Here & Now

by Melyssa Winchester

  “Couple weeks ago maybe.”

  “That’s screwed up, man. You need to talk to Coach about that shit. Get it looked at, brace it, whatever.”

  “Like I said, it’s nothing. Happened before when I was playing in high school. It’ll pass.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Davidson has a fucking hard on for me. It looks worse than it is because he’s going out of his way to break my damn leg. If I didn’t know any better I’d think he’s a plant on the team with the way he’s so eager to me out before the weekend.”

  “The guy’s a prick, but he’s doing it because you’re head’s not here.”

  He makes a good point. This is how it worked when I was playing ball in high school and it hasn’t changed in the move to Toronto or back home now. Davidson is no more a damn plant than I am, but he’s focused on me more because I’m supposed to be the leader. The one whose focus never wavers. I’m giving him cause to kick my ass.

  “I’ll hit up one of the trainers after practice, see what they have to say. That make you feel better, Dad?”

  Ryder frowns and rolls his eyes before slipping himself up off the bench.

  “Despite what my old position used to be, I’m not here saying this shit to you because I want the spot. Speed is my thing, so running back suits me just fine. I’m trying to get through to you because you haven’t been right in days and with the way your leg is already fucked up, the last thing we need is it taken off completely.”

  “You really like hearing yourself talk, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I love it. I get turned on by the sound my own raspy ass voice. Look, D,” he says, all signs of sarcasm gone and his face completely serious. “Whatever it is that’s got you so twisted up, deal with it. Go find that pretty girlfriend of yours and fuck it out of your system before you end up getting us all hurt.”

  Fuck it out of your system.

  There’s something so wrong about the way he tells me to fuck Cadence, as if that’s all it is between us that it’s got me seeing red. Ryder’s a decent guy, but there’s no way in hell he’s gonna make light of what I have with her. What I’ve got with Cadence is so much more than a cheap suck and fuck.

  It’s damn near everything.

  “Got it, Dad. Any more wisdom you wanna try and cram down my throat?”

  “Yeah, actually there is.”

  “Well, you’ve got your audience on the edge of his seat. Please, share.”

  “Get your fucking knee looked at. The last guy I knew that ignored the very real shit he was going through ended up a paraplegic. Hate to see that happen to you.”

  Visions of wheelchairs float through my head as he’s talking. A very real end result for more than a few players, both in the CFL and NFL and most definitely something I don’t need or want for myself. Besides that pretty little girlfriend of mine, football is the only thing that matters and there’s no way I’m willing to be taken away from it, or worse; have it be the cause for me not being able to walk anymore.

  Ryder’s right. I need to deal with the shit going on with my body and I need to do it now.

  It’s time to see the trainer.

  Cadence

  When I started school, my mom thought it would be a good idea for me to sit down a couple of times a week and talk to someone. Not write to them or sign, but talk. She was worried at the time that things would be harder on me because of my inability to hear and wanted to do whatever she could to combat that.

  My mother, as much as I love her, worries too much for her own good. It’s partially why I believe she’s starting to sport gray hair long before she’s due for it. I did what she asked and even though I don’t come to see her as often as I did when I was younger, I still make a point when things get hard to sit down with her.

  And there’s no doubt about it, with what’s coming up for me next week, there’s nothing in the world that I’ll face that’s quite as hard.

  The first time I sat down with Pam, she was adamant that in order to affectively get to know me, we needed to speak to each other on a first name basis. No doctor this and doctor that. She wanted to be called Pamela, but at eight years old—the time of my first sit down with her—Pamela was too hard, so Pam it became.

  She was easy to talk to, same as it was at home with my mom but there was something different about her that set her apart from my parents. What I had difficulty admitting to them, I could do easily with her because she had nothing riding on the outcome. I sat here with her the first time cochlear implants had been tossed into my lap and now I’m here doing it again.

  Only this time, I’m a whole lot older.

  “The last time we talked about this, you were very open about the fears you had about the surgery. Are you experiencing those same fears this time around?”

  “Yes. I’m scared about the surgery, but not as much as I was before. It’s more what life is going to be like when this works and I can hear again that’s getting to me now.”

  “I can definitely see a change just in your wording alone. It speaks volumes to how well you’re adapting to what you’re about to go through.”

  I know what she’s getting at. I didn’t use the word if. I used it weeks ago when I sat down and told my mom what I wanted to do and I even did it with Dillon when I tried to force him to not get his hopes up. It’s my go-to response because there isn’t any guarantee that it will work. There’s always an if involved. I’m just choosing now to see it in a different way now and it’s pretty obvious why.

  Dillon is wearing off on me.

  We’ve gotten into a groove since that night at the hotel. We text back and forth as often as we can and when we do, we’re counting down the days until the surgery, but he takes it a step further.

  When he talks about how many days are left, he says it’s this many days until I’ll hear him and wish I hadn’t, being hopeful yet making a joke out of the sound of his own voice at the same time, lightening the impact. It’s the way he’s been that’s made me the way I am now. Somehow stronger, more determined to see this through then I was before.

