School was finally over, Spencer was still kind and cared about me. And, surprisingly, he walked me to most of my classes ... .To be honest, I felt like the stupidest of stupid people because of how those small acts made me feel. I valued them, and I hated that I did.
"See you tomorrow." He said to me, softly. I nodded once again as his involuntary action made him drive his hand all the way up to my hair to touch it and adequate it to the best possible position. I stayed frozen as with a head spinning he left out of sight.
I managed to find the girls locker room and change into my volleyball outfit and when I finally got it on, my hair in a ponytail and my mental state rearranged, I left it ready to kick some ass.
"Hello, pretty girls!" I screamed as I saw my team starting with the warm ups. The team was all there: Jane, Soph, Mary, Camile, Ana, Soph and me.
I laughed as I rushed towards them and hugged them. My usual routine of hugs as I entered.
"Looks like someone's in a good mood!" Soph said.
"You know I'm always in a good mood" and she smiled, reliefed. As if i hadn't been totally lost to my dramas.
The first hour of volleyball training went like a blur, I can hardly remember what we did just that we ended up exhausted and as common I was cheering up the team, singing stupid melodies that like a anthem, my whole teammates answered to. We started to have a crowd and so all of us began to play like bitches. Because in this sport, the bitchier you are, the better. And I was no to mess up when I got in my game.
Some boys lounged in the stands, silently watching our round bottoms being kicked through the air to save the ball. Little by little they were filling up and as expected the majority were boys who came out of their football or taekwondo practices, craving for some excitement and a dream they could date one of us; but like I said, we are bitches, and we only date worthy folks who are not as coward as just to stare at our butts. I was smiling but I did not pay attention to any of them, they were not even close to the person I was looking for so I continued playing with my best plays. The ball rushed from one side of the court to the other, we were getting fired so the good stuff was barely starting. The minutes continued to pass and the stands were already almost packed with spectators. I was excited that people cheered, even if it was only practical it kept making me happy and revealing my tender and captivating smile. I found myself settling the ball for spikers until a familiar laugh found its way to my right ear. I turned desperately looking for that angelic noise and there he was. Leaning against the wall, tense but still relaxed, smiling at me and looking at me with his devilish smile. My heart stopped and I had to force my face into the ball. I suppressed a smile but managed to release a laugh. What was he doing here? The answer was revealed when a bunch of "woos'' and "yess" were released. The football guys practice had just finished. Oh god. I wasn't nervous, of course not, yet in my mind the words Don't be nervous, stay cool were still being played like a scratched record.
I kept playing, smacking the ball once, twice, until the girls finally gave up and as usual, I had to discreetly lower my Lycras which were dangerously high up my booty length.
"Here here!" I screamed. Soph passed the ball on to me, I dug it out of the ground and rested it up high in the air so Soph could spike.
Wham up, up up! Pow! The ball went mad, frightened faces afraid of the answer, the coward in all players seeking up in the league eyes as the ball shooter across their faces. Straight, direct, unstoppable.
The ball turned. Up and around, hiding from their view and bouncing in their arms. Our turn.
Red forearms and groans of discomfort. red splinters gushing out into the surface. Slowly Redding. Blushing forearms, the bravery vanquished.
"Ah!" Jane screamed as she rescued the ball from touching the ground. All of our bodies were hunched over, knees bent and our asses being pointed out. Animals in its natural habitat, waiting to attack and unleashing our inner fights. Pain, struggle, sweat...win
Arms throws out into the space, sore forearms and gasps of air. Water Bottle sprinkled into reddens faces wetting everything.
Seconds slowed, delayed multiple into fragments waiting to be yelled.
"Go!" A gasp. The second fled. My turn, poker face. "Set- ready!" Jane commanded. Dove her panther hands into the ball, saving it barely from inches to its predictable smack to the ground, saving something from the cliches of fate. Save it from losing a point, all for the points.
Flickered and spun, up the ball went. Fluttering eyelids blinded by the sun's welcome. A sphere of white pure light blurring everything out of sight. Beams of transparency, white, grey, all there was a ball of shooting light, arrogant enough to fade everything out....
Quivering lips, wrestling each other, concentrating on the exact, precise indisputable moment my hands will lift the ball.
But a slip, an unmanageable slip, cost everything out of sight...
A dumb step, skippering sand, jello on my feet, ice on my feet all lead to one thing; the moment in which the blinding light takes over your chestnut eyes and curtains your gaze forever.
I threw myself out of the scope and dared to reach the ball, a glimpse of effort.
I managed to touch it, and that was it.
The ground.
A rough surface landed on my back, pointy at the edges and rough at the sides. Sandpaper gliding over my curious hands exposing where I fell.... Pain... Needles.
