got for me, doc?" I said grimly, indulging in a bit of gallows humor. "Are you going to have to take the leg?"
The joke went rig
ht over the black haired Spanish doctor's head. I couldn't blame him. It was terrible. "Mr. Rodriguez," he said softly, "I'm sorry to have to see you today."
"Not half as sorry as I am to be here, doc." I grinned. "Seriously, put me out of my misery."
He looked down at his clipboard, as if steeling himself to give me the bad news. "There's good news," he said, "and bad news."
I wanted to scream – what the hell was stopping him from just telling me? "Okay?"
"The bad news is that it's your knee – the cruciate ligament. The good news is," he said checking his clipboard again, "that it's not a complete rupture – just a tear."
I groaned. A cruciate ligament injury was bad, really bad. "How long will I be out?"
"It's hard to say," the doctor equivocated. "Depends how your physiotherapy goes…"
"Ballpark, doc," I hissed.
The doctor shot me an almost terrified glance. "Six months."
22
Diana
Riding a brand-new sky blue Vespa to my boyfriend's house – could anything be more European?
Of course, if Alex actually was my boyfriend, not just a fuck buddy, then maybe that would be an accurate comment.
And the circumstances sure as hell didn't help.
I slowed down as I entered the neighborhood, wary of the fact that Alex likely hadn’t yet done anything about Ken and Frank. I had the helmet to protect me…but better safe than sorry. I was in luck, there wasn’t a reporter in sight. But what there was, was a hell of a lot of trucks.
As I pulled up next to Alex's villa, it looked like he was moving out. Surely, I thought, he wasn't giving up on Spain – at least, not so soon. Hell, he'd only got out of the hospital a couple of days before! My stomach sank as I wondered whether I should have gone to see him sooner. After all, he didn't have anyone other than me to visit him…
I killed the motor and rode the moped to a shuddering halt, parking it up next to the sidewalk. I grabbed the heavy metal chain from the lockbox underneath the leather seat, threaded it around a lamppost and then through the Vespa's front wheel. Alex's wasn't exactly the kind of neighborhood I expected petty thieves to be wandering around in, but nevertheless – it paid to be careful.
I stood up and took a look around. The old cobbled street was filled with badly-parked delivery trucks, the nearest of which had Athletix emblazoned on the side.
I walked through the heavy stone archway that held the old wooden door, which was currently propped open to help accommodate the enormous and unexpected amounts of foot traffic that seemed to be entering the lush gardens of the villa, and saw a delivery man, his arms stacked high with a tower of packages wrapped in brown paper.
"Can I give you a hand?" I asked.
He peered around the tower. "Sorry, lady, no can do – insurance."
I shrugged. "Your loss. Hey, can you tell me what's going on here? Is the owner moving out?"
He shot me a funny look. "Buying all this would be a funny way to go about leaving, lady." I smiled. He had a point.
I walked through the rose-covered arbor, this time crunching through the gravel pathway in significantly more appropriate footwear – sneakers, not heels. It was the first time I'd seen the villa's gardens by daylight, and they were, if anything, even more beautiful. Except I couldn't help but notice that there was a slightly more industrial vibe about the place now…
In the distance, deeply tanned men with tool belts around their waists scurried like ants, carrying poles of scaffolding slung over their shoulders, or pushed carts stacked high with strange materials.
I looked down at the pool and put my hand to my mouth in surprise. A scaffold structure was beginning to rise over the shimmering blue water, and long black support lines fed out of all four corners, tied to thick metal stakes hammered into the ground.
"What the hell's that?" I asked a construction worker loitering around the corner smoking a cigarette. He looked me up and down salaciously. "Hey," I said firmly, "eyes up here."
He looked into my eyes, chastened. "Hell if I know," he grunted. "I just do what I'm told."
"Okay then," I sighed, irritated more by the man's apparent lack of interest in the world around him than by his misogyny, "take your best guess."
The man shrugged. "Seriously, I've got no idea. Rehab something or other?"
"Thanks," I said ironically, "you've been a lot of help."
He took the thanks in good faith. "No problem."
I headed towards the house, quickening my pace. All of this was altogether too weird for my liking…
With the amount of workers scurrying around – at least half a dozen by my count, and those were just the ones I'd seen – I'd half expected that Alex had started the redecoration of the villa that he promised last time I visited, just for something to do while he recovered. Yet, as I looked around, I saw no signs of any building work going on – other than a loud hammering from somewhere on the bottom floor.