  I’m still frightened for a bunch of different reasons, but I don’t make them front and center the way I would have in the past. Dillon’s hope, faith and strength in this whole thing turning out great is pushing me to do the same.

  “What scares you the most about hearing?”

  “The amount of things I’m going to hear all at once. The idea of hearing the people I care about, really hearing their voices isn’t scary. It’s everything outside that freaks me out.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “Cars, animals, all the other people. Every sound you’re used to because you’ve been able to hear it for so long, it scares me. I’m afraid it’s going to come at me too fast and I won’t be able to handle it. That I’ll breakdown.”

  “What are you most looking forward to when the implants are turned on and you’re finally able to hear?”

  Dillon. That’s easy and with the way I feel my cheeks overheating, it’s going to be pretty obvious to Pam in a second too. There’s only three things I look forward to hearing when this all goes through and he’s the one at the top of the list.

  Music and my parents are the other two, both equally as important, but not nearly as powerful as the mini movie I have in my head of hearing Dillon’s voice, wondering if it’s going to sound as rough and edgy as it does in my mind.

  “I look forward to hearing my boyfriend.”

  The last time I was here, boyfriend wasn’t even a word on my radar. I was like other girls and found guys cute, I mean I’m not blind to them, but it wasn’t really something I was all that interested in. If I expected her to be shocked by the revelation though, I was about to be seriously let down, because me saying it didn’t even phase her.

  “And how does he feel about you being able to hear him?”

  “He’s more excited about it than I am.”

  She smiles and her body begins to shake in laughter and it
doesn’t take long before I’m doing it with her. It really is funny, knowing that Dillon is more excited about the prospect of me hearing. It’s also sweet as hell and just one of the reasons why I’m glad I kept pushing with him last year.

  “If you could pick one phrase or even one word you would want to hear him say first, what would it be?”

  It’s the questions like this that make me enjoy my time with Pam. Where she should be clinical and maybe even a little staunch, she’s not. She asks the questions guaranteed to get me talking and they’re always easy to answer, which makes the time we have together just fly by.

  “I love you is what I want to hear most, but is it wrong that I want to hear him say my name too?”

  “There’s nothing at all wrong with that. What girl doesn’t want to hear their boyfriend say both of those things? It’s natural Cadence. I would be worried if those things weren’t what you wanted to hear first.”

  People think that just because I can’t hear that I’m unlike them. The things that the normal girls want and a lot of the things the ones that can hear take for granted, I can’t possibly want and need because I’m not like them. Hearing Pam tell me just how normal my wants are, it empowers me even more.

  I was like every other person that deals with a disability or setback that doesn’t follow a perceived norm. I had stages where I wondered why I was this way and what kind of god could be so cruel to make my life harder than it should be. I even longed at one point to be like everyone else. The thing is, not hearing doesn’t make me wrong, it just makes me different and that’s okay.

  I’m also one of the luckiest girls in the world because I’ve got the support of so many great people and really, that’s all that matters.

  “Besides wanting to hear your boyfriend and even your mom and dad, what else do you look forward to?”

  “Music. I love dancing even though a lot of people don’t understand how I could. When this works, I want to go and listen to the music, no matter what kind it is and just dance.”

  “Are you sure that it doesn’t matter what kind of music you hear?” Pam questions me with a grin and it’s easy to see what she’s getting at. With my earlier statement about hearing Dillon, she’s no doubt taken the romantic route and imagined me dancing with him.

  “Yes, it really doesn’t matter, but if you’re asking if I would want my first dance to be a slow one with Dillon, I won’t argue.”

  After spending a couple of minutes laughing, the gears switch in the room and we’re right back in the more serious aspects of why I’m here. The other end of things. What would happen if things don’t work out and I’m still left unable to hear.

  “I know that you’re choosing to look at the more positive aspect of the surgery, but when you’ve gotten time away from the rest of the world and their hopes, have you given any thought to what you’ll do if this doesn’t work out?”

  “I have.”

  “And what kinds of thoughts have you had about that?”

  “It’s going to be the same, if not worse then what I would feel if I let the fear win and backed out of this again. It would hurt. I would feel like I was letting everybody down and I might even feel like I was a lost cause. Too broken to be fixed.”

  I hate admitting this part. It’s all true what I’m telling her, but it’s not a place I like my mind to go. This is the last thing I want to think about even though I know nothing is a guarantee. There are risks in everything and sometimes, things don’t work out the way you want them to. I just really hope in this case that it does because that road, it’s not one I want to travel again.

  Letting people down or at least feeling like I am, it’s a cycle I don’t want to repeat. I’ve done it before, every single time I’ve backed away from this out of fear. This time I want to do things differently even if in the end it doesn’t matter and I’m doomed to be this way forever.

  It wasn’t a death sentence before and I don’t want to look at it like it is now, even though there’s a part of me, at least for a little while that knows I will.

