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Under Tobin’s right knee cap, there’s a spider-webbing of scars, criss-crosses of scar tissue. Usually they’re not obvious, they’re faded and almost the colour of her skin, barely visible under the wrong lighting. She can still feel it under her the pads of her fingers though, the slightly raised skin, when she runs her fingers over them while Tobin gazes at her, fond and amused. Or while Tobin doesn’t notice, somewhere else altogether.
She doesn’t know what day it is in the hotel room and it almost isn’t worth her attention to learn that piece of information, to keep track of it anymore. They get up, they train, they are shunted back to their rooms. Every move restricted, monitored, directed. Every few days they are transported to a new venue, where they have a game, before they are shunted back to their rooms. She can almost see the invisible rope tying them together, herding them in this way, and then that way. Room, field, room, field. It is strange to say their whole world has narrowed down to these two points, these liminal boundaries for their bodies, and soon, their minds too.
Their hotel rooms are clean and nice and mostly white, but the four white walls and white sheets no longer comfort, an interchangeable generic blur of white noise suffocation. She moves into a new one, starts to unpack, wonder what’s the point. It could be worse. It isn’t better to know that fact. The white sameness bleeds into each other.
The fields provide a bit of respite from the white, but the empty hollowed out stadiums only whisper-shout everything wrong, what should’ve been. Someone calls for the ball and it echoes all around her, thudding and heavy. She misses the feedback loop in response to what they’re doing, no cheers, not even jeers. The sweeping empty stadiums, silent and shadowed, suffocate just as much as the four white walls. The games pass emptily, all emotions on the field, the stands bear witness impassively, unmoved.
They’re sprawled on the hotel room floor and she runs her fingers over Tobin’s scar again, idly, while Tobin humms, not totally there. There’s that, no matter where they are. It grounds her, in these endless white walls. She isn’t unaware she has a bit more than most. Within these four walls, she has more than a roommate. They are all bereft of family, of other friends, of breathing in the outdoors at a time of their own choosing, of walking out the room randomly to get a coffee on a whim, of being off the leash, but unlike them, she’s not bereft of her partner.
Another day, another day in between of waiting, and she studies Tobin’s scar, and thinks of her less visible scars. The scar of never being a Thorn again, of unceremonious upheavals without warning, of a home, heart, future, ripped from her, of farewells withheld, of lasts without knowing they were lasts, when they occurred. The scar of a misplaced body part during training, of a setback during rehab, of 5 years’ goal potentially taken away, of years of work possibly wasted, up in the air, of an achievement not even allowed to try for.
The day Tobin removes all of her photos from Instagram, what she eventually puts back up. What will never go back again, and what would never be posted there in future. She sees Tobin’s invisible scars, in the blank expense, invisible scars laid bare. Tobin’s scars all over the city, once it was it no longer hers. The home that is her home too, and now another scar.
Another game. A windowless room this time. She meditates, and Tobin paints, and they try to hold each other and hold each other’s mind. They part, they come back together, Tobin laces their fingers together, and with her free hand she traces her scar on Tobin’s knees.
Tobin chuckles, "You like my scar."
"Better for scar tissue to be on the surface," she murmurs.
Better than scar tissue that coats the heart. Breaks inside the body, unseen by light, wrecking greater havoc. Surgeries to bring the inside to the outside, to repair the breaks inside, breaking more skin in the process, healing on the outside, healing from the inside, healing over, sight unseen now, outside scars that fade to phantoms she traces with her fingers, inside scars imprinted into their hearts now, breaks in the body that become scar memories.
Tobin lets go of her and wriggles until Tobin is straddling her thighs, knees surrounding both sides of her, looking down into her eyes, wrapping arms around her neck. She resettles one hand on Tobin’s knee with the scar.
"What’s up, babe?"
Tobin doesn’t say anything, just buries her face in her neck. She wraps her other arm around Tobin’s back. They sit like that for a long time, not speaking, not moving. She feels everything in the moment, what Tobin feels like in her arms, their scars, their breaks, them together, feels joined.
They hold each other’s pieces together and keep each other together, keep each other from flying apart into pieces. They stop the scar tissue inside from growing and covering the whole heart.
Tobin glances at the door. "I wish I could just walk out of there, out of the building, and run in any random direction. Doesn’t matter which. Doesn’t matter where I end up."
"I know, babe, I know," she brings up both arms and hugs Tobin tighter, and it doesn’t make the cage any better, but it is a balm against the scar tissue.
After training on the field, they’re both sitting, barefoot, feeling the grass under their feet. She scrunches her soles to feel the grass tickle.
"Better?" Tobin asks her.
She breathes in the air, not filtered. Feels the sun on her skin warming.
Thinks of Tobin dancing with a ball at her feet and another one in hand and the way Tobin’s face lights up even when nobody is watching.
Feels the scar tissue loosen their hold over her heart, a little.
"Better." She smiles.