Chapter Text
2001
A child was throwing a temper tantrum in the next room, screams of I don't want to, I don't want to! Probably (unwillingly) there for their mandatory vaccines, he surmises. There were the distant, muffled sounds of a toddler crying down the hall too, if Sergio strained his ear enough.
The room he’s in is sterile. Fluorescent white light flickers from above, accompanied by the soft clicking of a mouse as the pediatrician examines the x-ray images. A maroon clock hangs on the wall in front of him; it reads 10:25 AM, ticking in tandem with his heartbeat. Sergio hears the squeak of rubber as the man gets up from his rolling chair, the smell of alcohol—sharp and biting—as he rubs both hands with sanitizer.
“May I?” Dr. Rodríguez questions, gesturing to his swollen wrist.
Sergio gives a short nod.
He was sitting on the examination table, white paper crinkling slightly as he shifted in a mixture of apprehension and discomfort. Sergio hears the quiet hums coming from Dr. Rodriguez; he doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. So, he distracts himself—does anything really to set his mind away from the mild, burning sensation that was currently being felt. Looking up at the ceiling, he begins to count the speckled dots that decorated the tiles.
He gets to fifty-six when a voice finally speaks up.
“Sprained,” Dr. Rodríguez confirms to his mother, turning and prodding the already swollen skin of his wrist. He sets it down on the padded cushion he’d pulled up prior for Sergio’s right wrist to rest against. The pediatrician grasps his left arm, turning it around for inspection. “Also some torn skin just below the elbow, nothing that can’t be fixed with ointment and bandages.”
His mama was out with friends and had immediately left after she got a call from Sevilla FC’s youth academy. The man explained, over the phone, that an accident had occurred involving Sergio. After colliding with another teammate, he’d fallen backwards, and tried to break his fall with an outstretched hand. His coach knew Sergio was tough, knew his pain tolerance (and stubbornness) enough to where he would go and finished an entire practice session in silent determination even while sporting a headache. Had stuck his tongue out at him, eyes sparkling in childlike glee, because he was able to prove him wrong. However, it was seeing the tears welling in Sergio’s eyes and the strained, soundless gasp pushing against his throat as he continued laying on the ground that prompted immediate action from his coach.
At the time, through the haze of pain, Sergio was mortified. Here he was, on the ground, sniffling and babbling like a baby, surrounded by obnoxious neon-yellow football cleats, while voices whispered fervently above him as they waited.
Sergio had also felt immensely guilty, for making his mama leave her friends (for ruining her day off) over such a small issue. But she’d taken one good look at his splotchy face, the dried tears on his cheeks, and began fussing, carding through brown strands as she repeatedly murmurs mi cuqui.
He had naturally burst into tears again.
Inside the room, her face is still etched with worry as she glances at Sergio and sees the quick twitch of his face. A hand reaches out automatically to comfort—to hold him, to do anything—and stops midway upon realization of where the source of pain was and where she’d almost placed her hand. She lets her arm drop and bit her lips, shifting her focus to the pediatrician instead.
“How bad is the sprain?”
Can he play football? Was the unspoken question.
“Not as bad,” Dr. Rodríguez replies back slowly, taking note of the grass-stained jersey and shorts that haven’t been changed out, the yellow cleats that dangled listlessly against the table. How frightened she’d been in the waiting area, frantically pacing back and forth while her son sat on the plastic chair, gingerly holding his injured wrist. “He needs at least one week—maybe two, if we want to be safe—of rest, give or take, for it to heal properly.”
The pediatrician pauses, turning to level a serious gaze at Sergio, before he speaks again. “Which means no strenuous activity, and certainly, no playing football.”
No playing football.
Sergio looks down once he processed the words, head turning sideways to hide how dejected he feels.
A few days without practice was already torture enough. A whole week? Bad. Two weeks? Even worse. Sergio lives—no, breathes—through football. If he wasn’t spending time with family, he was going over drills to perfect his defense. Once, he had been practicing at the park, frustration building up as he went over a specific move. It wasn’t until the skies turned a dusty orange, the sudden stillness of the environment around him, did he realize how late it had become. What followed immediately was the incessant ringing of his Nokia 8310; he’d picked up the call and regretted it as the exasperated voice of his mama came in, saying for him to haul his ass back home now or risk getting spanked.
He also loves the thrill of successfully blocking shots. Loves the camaraderie between teammates as they share wins and losses, share their tears of joy and grief. But most importantly, it had been the feeling of freedom, of letting go—an emotion so unattainable, so fleeting because it could only ever be felt through the rush of fresh wind passing your face, through legs running, burning, across the wide expanse of never ending, never changing green.
So, yeah, he was incredibly disappointed with the aftermath.
“Kid, you’re lucky this was only minor,” Dr. Rodríguez begins to lecture sternly, as if having heard Sergio’s internal turmoil. “It’s always encouraged to never break your full body weight with locked joints. What you did was extremely dangerous and could have resulted in either a severe wrist sprain or fracture—of which, would take months to heal.”
He flinches, widened eyes meeting the other’s From his peripheral vision, he could also see his mama glance at him with worry.
Months. Instead of weeks, it could have been months.