I followed the source of the noise, finally stumbling across piles of fallen brickwork and construction dust – evidence that something, at least, had been torn out.
"Alex!" I said, catching sight of his uncharacteristically pale face. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" I rushed into the room, shocked by what I was seeing. "Seriously, stop that – you'll hurt yourself."
Alex's cheeks puffed out as he lowered the bar of the leg press machine back down to a neutral position and blood seemed to rush back into his body. "You mean – hurt myself more," he said blackly.
I put my body in the way of the weight machine. "Hell yeah, I mean hurt yourself more! What on earth do you think you're doing? Your leg's in plaster, for god's sake!"
His face was black with anger. "Get out of here, Di," he muttered. "I need to do this."
I didn't move. "No – you need to stop this, right now." I looked around, taking in the scene. The room was a construction site – a wall had been ripped out to make space, pieces of fitness equipment were in different stages of completion, and there was even a man lying on the floor, pretending to be in the middle of putting together a weight bench, but really staring at our quarrel with outright curiosity. I jerked my thumb at the door. "Beat it."
He scrambled to do my bidding.
"Tell me what the hell's going on here, Alex. Then I'll leave – and not a moment before." I stared at his face, even grabbed one of his hands and implored him to open up. He didn't say anything for a hot minute, but I waited, and waited, until he realized he didn't have a choice.
"You're serious," he grunted, "aren't you?"
"You got it."
"Can't seem to keep you when I want you, and can't get rid of you when I don't," Alex muttered gruffly.
"I'm here, aren't I?" I said, rebuking him.
He sank back onto the leather backrest. "Shit, I'm sorry, Di. My head's all up in the air right now – I don't know if I'm coming or going."
"That's fine," I said, squeezing his hand, "just tell me what's going on. Let me in!"
He shrugged and pointed at the massive plaster cast that encased his right leg. "It's obvious, isn't it?"
"God, you're infuriating. You know exactly what I'm talking about. What's this," I said, gesturing about the room, "about? And why the hell are you on this machine now, instead of on the couch recovering?"
"The couch?" He laughed shortly. "Like that's an option."
"Isn't it?" I said uncertainly. "It's what I'd be doing…"
"You don't understand," he groaned.
"Then help me to," I begged. "Or do you want me to leave?"
Alex grabbed my hand and squeezed it with an intensity that shocked me. "No!"
"Then you know what you have to do…" I murmured.
""Fine," he sighed. "See it from my point of view. I finally get signed by a European team – one of the biggest around, then this happens."
"How long are you out for?"
"About six to eight months, judging by the scan. I think five, the doctor thinks six, before
I'll even be out on the training field. Worst case, it's eight."
"Okay, okay," I said, trying to get my head around the situation, "I get all that, but what the hell are you doing here? What's that monstrosity over the swimming pool, and why the hell are you sitting here in a half-built gym, covered in sweat and plaster dust risking your other leg? What the hell did you think would happen if your good leg gave way? Are you going to use your crutches to hold that weight off?"
Alex looked at me, startled. "Whoa," he muttered, "where the hell did that come from?"
"I'm worried about you, Alex. Seriously worried. Can’t you see that?"
He squeezed my hand. "I can, I promise. I'm sorry. Here, give me a hand," he said, stretching out an arm. I helped him off the leg press machine and acted as a crutch until he got his feet sorted out. "Come on, I need a cold drink."
"You're not trying to distract me, are you?" I glared.
He chuckled. "Hell no, I wouldn't dare! I've been pumping away in there for hours, ever since they put the first couple of machines together. I kind of… lost track of time."
I fixed him with a steely stare. "Living room, now," I ordered. "I'll get us something to drink." Alex started to protest, but I quickly retorted, "How are you going to carry anything – you need those arms to crutch with."
He shot me a sulky stare, but did as he was told. I joined him a couple of minutes later with two ice cold, clinking glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice.
"What are those boxes on the kitchen counter? I asked, curious.
"What boxes? Oh – those," he said, remembering. "Sorry – I've spent most of the last couple of days on Amazon. They're supplements."
I spluttered on my juice. "All of them? Christ – what are you taking?"
"A little bit of this, a little bit of that. Anything that'll help me get better quicker."
"What's the obsession?" I begged. "Your contract runs for another four years, doesn't it? You won't be out on the street anytime soon – that's for sure."