The same needles imprinted on me, the same second I fled away into the woods. The trees, the fog, chirping birds singing to my heart's drumming. Droplets sinking into my skin, falling from a verdant leaf of a proud oak tree.
Polaroids, beams of memories skipping inside my mind. His hand, my tired body. The needles stabbing me as I curled into a frightened tormented ball.
Earth, breathe. His voice boomed again. What is she doing? Ale, ale, ale... He is calling.
An electroshock curving my back into an uncontrollable arch of gasping air. An imaginary force choking my throat into inhuman stillness, pressed above me the dark cloud remained.
Where did the oxygen go?
The polaroids. The lilies scent dancing on my nostrils, the wet dirt mud meaning my fingertips as my hands gracefully expanded across the humid floor. The perfume of lemon pine trees in each gasping, desperate breath I took. The view of my whole life crumbles and creeps once again into the soil I was born in, a rebirth where my tampered petals resurged from the dirt in a dandelion; floating away and slowly drifting.
"Ale!" A booming. Earthquake. My hands trembled, clenched into the rough floor with my eyelids. A sound so distant yet so close, as if I could caress it with my fingertips...
Fluttering unfocused eyes, snapped open. Wide and desperate with enormous panicked eyes slowly rolling upwards. The same permanent blue sky on my radar, white bleached clouds decorating the endless zafiran blue, look at the pretty clouds.
Pain, pain, again.
Rationality battling...
But the unsighted silence was hushed, replaced by an internal beep. A beep in an OR after a soul joins the dandelions' path up in the air and dances in the wind, a beep when all you know and love is snapped away from existence and buried human cruelty emerging up into the shallows. A long, lasting, wrenching beep.
"Yo!" A boom again; an earthquake trembling across my body and shaking everything. Blurred sound close yet so far... Unable to emit where the source was at.
Another round of snapped open eyes, chestnut spotting a crimson sea gushing out. An instant, reflex reaction where my hopeless fingertips rushed at.
The gloriousness of the clouds taken away from my view, where am I?
Voices, blurry of indistinguible murmurs and gasps, all rambling at once, cursing, yelling, screaming. Gushes of sound and spectrums of light al sousing through me. The silence in the internal beep, the cotton candy clouds fluffed into view and replaced by something....
Hot, blinding, furiously red.
A flashlight.... The same people gushing and whispering. Silhouettes of dark figures with open mouths and furrowed eyebrows staring down at me, circling me, engaging me-
What's going on?
My body hit the cold hard ground, my left knee took all the impact and I feel like cement My mind recaptured
Heavy and hard. My lips slipped out a groan, small almost unnoticeable. I myself was unsure I actually did it.
Gravity is clearly not my friend. The memorial flashback resumed into one video being replayed, again and again still unaware what happened. The ball zoomed out of my reach, a kaleidoscope of unfinished and inconclusive fragments rolling like a hamster wheel speeding out of sight. Pass the ball in a shot, fast, quick. Insanely dangerous. A blinding blur of pain held back against the edge of my throat, the rough edges to the words cursing through my blood as the spiking of the floor clenched my body and held me to the ground. No one noticed.
The burn shifted, drowned to the mutters of the other team's cheering. Silenced in my quiet rejoicement. The needles were forgotten in a blink, the clouding mental thunderstorm slowly creeping up on me, the pain of the gravel when dirty fingernails scraped across the board. Goosebumps, a tight knot in my stomach.
The staggering. Mutter, stutter. Say something!
Ah.
Lying like an otter on the ground, glued to the ground.
Get up!
Forced my biceps to push, move, push me off the floor; but the dread agony remained, the same untouchable raindrop pain covering an umbrella remained. Dripping, chirping like a bell swing.
But the crystal clarity of the droplets switched by a crimson flaming red. My clear umbrella is detailed by the landscape, dirtying my gaze and clouding my rationality; a terrible and stabbing pain would not allow a ray of daylight to come through. The middle of the thunderstorm; It pounced over and over again, like a stabbing drill being rested next to my frontal lobe. A continued stabbing...
What did I do now? My thoughts shouted. I could feel the irrational pain taking over me, but surprisingly it never created the annoying tears I would have thought I'd had. I felt pulled now with the overwhelming panic of knowing what had hurt me, I knew I was injured... I just didn't know how badly.
My staggering continued, the panic elevating, sharpening like a mountain's edge or a sword cut; Get up, get up!
My hunched shoulders, fragile and desperate fingertips. My spine slowly curled into a sitting position like a string pulling me over, a ragged broken puppet position.
The red of my blood gushed out and a rudely painted purple circle hurried my hands to lower my kneecap just to see that it was so moist that my palms were soon painted by the red ink.
Trembling steady hands.