“I–I…uh…didn’t know that.” Sergio stutters weakly. (He knew. At the end of practice, his coach had constantly drilled into their heads that if they fall, they should relax their bodies and, the man stressed, to never catch yourself with a straight arm or locked wrist. Otherwise, you’d be looking at three months of forced relaxation. Sergio had panicked, mind blanking as instinct took over.)
“Well, now you do,” hums Dr. Rodríguez, “and it’s good you’re figuring this out at your age for early prevention. Had you been older and not as spry, it would’ve taken another week.”
He then walks over to the sink; bandages of different sizes laid to the right.
“Before I can give you the ice compress, I’ll need you to hop down from the table so I can clean those scrapes.”
______________
Sergio is wearing an oversized navy hoodie and matching sweatpants. It had taken him an embarrassingly long time as he struggled to get his swollen wrist inside the armhole first, failing spectacularly throughout the ordeal. Tears of frustration welled up over not being able to do even the simplest task, to have to depend on someone else. But he had swallowed his pride and understood that it was best to ask for help, or risk worsening the injury even more. So, he yelled for his mama.
She’s now ushering him to sit down in the living room, settling a worn-out quilt over his legs and a plush throw pillow under his injured wrist as she talks to her husband on the phone. The painkillers sit on the coffee table in front of him.
Dr. Rodríguez had said he could take any over-the-counter painkillers.
“Two pills.” The pediatrician stressed to them as he wrote down the instructions, black ink scrawling across crisp paper. “Every 4 to 6 hours as needed and only for about 3 to 5 days, lessen your dosage once the pain starts to improve.”
Not looking up, he continued. “Make sure to compress and elevate your wrist for the first 72 hours. Switch to heat treatment when the swelling goes down. For your scrapes, change out the bandages at least once a day, preferably after you shower. When a solid scab forms, you can stop applying it.”
“Sergio!” his mama calls from upstairs. Sergio looks up to see her walking down the stairs, still in her outdoor clothes, albeit slightly wrinkled from earlier. “Your papá won’t be home for the next few hours and he’ll also be picking up Miriam from school.”
He makes a noise in affirmation, ignoring the sting from both the scrapes and his wrist—the latter, thankfully, numbed by the cool sensation of the ice pack.
“You should get back to your friends, don’t want to keep them waiting or anything.”
His mama just stares at him; brows knitted in a frown from his answer. “Cuqui, are you sure you want me to go back to my friends? I don’t have to, they’ll understand if—”
“I’m sure,” Sergio interrupts quietly, eyes glancing downwards to check the time with his phone: 12:30 PM. He’s taken too much of her attention already. “You were looking forward to catching up with them—remembered you saying it’s been years. I don’t want to…ruin that and—and s’not as bad as it looks! I don’t want you to worry about it.”
He was lying, of course. It hurts. Sergio wants to whimper and whine to his mom, wants her to stay, to soothe the pain but he’s like, fifteen years old, practically grown and independent—if he could handle scraped knees and broken fingers, certainly a sprained wrist was nothing.
Sergio hears a sigh, the sounds of footsteps approaching him. Footsteps that stopped right in front of where he rests. He hesitantly glances up, noticing how her gaze swam with affection and concern.
“Mi cuqui…” his mama says, kneeling down in front of him. Her hands hovered over the ice pack. “Can I?”
He swallows, nodding. “Yeah.”
Sergio watches her remove the item, watches her grasp his wrist with weathered hands in utmost carefulness. Sees her place a gentle kiss on the throbbing skin.
“Nothing, and I mean, nothing is worth more than my family,” she states firmly. He could feel her grip tightening on his good wrist. “You, René, and Miriam are my babies, my joys, my—my everything…and it’s because of that, I want you to be honest with me. Do you understand?”
His mama looks at him imploringly before continuing. “You’re only just a teenager. It’s okay to say that whatever hurts, hurts. It’s okay to want to ask for help, and it’s most definitely okay for you to want me to stay…”—she takes a deep breath, reaching to ruffle his hair—“Sergio, it’s okay to be selfish sometimes.”
Sergio could only stare at her with astonishment. Mouth opening and closing, words refusing to come out, as his mind cycled over the sentence again and again.
It’s okay to be selfish sometimes.
He knew that. He did. Sergio was selfish towards his friends, selfish about football. Selfish when it came to defending, selfish when it came to knocking a player down and not owning up to it. He was selfish about anything and everything, yet he couldn’t—couldn’t remember a single time when he had been selfish about…about wanting someone to stay, to be taken care of.
Sergio hurriedly fixes his eyes onto his clenched fist. He could feel the tight, heavy knot forming in his throat, the way his lower lip began to quiver. Tries to desperately fight against the onslaught of tears threatening to fall, blinking fiercely against the heat beneath his eyelids until his vision cleared.
If his mama was made aware of the tears, she paid no mind. Only continued her soft humming as she absentmindedly strokes his hair, tugging the short brown strands and scratching his scalp in the process. A routine to soothe him when he was a little kid—something she hasn't done as frequently now. Sergio doesn’t know if he wants to sob or laugh.
Instead, he takes a deep breath.
“Can…can you stay?” Sergio croaks out, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his hoodie.
Can I be selfish?
She beams at him. “I’ll stay.”
Of course.