Ruin Everything

It was our last game of the season, the final game of our area’s championship. It was a big tournament, lasting an entire weekend. We were facing the Hurricanes, a thin fast team with one of the best goalies I had ever played against. We were evenly matched, their defenders just as brutal, their midfielders just as fast, their forwards just as agile as my own. Besides that, scouts were all over the sidelines, scoping out potential recruits, making both teams equally nervous. The Hurricanes didn’t play dirty, which was admirable, but I still wanted to see them cry at their defeat.

Sometimes, I sound like my mother so much that it scares me.

Last quarter, and we were tied with four goals each, and we were all exhausted. I had never seen my team fight so hard, or run so fast, not even against the Generals. They knew what this match meant. They knew how hard we’d worked to make our mark in our league, to get here. We weren’t just going to get this far just to lose the championship. My girls wouldn’t just let that happen.

“I can’t get past her,” Becca wheezed, doubled over during our last time-out. She, in this case, was the opponent’s sweeper, the last defense before the goalie, and she was amazing. She was not letting a single person past, opting instead for slamming her foot into the ball as soon as it was close, and sending it far away from her goal. And if Becca, my Rebecca Hammond, couldn’t get past that sweeper, there was only one thing left to try before we went into overtime.

“Let me try,” I said.

“Ace, your ankle,” Coach started. It was true that my ankle wasn’t doing great, not since those General bitches sprained it, but this was our last game of the season, and then I could spend the rest of the year in physical therapy, or whatever.

“My ankle will be fine, Coach,” I insisted, staring directly at Becca. “You know I’m right, Bec.”

“I don’t like it. She kicks hard. She’ll put you out of commission with one blow. Goodbye scholarships,” Becca responded.

“You don’t have to like it. You just have to keep the other defenders busy while I get the ball past her. Can you do that?”

She smirked and looked to another forward, nodding. “I think we can manage that.”

“Just get the ball to me, and keep them away.”

“Aye, aye Captain!” Becca chuckled. We put our hands in and I stared at her. She nodded in response.

“Coyotes on three, one, two, three.”

“COYOTES!”

We fell back into positions and resumed play, chasing the Generals down towards their goal, passing the ball dizzyingly between us, a technique we’d been perfecting since the year before, until we faced the sweeper. Becca dribbled the ball around one of the girls and then kicked it towards me, just as the sweeper went for her. This was working out wonderfully, I thought prematurely. Just as I was going for the goal, the sweeper swung back around and came back for me. Just as I kicked the ball, sending it sailing towards the goalie, who thankfully missed it, the sweeper’s foot connected with my already damaged ankle, and I was crumpling to the ground in pain. I hadn’t meant to, but a sharp keen cried out of me as I gripped my leg.

“Holy shit, I am so sorry!” she apologized, kneeling beside me as my teammates swarmed around me.

“Back off!” Coach barked, pushing the ring of soccer players away, coming to kneel at my side. “Ace, are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, Coach,” I said, trying to keep my voice from wavering. I probably couldn’t get away with faking until the end of the game, and I didn’t want to be babied either. It was probably just another sprain, or a fracture.

“Here’s the nurse!” Coach said, pushing me back onto my side as I attempted to get up. The nurse came to rest at my feet, lifting my injured ankle gently into her lap, prodding and testing it carefully, gauging my responses.

I wasn’t going to hear the end of this from Jack, or Alex, or even Sam for the rest of the year, probably. They’d go on about how I should be more careful with myself, and how I shouldn’t try to prove myself because I was plenty good enough, and blah blah blah. It was like they were trying to make up for my shitty childhood by being extra Cassara-Positive all the time. Especially Jack, and especially since he found out about therapy and my pills. He’d forgiven me for hiding that from him, and I’d apologized for insinuating that I didn’t trust him. We then proceeded to talk on the phone for hours, like we were little school girls. That was alright, I missed him. I had my brother back, all was well.

Except, you know, now that my ankle is probably broken. That’s a bit problematic to the whole “all was well” thing I had going, throwing a tiny monkey wrench into my plans.

Something always happens.

After much worrying, the nurse and Coach moved me from the field so the match could resume, depositing me on the bench, sending in Cecily to forward and moving Becca back to my position. I saw her salute me from my position, and I saluted back from where I sat. I watched on proudly as my team defended that goal I sacrificed my ankle for, and when the last whistle blew, our score was held steady at 5-4, winning the Coyotes the regional championship. I couldn’t help the smile that stretched over my face. We won. We won! My girls won that game, and defended our win even after my injury. It made me feel less awful about graduating and leaving them behind, because these girls would be fine without me.

Everyone would be fine without me. It was better that way.