"Oh my god! Ale!" Jane hurried to my rescue, fragile hands and quivering eyeballs, opened as plates waiting for the impact and broke into a million ceramic pieces. A single blink as my answer, unaware of the terrible state I clearly was in. Notes of anxiousness in her disenhearted tone. She kneeled down and helped me lower my knee cap, the same sea of astonishment and intranquility as I, but was a little more scared than I.
"I am fine, it's okay" I mumbled. I knew i was not fine. From my knee a river of blood escaped through, my hands pressed the wound, desperate to seek where the blood surged from. Desperate touches around my knee trying to figure out the source but I only saw a red sea that was slowly creeping up on me. The red warm liquid was quickly expanding and everyone near me had rushed to see the latest gossip. Everyone in the strands was glued to the gate, like lunatic monkeys waiting to be fed, as if my practice was a show and I was the entertainment, and of course, with no commercials. A rushed breathing as the fear begun to knock, like a bomb waiting to explode. Really life? Today? You choose today to hurt me? Ugh.
"Get out of my way!" The angelical voice sang. A ray of daylight in the middle of the thunderstorm; my rushed wild heartbeats smoothing to his scent. My fragmented dandelions are finding a warm shelter. Never slipping away. Darting eyes in search of him, but despite my vain search I could feel him running at my bloody mess. My eyes were to focused on touching my mess that they didn't seem to follow where the sound came-
"We need to take her to the doctor!" The coach yelled
"Gabe I don't know where it is coming from!" Jane soaked.
"What do we do dad?" Soph screamed.
"Oh my god" Mary said. Her face was turning green "I am sorry" she whispered and she ran madly, covering her mouth and shutting her eyes fiercely to the furthest corner.
"Not your fault! Run, I am sorry!" I gulped at her. A wretch heartbroken gulp of guilt that shadowed on the back of my corner. " Um- its okay. I just have to put some pressure on it" I said, now directing to the coach and the other unsilenced cacatoes. Calmly I spoked, yet no one seemed to notice that I was still able to talk. Most of my teammates were already surrounding me, covering their noses and I noticed Mari was already puking. ups.
Everyone was paralyzed, unaware of what to do with me. They were screaming and mumbling to each other on the higher ground as I was on the floor and they were kneeling or standing, hushing amongst each other, yelling and screaming. Has anyone seen blood before?
Keep calm, breathe and don't die.
Everyone was panicked, scared and frightened at all the blood that was rushing to get out of me; like a mad freeway with no stop sign. Chaos began to rule the court.
I continued to try to stop the haemorrhage.
"Move!" Spencer yelled. His melodic voice was like a sunrise to me, a clear blue sky amongst the storm clouds or a dash of light in the eternal blinding night. Obediently, everyone in his path did as he commanded and when I noticed, his warm air was being breathed next to me. He was leaning next to me with his eyes madly scared and his hands running through my body. I smiled at him.
"It's okay. I just have to get a band aid" I clarified it to him. His eyes couldn't believe what I was saying, he looked at my wound surprised and gave me an intimidating gaze.
"A band aid? Ale i'm taking you to the hospital" He commanded. He began to think about what he could do with me, taking a look at my injury which made him inquire if I was still alive.
Of course I was, why are they being so dramatic?
"No really," I answered, but in my attempt to call him off and telling me to go away, his eyes pleaded he would stay. And the same accumulated bravery I possessed faded away on the chalkboard.
"Just help me stand up and you can take me to the nurse or wherever you're planning to" I granted, biting my lip and hoping my clumsiness wouldn't spoil whatever we now had.
I mumbled, still with the remainders of my tranquillity that were quickly being used up.
Guilt waved once again, as the girls continued screaming and shattering my bravery; Spencer never not even for one second removed his eyes of me, and the monkeys behind the bars, screaming and whispering; almost jumping out of the bleachers.
The beeping resumed-
"You're coming with me." I eyed him threateningly "Not a question" he ordered, as expected. His frantic gaze still sped across my wound, going faster that anyones eyes I've ever seen go, a go kart in a track never slowing down. Up, down, side, up again.
The same stressful furrow remained. I still encountered myself wishing I could erase it with my fingertips, rub it out like chalk on a board; but as I stared at him his hands gripped his t-shirt, removing it in one clean, single movement.
The drumming ceased abruptly and I found myself pursuing my lips tightly, with elevated redness spreading across my face and his smile curling up at the edges of his lips.
I quickly retrieved my gaze, nodded everything out of my mind; but the curious corner of my eye still seemed for his marbled body.
My breath stopped but I wouldn't paralyse, not right now. All of my friends' mouths turned into large O's and I just prayed mine didn't. A tiny piece of my subconscient knew that I probably drawled a little bit.
I bit my tongue and pressed my lips.
