Reason to Breathe

“Emma? What’s wrong?”

“Come get me,” my voice cracked.

“Omigod, are you hurt?”

“Sara, please come get me as soon as you can.” My voice quivered as I fought to hold back the tears.

“Where are you?” she inquired urgently.

“At the coffee place near my house.” I took a calming breath to keep from losing the little composure I had left.

“I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

I hung up the phone.

I spent the time it took Sara to arrive, staring at my hands, willing them to stop trembling. My breath shook with each pass through my quivering lips. I didn’t dare look around the shop; instead I stared out the window, searching for Sara’s car. When I saw her pull in, I rushed to meet her before she had a chance to get out.

I winced as I settled onto the passenger seat, the pain streaking up my entire back. I closed my eyes and let out a shaky breath. The tears found their way down my cheeks as I swallowed against the lump in my throat.

“Where are you hurt?” Sara asked, her voice unsteady.

“My back,” I quivered, with my eyes still closed.

“Do you need to go to the hospital?”

“No,” I shot back quickly. I attempted to release the tension in my shoulders and opened my eyes. I wiped away the tears and searched for my voice. “No hospital, okay? Just… do you have anything to help, aspirin or something?”

Sara rummaged around in the compartments of the center console, then handed me a white bottle of Advil. I spilled some pills onto my hand and swallowed them dry. Her forehead creased, mirroring the pain that was evident on my face. “Do you want to go back to my house?”

“Can we just stop there so you can get me a bag of ice? Then let’s go somewhere where I can walk around.”

“You want to walk?”

“If I stay still, I’ll get stiff. I need to keep the blood flowing through my muscles so that I can play tonight.”

“You think you’re going to play basketball?! Em, I’m still trying to decide if I should take you to the hospital. You’re pale, and you can’t hide how much pain you’re in. And if you can’t hide it, then it must be pretty bad.”

“It’s because it just happened and my body’s still in shock. I’ll be fine, I promise.” But I knew I was lying. I was far from fine.

Sara drove to her house and I waited in the car until she came out with a small cooler filled with ice, some storage bags and a couple of waters. She handed me a water when she entered the car.

“Let’s go to the high school, and we’ll walk the track,” I suggested before taking several long gulps from the bottle. “I only have to waste a couple of hours before the JV game.”

“Are you sure?” Sara asked, still uncertain with my decision.

“Sara, I swear, I’m okay.”

I eased my body into a controlled place where the quivering hid beneath my skin. There was a deep ache in my head that trailed all the way down my back, but the piercing pain was gone - as long as I kept still.

We drove to the high school and parked near the football field. The parking lot only contained a handful of cars since it was still too early for anyone to be here for the game.

I took the cooler with me as I delicately lifted my body out of the car, gritting my teeth through the searing pain that made my stomach flip with nausea. Sara followed me to the field. I filled the bags with ice and lay on my stomach. Sara placed the bags along my back and sat next to me on the grass. We were silent for a few minutes as I lay with my eyes closed and my head resting on my folded arms, while Sara plucked the grass from the frozen field. I barely registered the cold December air with the ice on my back.

“You’re shivering,” Sara noted.

“I have ice covering my back, and it’s thirty degrees out here.”

“How long do you want to keep the ice on?”

“Fifteen to twenty minutes, then we’ll walk around for a while before we do it again.”

After another few minutes of silence, Sara asked, “Are you going to tell me what happened this time? Em, I promise not to say anything.”

“I’m not sure if I should. I don’t want you to feel guilty if you need to lie to your mom or anyone else for me.”

“I’ll find a way around answering,” she promised.

“Stanford called,” I started.

“Oh no,” she gasped. “You didn’t tell her.”

“Yeah, I didn’t tell her,” I breathed. “Then she told me I didn’t have access to the social security money from my dad for college; that it was her compensation for letting me live there. I got so pissed that I had to leave the room. That’s when she hit me.”

“What did she hit you with?”

“I’m not sure. Probably whatever she could get her hands on.” I recalled the hard object crashing into my back and shivered.

“You can’t go back there,” Sara insisted.

“I really don’t want to think about that right now. I just want to focus on being able to play in the game tonight.”

“Em, I’m not sure that you should.”

“Sara, I have to. She’s taken everything else from me, including what I had left of my dad. I’m playing in this game tonight,” I stated definitively. Sara didn’t argue.

We walked briskly, until I couldn’t handle it anymore. Of course, I didn’t tell Sara this. Then I’d lie back down to be iced. I was desperate to defeat this pain. I was going to play in this game – nothing was going to stop me.