  “Those feelings are as natural as the ones you have regarding hearing your boyfriend for the first time. It’s okay to have them, but if you ever feel like it’s becoming too much, I want to you to come back and talk to me about it, alright? I don’t want you to bottle this up because you think you have to be strong for the people around you.”

  “I won’t. I know better than to do that.”

  “Our time is almost up, but I’ve got one more question for you Caddy.”

  “Okay.”

  “When you had the discussion with your boyfriend about the implants and made the decision to go through with it, did you also explain the risks to him? What would happen if this didn’t work out the way you both want it to?”

  “He knows. He was at the appointment with me. There’s no secrets.”

  “Do you think he’ll be able to handle it if it doesn’t work out?”

  The answer to this a few weeks ago would have been hazy or as Dillon likes to say when he thinks about us, murky. I wasn’t sure about it, but after what we’ve shared, the long talks we’ve had about all of this coupled with the way I know he feels about me, I can answer it easily now.

  “Yes. Dillon loves me. If it doesn’t work out, we’re gonna be just fine.”

  Dillon

  Pulling Mark aside when Coach finally tells us we’re done for the day, I lay out everything I’ve been dealing with for the past two weeks and his answer is simple. He’s got a way that we can deal with this without letting my coach or any of the other guys on the team know, and it’s one that won’t lose me any time on the field.

  Cortisone shots.

  It’s been used a ton of times, and it relieves the pain enough so I can still keep up the same level of play on the field and no one would be the wiser. It’s got a lot of coaches up in arms, but only because it’s controversial. He warned me about all of it, but all I heard was that it could help relieve the pain.

  Right now, nothing matters more than that. I need to be playing. I’m in my element when I’m on the field and I don’t give a shit if there’s risks, I’ll deal with all of them, along with keeping my mouth shut as long as it keeps me playing.

  The idea of taking a needle to the leg doesn’t exactly excite me, but when faced with the alternative, I’ve gotta see it through. The shot added to the brace he’s going to give me, it’s going to turn a disastrous situation around and make it damn near perfect.

  Now all I need to do is get my focus back. Find a way to separate Cadence from what I need to do on the field and I’m gonna be golden.

  “You got an aversion to needles?” Mark asks, bringing me back from thoughts of my girlfriend and back to the hard surface my ass is now planted on. “Allergies or anything I need to know about before we do this?”

  “No. Not allergic to anything and don’t give a shit about needles. Had enough blood taken as a kid where I don’t even feel it anymore.”

  High pain threshold. That’s what the doctors have called the way I react. I can take just about any level of pain you can dish out. Having shut myself down so tight emotionally for so long, it’s not shocking I’m able to do the same thing easily when it comes to physical pain and I get enough of it playing football.

  “It’s gonna sting like fuck when I put it in, but it won’t last long.”

  “How long until it takes effect?”

  “Not long, a few minutes’ tops. Whatever’s going on in your knee, until you can get in and have it checked, this will keep you mobile.”

  “And pain free, right?”

  “Yeah, but remember, it’s only a smoke screen. It’s not gonna heal the damage.”

  “Yeah, got it. Let’s just get this over with.”

  I’m tired of talking about it. I know the risk Mark is taking even telling me about this at all, let alone actually shooting the shit into my leg. This could land him in some serious hot water with Coach and the school, the least of which would be
losing his job. The way I figure it though, if he wants to keep it quiet, the faster he just does it and gets it over with the better.

  Less risk of getting caught.

  Making his way around, he kicks the wooden block out from under the door and waits until it’s shut before coming back over and picking the needle up off the tray. Tapping it a few times with his fingers, he throws a look my way. Motioning with my hand silently, urging him to just get on with it, he grips one hand around my leg and leans in close.

  “Relax your leg, D. You’re too tense.”

  Moving it, guided by the light taps he keeps leveling me with, I finally release the tension to the point where he’s ready and before I know it, I feel the sharp sting as the needle enters directly into the back of my knee.

  He was right. There is a sharp pain, one I’m not familiar with feeling but it’s not strong enough to cause me grief. I’ve got this.

  “Done. Now when you’re back on the field again, take it easy. Try not to make what’s already there any worse, but if it does happen to flare up, come see me. I’ll set you up with another dose.”

  “Got it. Not planning on letting them get another shot at it.”

  Sliding off the table and grabbing the brace off the chair, I head for the door, stopping only when my hand is gripped tightly around the handle.

  “Thanks for this. You’re saving my ass.”

  “No problem, just remember what I said. Not a word. This is some pretty serious shit.”

  He doesn’t need to tell me twice. He’s not the only one with something to lose if what just happened gets out. I’ll lose my ticket out of here and playing where it really matters.

  The CFL.

  There’s no way in hell I’m gonna risk that. I’ve got everything I need right now and I’ve got no plans on giving a damn bit of it up.

  Not ever.

  Chapter Ten

  Dillon

  There’s definitely a downside to playing ball on the collegiate level and being asked to stay after class, the reason is about to be slammed straight home.