Chapter Text
It all happened so fast.
They were just having a usual, end-of-practice game when she got hurt. Being a middle player, she has to go block with the other spikers towards the side-edge of the court, in this instance, with the opposite spiker. But, as usual, she was late on the action, resulting in her running as fast as she could and jumping all twisted in the air – her upwards-stretched arms and hands towards the court on the other side of the net and her body towards her teammate. The ball went over their block, nothing too bad. The problem arose once she stated falling back towards the ground.
In quick succession, she landed on the opposite spiker’s left foot with her own left foot and a loud “CRACK!” resonated through the gym. All the people on the court froze and for a second nothing made sense.
Then, she realized she was sat on the floor under the net, clutching her left ankle as blinding pain shot through her system. As shock set in, she only looked towards her foot unseeingly and said in a half-voice, “It hurts”.
Everybody started moving again all at once. Her assistant coach, Jolene, crouched next to her injured leg and started asking to see it, but she couldn’t make herself let go of it. She had an iron grip on it and even the thought of removing her hands from her ankle seemed too overwhelming in her shocked state. One of her teammates went to get packs of dry ice, while everybody else gathered around to assess the damage or try to distract her.
It was already all too much.
She felt deeply unsettled, she had never gotten hurt playing. Ever.
They were putting the ice packs on her ankle. When had she let go of it? She couldn’t tell you.
Everything was so muffled to her ears.
So much was going on inside and around her that she got dizzy after catching a half question that must have been asked not for the first time, judging by the tone that reached her ears.
“I’m gonna throw up”, she got out.
Someone moved back, someone else laughed a little, someone other tried giving her words of encouragement, saying that it was but the pain. Thing was, she felt pain, but the pain was being overshadowed by something else she couldn’t quite make sense of yet.
As her teammates and Jolene kept talking to her, she started feeling her eyelids getting heavy, her breathing suffering, too. It was hard to get the air in her lungs and then push it out. Her extremities felt like bricks.
She felt floaty as well.
They just kept talking and smiling towards her, but she simply wasn’t able to make sense of it all. Their kind, familiar faces were somewhat blurred…
There was something familiar with this sensation, but she couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was. It felt so nice, she almost gave in.
She couldn’t though, she remembered.
She never had never given in to it.
“I think… erhm, I think I’m about to faint…”, she said it on a small smile, as if it were a funny thing but she couldn’t grasp ‘why’. Oh boy, she was definitely close to floating then.
Quickly, they helped her lie on the gummy, red-brick floor of the court and lifted up her good leg to prevent her from blacking out.
She could tell they were still trying to engage her in conversation to keep her from passing out completely, but it had already gotten a bit more manageable like that. Her consciousness slowly trickled back into her mind fully.
In that moment she realized something funny. All of her teammates were standing around her supine body, looking at each other, talking, kind of like when baby Jesus was born. She laughed out loud, and everybody’s eyes flitted to her. It must have had the perfect timing coming out of her mouth with whatever they were all talking about, because they started smiling more, saying how she was ‘already better’. She did feel slightly better.
“You were looking rather pale, girl”, one of them told her, “But now, you already have a bit more color on you”. Her soft, brown eyes smiled along with her lips as she bent down a bit and caressed her head. She returned the smile.
Jolene, with her curly, dark-red hair, who hadn’t moved from the spot next to her injured leg, piped up, attracting her attention. “So, it was the mention of a good gin-tonic that kept you from passing out, uh?”, she asked with mirth in her voice. It was well known she enjoyed a night out and could hold her liquor, but she sure as hell did notlike that drink. She didn’t have it in her to correct Jolene, much less argue that she had no idea they had been talking about drinks as she almost fainted. She smiled again, shrugging a bit.
Her coach, then, spoke from behind the throng of girls, “How about we get you on a bench and finish practice?”
She agreed and everybody scattered, trying to find a way to help move her off the court. Her coach grabbed her from her armpits, Jolene delicately but securely held her injured ankle and ice packs, someone else grabbed that leg’s knee, and soon everybody was trying to support her weight by lifting up a different body part.
It was funny, to her, in a way. There was something inherently juvenile in being carried by people who care about you, it simply touched her heart.
As she was set on the bench on the side of the court, she realized it was actually kind of narrow for her to stay lying on it, but they helped her settle anyway.
Before going back on the court to finish practice, all of her teammates patted her or caressed her or gave her words of encouragement or told her brief jokes to take her mind off it. She truly appreciated them a lot.
The pain hadn’t subsided, but she’d been distracted and that had helped. In that moment, when she was doing nothing but sitting there with Jolene holding her icepacks steady, she started feeling it come back in waves. As each new wave occurred, her face scrunched up of its own volition. Kind of like her dad’s when he was trying to not give into her daddy’s silly antics, but not in a good way.
Jolene speaking jolted her out of her thoughts, “I think you’d better call home, yeah? Tell your parents what happened and come get you.”
She nodded and made to reach the front pocket of her hoodie, but she wasn’t wearing it. She sighed. Jolene seemed to understand her issue and asked one of the girls to go in the locker room and get her stuff. Her teammate came back a few minutes later with her hoodie and her phone. She thanked her and put it on, trying not to jostle her foot. She grabbed her phone and called her daddy.
As the line rang, Jolene touched her arm. She looked up at her, questioningly.
“You know, we can drive you to the ER,” she said. Breathed in. Out. And added, “If they can’t, that is…”
Right. Everybody knew her parents had very busy careers and lives, but what they didn’t know was that they never lacked time for their daughter. She was about to tell her so, when Louis’ voice rang in her ear.
“What is it, love?” Then, as an afterthought that occurred to him before she could even speak, “Have you forgotten your towel? I’m not sure dad has a spare one in his car to bring you on his way home from the studio…”, he trailed off, already thinking of a solution.
“No, daddy. I, erhm, I fell and I got hurt,” her words started jumbling all together, “Like, I don’t think it’s broken, but it hu–”
“Are you bleeding?”, he interrupted her.
“No, daddy, but I think we need to, erhm”, she looked to Jolene for courage, “I guess, we need to go to the hospital, you know, just to make sure it’s not broken.”
She breathed in. She felt somewhat embarrassed, but she couldn’t tell why.
“Oh, my! Baby, I’m so sorry!”, she could hear Louis already moving to come get her, “I’ll turn off the oven and I’ll be on my way. I’m calling dad, don’t you worry about a thing, baby. Daddy is coming.”
Just hearing her daddy assuring her he’ll be there shortly felt like a soothing balm on her nervous system. She hadn’t realized she’d been so tense, even though it just made sense.
She exhaled, then, too. Wow, she’d been holding that in as well. “Okay, daddy. Thanks”
“I love you, baby.”
“Love you, too.”
Her shoulders relaxed a teeny-tiny bit.
Louis was on his way.
Her daddy was coming to get her along with her dad.
Everything would be fine.