The Legacy

Chapter 20: Reunions

Mom laughs, and gives Aunt Georgia a hug, "It's been entirely too long since I've seen you guys!"

"Rosie! If you don't get down here right now and give us three hugs, we're leaving!" Uncle Talon shouts as he flips over a couple of the hamburger patties.

"Yeah! And we'll take the meat with us!" Uncle Cole adds.

I watch as Mom steals Tyson from Aunt Georgia and heads down towards us, and as she passes me, Uncle Talon looks to me, and points his tongs, "You too Maxy!"

Smiling, I follow my mom and give everyone hugs as they congratulate me on making Captain this year, and on my season. I'm sure Dad warned them about my head injury, but thankfully all of them knew not to bring it up. I stand with them, listening to them talk about what everyone has missed, how hard it is being married adults, and the struggles of having kids. I try my best not to gag. Don't get me wrong it's nice to see everyone again, but I can't but wonder where my friends are. I hadn't seen anyone at come to the hospital to check on me.

"The party has arrived!"

I hear a voice shout from the patio door. I look back and I see Bash, Theo, Finn, and Bo standing in the doorway next to Talon's husband, Noah, who had his keys and a 24 pack of beer in his hands. I chuckle, leave it to Uncle Noah to take the boys with him on a beer run. All of a sudden, the boys are shoved aside, as Griffin and Bren come running towards me. Bren beats Griffin by a second but they both pummel into me wrapping me up in a group hug, I stumble back but somehow remain standing.

"We're so glad you're okay Max! Your parents and the doctors wouldn't let us come see you!" Bren exclaims, her voice muffled as she talks into my shoulder.

"Seriously!" Griffin adds, "We thought you died!"

"Well as you can see, I'm very much alive, and very much suffocating!" I tease. They both let me go and rush out apologies. The boys make it to us now, and they all give me sheepish grins. None of us hardly ever know how to react if someone gets hurt, when Conner broke his pinky last season, we sent him a vulgar card, but nothing as serious as what happened last night has happened before. But I didn't want people to coddle me. I hit my head, but I'm fine now.

Theo comes over and gives me hug, "We're glad your okay, Max."

"Ditto!" Finn and Bash say together.

I look them over, there's a bruise under Theo's left eye, and a scar above his lip. Next, I examine Bash. His right eyebrow is busted, and his chin is scrapped. Finn shares similar injuries. I think back to some of the last images I remember of the game. The clash of yellow, green, silver and maroon uniforms. They all must have fought after I got hit.

"What happened after I went down?" I ask them all. All of them look around, avoiding my eyes. Whatever did go down, they're ashamed. I look to Bo, who had no bruising on his face. He looks at me, and I feel a jolt. I remember the terror on his face as he ran down the bleachers, would he react that way if it was anyone of his teammates?

Bash finally speaks up, "Let's just say, we all need to invest in boxing lessons."

I roll my eyes and decide to let the subject drop. My head hurts enough already thinking about it.

****

After about thirty minutes, Uncle Talon had all of the food grilled up, and the adults and teenagers split to eat. We let the adults have the patio table as we all sit in a circle in the grass. The afternoon sun is starting to set, but thankfully the temperature remains bearable as long as we all kept our coats on. Dad promises to start a fire in our fire pit once the sun fully sets but for now, we all sit comfortably in the remaining sunlight and ate our burgers.