When cars started showing up for the JV game, Sara followed me into the building. We stood by the bleachers and watched until halftime when I had to change. I blared my music so loudly in my ears, I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. Every so often, I’d pace in the hall to keep the blood flowing through my muscles, mostly because it hurt too much to stand still, and I needed to escape it any way I could. I swung my arms over my head and turned my neck side to side to keep my muscles from stiffening.

None of the girls questioned Sara when she followed me into the locker room to change. She snuck into a curtained shower stall with me to help me change. She carefully pulled my shirt over my head, and I clenched my teeth. My entire back screamed when I raised my arms. Sara questioned my well being again, but I ignored her. I was counting on adrenaline to make me oblivious to the pain once the game started.

The adrenaline did tunnel my focus when I was finally on the floor, helping me disconnect from the pain. I refused to concede to my burning muscles and the lightning storm in my head as I dribbled down the court, calling out the next play. Passing to the open teammate, squaring up to take a shot, following through with a rebound, and charging back to switch to defense, where the bodies bumped to gain position: that was all I concentrated on as the time ticked away.

I was surviving on adrenaline, and that would only carry me so far. As the second half progressed, it became harder to concentrate. I wasn’t reacting as quickly to passes or charging for the steals as I usually did. I passed off the ball more, instead of taking the shot. During a timeout, Coach Stanley asked if I was okay. I explained that I fell on some ice earlier, and it was bothering me a little. He suggested taking me out of the game. I adamantly assured him that I was fine and could keep playing.

It was a close game. Probably closer than it should have been, and I blamed myself for that, knowing I had no right to be on the court. But I was afraid to find out what would happen if I stopped.

There was under a minute left in the game, and the lead kept changing by one with each possession. After a timeout and about thirty seconds on the clock, we had possession of the ball and were down by one point. I dribbled down the court, sending the offense in motion. I passed to Jill at the top of the key, who dribbled to the center of the paint and bounced it to Maggie along the baseline. Maggie noticed my clear shot from behind the three point line and popped it back out to me where I squared up to the basket, jumped, and let the ball roll off of my fingers. The defender jumped alongside me, swiping at the ball, which barely sailed over her fingertips. Her arm landed on my shoulder hard, knocking me back so my heels were no longer beneath me when I came down to land.

My breath rushed from my lungs when the floor made contact with my back. My head bounced back, colliding with the waxed surface. The cheers faded, and the images on the court blurred. I blinked my eyes as the colors ran together until there was only black.

I was moving quickly, but my legs were still. There was something around my neck, and I couldn’t move. I heard the murmuring of voices but no words. My eyes wouldn’t open. The cold air hit me, sending a shiver through my body. I was enveloped with the piercing bolt that ran along my back and into my head. Then I fell into the darkness again.

“Emily, can you hear me?” the soothing male voice asked.

I pulled back from the blinding light as I felt a cool touch on my lid.

“Emily, can you open your eyes for me?” the voice requested.

I blinked my eyes open, squinting to keep them protected from the bright light above me. I glanced around at the faces above me. There was something beeping over my head, and a hum of voices surrounded my space.

“Emily, I’m Dr. Chan,” the soothing voice said. I focused on the gentle, round face of the man leaning over me. “You’re in the hospital. You took a fall during your basketball game and hit your head.”

I groaned in admission to the pain.

“My back,” I whimpered.

“You’re back hurts?” he confirmed

“My back,” I whimpered again, the tears rolled across my temples. I couldn’t turn my head with the brace holding it in place.

“We’re going to take some x-rays to see what’s going on,” he informed me.

“Sara?” I searched for her amongst the faces.

“Who’s Sara, honey,” a rosy faced nurse leaned over to ask.

“My friend, Sara McKinley,” I whispered between moans. “I need Sara.”

“Your aunt and uncle are on their way,” she assured me.

I groaned louder.

“Sara, please,” I begged.

“I’ll see if I can find her,” she comforted me.

There were more voices, and then I was moving. The fluorescent lights blurred above me as I was wheeled through the maze of corridors. There was a figure at the end of my bed, but I couldn’t see a face. The tears continued rolling down the crevices of my eyes and into my ears. I made an effort to contain the moans, but they escaped every so often on their own.

A team of bodies wearing blue and white lifted me onto a hard platform. As I was rolled onto my back, I screamed out in agony. There was nothing that could hold it back. A nurse gently turned me onto my side to examine the source of my torturous cries and let out a breath.

“Her back is badly bruised,” she reported.

“Prop her on her side,” Dr. Chan directed from my feet.

I slid into a tube and closed my eyes, concentrating on breathing evenly to cope with the suffering. The corners of my eyes were raw from the never ending seeping of tears. I remained in that area of the hospital for a time I could not judge, with the rolling, and the clicking, and the doors opening and closing.