He begun to wrap his t shirt around my stupidly injured knee as he looked at my eyes. I didn't look up at his, mine were fixed on the knee.
He was already picking me off the floor; interlocking his hands over my waist, accommodating me into a baby-like position.
"Ah- oh! Whoa!" I stumbled when he picked me off the ground, his arms scattered around my body; veins peeking out of his accentuated jawline as his eyebrows furrowed to his thoughts. I knew I was in no position of demanding anything, for my mess had already made a puddle around me. Guilt gulped down my throat, a burning sensation that took over my nostrils almost as if a pepper was placed directly above my nose; the same feeling you experience when tears are suppressed from above.
But I wasn't going to cry, not with his eyes speculating my every move. Not, of course not.
Either way, even if I wanted to cry, which a big part of me did, my pride would never surrender such claims.
Nevertheless, my anger still remained untouched, petrified by his actions and questioning his desperate silhouette. Grouching and growling, hunched behind me, arms wide open as if expecting I would collide into his. Ready for any peculiarity in my far off gaze or simply a moment of unreliability that would close my eyes for good.
The gushing torrent continued.
Hurried hands still pleading it would stop, I really shouldn't bleed as much.
My eyes zoomed at his, locked in his deep desperate ones. Velvet endured but his emerald stones glowed; behind those layers of fear and panic, the shelters of his hands gave me comfort in the thunderstorm, the moment I realised he cared.
But the torrent wouldn't stop, and my frustration resumed; my eyes opened as plates, wishing from the bottom of my leg I could curse and scream at him.
"Put me down!" I commanded. He nodded. NO, was all I could read from his platonic eyes.
Eyebrows still hunched, stress lines painted across his forehead. Yet he didn't seem concerned about himself nor anyone threatening him about his ways. Not concerned for the violent ways he took to save me. He wasn't concerned or worried or anxious about anyone's opinion. He only cared for one, panicked, irrational smiling girl who's heart thumped across the floor like electrical pulsations cornering him down; assaulting him with an electroshock so grand he emended electrons too. He wasn't there for anyone. Anyone... except for me.
My eyes directed immediately at the coaches, mildly hoping he would not my desperation and agonising debate out of the way. He didn't. His hand lifted up at the same height his head was at and allowed pester the green light, allowing Spencer to take me away into whatever place he would go. My frowning remained.
I was already lifted off the ground when James screamed
"Wait!" He desperately yelled. "Let me carry her! She might get hurt if we aren't careful" He displayed. I am already hurt, what's the difference now? Really? You want to carry me? Ha!
I looked at him ridiculously, seriously, pitiful.
"Maybe we should wait for the nurse to arrive" James coaxed, and I automatically, was oblivious to his proposal. I was still in Spencer's arms, unable and unwilling to get off.
"James move!" Spencer ordered, his hands cradling me like an infant.
"We should wait '' James returned the arbitrary tone Spencer gave him. I was in the middle, being carried by Spencer with a knee whose blood was pouring out and was purple. Great
"James, move" Spencer clarified, his voice was now polite yet still intimidating
"We should wait," James said as his hands curled into fists.
"Ey! Boys! Split up!" The coach ordered. I was just a couple of inches away from James, but I was in Spencer's arms, I could feel the tension slowly rising.
"James, I am not going to ask you again. Move" Spencer demanded, the words being clearly pronounced. I knew they really disliked each other and so I knew I had to intervene.
"Girls girls, you are both pretty now please can someone take me to the nurse? I'd really like to keep walking" I clarified it to both of them, a small chuckle slipping from my lips. An unintentional chuckle.
And despite everything I was laughing, I really am.
"Fine, im taking her" James argued-
"Not in my watch" Spencer stroked back. He looked at me, releasing a perfectly intact smile. James' eyes were clearly hurt and I sympathetically smiled at him, it's not his fault. And it is simply cruel to let him fall into teenage unfounded agony without at least a kind, friendly, word of warning. I directed my view at him
"James, I'll be fine, I am just going to get a band aid. Thank you, really. For your concern and everything but Spencer has me now," As my words cleared the air, Spencer's corners tilted upward; his eyes widened and his skin seemed to glow even more than the glittering sparkles that emended from his sweat. The words meant more, more than the proximity we were at and definitely more than words meant, my heart was with him now.
He wouldn't know but there's something more.
He was talking me away, set by step. Deeper into the woods and the branches holding us closer, skin against skin, hand locked with hand, lips wishing to be in unisound.
I yelled. Spencer's eyes glowed with fear.
"Jane! Can you bring me my stuff please? There are some gummy bears you can have! And give some to Mari, she needs them!" I said as my torso screamed behind Spencer's back.
And Spencer began to look at me as if I was crazy.
I probably am.