Off the Field

Chapter Twenty-Two

Hey guys! Whew, another week by so fast. Last week was crazy busy with school and track, but this week's a little lighter for school, thank goodness. Happy St. Patrick's Day, by the way!! We had corned beef for dinner which is a little ehhh not my fav, plus I'm not even Irish at all haha, but oh well it's fun. Anyway, hopefully you like this chapter. I'm kinda ehhh about it too right now...but at least it takes care of the cliffhanger. I think. So please leave a comment and vote :)

Gracias! <3 vb123321

Chapter Twenty-Two

Cool sheets brushed my skin. The world was black behind my eyelids, but when I opened them all I saw was white. Everything was quiet except for the hum of a machine I couldn’t see, and for a moment I was content to lie there and wonder where I was and what had happened.

Slowly the room began to materialize out of the whiteness: curtains closed on a small window, an unfamiliar bed, a tube snaking out of my arm to an IV nearby, and someone slumped in a chair at next to the bed. My dad was still dressed in his dinner suit, his hair rumpled and his face exhausted, but as I looked at him, he said, “Hey, champ.”

He was smiling at me; this and the fact that he’d called me “champ,” something he hadn’t done since I was ten, made me feel a little nervous.

“Where am I?”

“You’re at the hospital, Danny. Wait just a moment for the doctor – he’ll be here in a moment. He wanted to see you when you woke up.” Maybe he could tell I was shaking beneath the sheets, because he put a reassuring hand on my arm. “You’re okay now, Dan.”

The doctor came in, his eyes scrutinizing me as he smiled. “Good to see that you’re awake, Danny. How are you feeling? Does anything hurt?”

“No,” I said. If anything, my body felt heavy and drugged, lightheaded and sleepy.

“Do you remember anything that happened?”

I rubbed the bridge of my nose, trying to think. The doctor jotted things down on his notepad distractingly, his glasses flashing in the overhead lights, which were really more yellow than white. It reminded me of light blinding me through the windshield and a long stretch of highway and then a screech of metal –

“Wasn’t there an accident?” Now I could remember, though I wish I didn’t as a shiver of panic set in again. “And I had to get the kids out – where are they? Are they okay?”

“They’re fine, Dan,” said my dad from beside the bed. “Thanks to you, they got out and are fine. Your mother is at home with them now, since it’s late. It’s you we’re worried about right now.”

The doctor set his pen down to look me in the eye. “You’ve had a concussion, Danny. I imagine your head must have hit the window when the car crashed. That’s why you’re having trouble remembering what happened.”

“How bad is it?” I asked, my stomach clenching as I glanced at my dad. His face was suddenly like stone, his mouth pressed into a thin line, and I wondered if he was angry with me.