Part 19 (2/2)
Darkness.
Devon opens her eyes slowly. She blinks away the rain. Above her teammates are crowding, anxious faces looking down at her. She catches a glimpse of Kait, standing off to the side with crossed arms, her lips pressed tight together. And Coach Mark, he's kneeling at her side, his mouth moving, his words unintelligible.
Slowly, her surroundings take shape, make sense. She's outside-gray sky, rain. Wet gra.s.s. Mud underneath. Cold. And her head-it throbs. She moves to swipe the rain from her face. A searing burn from her shoulder. She cries out.
”So,” Dom says when Devon has finished telling her story, ”did they call an ambulance?”
”Uh-” Devon blinks, shakes the memory from her mind. ”No.”
”Anyone take you to the emergency room?”
”No!” Devon stops, collects herself. ”I mean, no. I didn't want to go there, to the hospital. I . . . after a couple of minutes, I felt fine. Really. Coach Mark ended practice early, and then he drove me home.”
Dom nods. ”Yeah, he told me that he was very worried about you. He wanted to make sure that you got home okay.”
Devon remembers sitting in his Tahoe, the pa.s.senger seat. Resting her aching head against the window, holding her left arm close to her body, not saying anything. Watching the rain splat the gla.s.s, then slowly slide down. The winds.h.i.+eld wipers swis.h.i.+ng across the gla.s.s the only sound.
”So, your mom took you to a doctor later.”
Devon shakes her head. ”No . . . ”
Dom frowns down at her legal pad. ”But Mr. Dougherty said that you missed school the next day, and when you came back the following day, you told him that you had gotten a concussion and a shoulder subluxation-you had explained to him that your shoulder had sort of rolled along the edge of your socket and snapped back in place again-and that the doctor had said you wouldn't be able to practice for at least four to six weeks, mostly due to the concussion. And that you had to go to physical therapy three times a week for the next six weeks to strengthen the muscles around your shoulder's rotator cup.” Dom raises her head, looks at Devon.
Devon s.h.i.+fts her eyes back down to her knees.
”So, you're telling me now that you didn't go to a doctor at all?”
Devon chews on her lip. Risks a glance up at Dom.
Dom is frowning. ”Should I take that as a no? Because I wasn't able to dig up the medical records doc.u.menting any of this.” She drums her fingers on the tabletop. ”Did your mom know anything? About hitting your head and hurting your shoulder?”
”Well, when Coach Mark brought me home, my mom was still at work. I go to sleep way before she gets home most nights, and I went to sleep extra early that night because I wasn't feeling very good. And then, well, my mom was asleep when I got up in the morning. So . . .”
”But-” Dom looks up at the ceiling, gathering her thoughts. ”Okay, so you did stay home that next day? Like your coach said?”
”Yeah, because I wasn't feeling that great. I was sore all over. My head was still hurting-I had this huge lump. I didn't feel like sitting in school all day.”
”Okay. So when did you tell your mom?”
Devon picks up one of her rubber slides. Slips a hand into it. ”I didn't.”
”Why not?”
”I really didn't want to deal with it. She'd just obsess over nothing. Plus, going to the doctor's expensive! We don't have money to just-”
”Excuse me, but smas.h.i.+ng your head into a goalpost and getting your shoulder knocked out is nothing? I think if your mom hadn't obsessed about it, I'd be concerned. And there are some things in this world worth spending money on, Devon. Okay? You didn't even give your mom the chance to make that choice!” Dom sighs with frustration. ”You robbed her of an opportunity to finally make a good decision for you!”
Dom's comment stings. Devon slips her other hand into the second slide. Goalkeeping wearing these? Totally ridiculous.
The conference room is silent. Finally, Devon peeks up at Dom. She's on that stool with her jaw clenched, her cheeks flushed. Devon quickly returns her eyes to the slides on her hands.
”Didn't the school call your mom that day to report your absence?”
Devon shrugs. ”My mom never asked me anything about it.”
”I see.” Dom's voice is pinched. ”So, that stuff you told your coach. You just”-she flicks her hands out-”made it up?”
”Um.” Devon clears her throat. ”Not exactly.”
She'd left the apartment that next morning before her mom got home from work. Walked the mile to the library, the main one downtown. A place to be until after her mom had slept and left for her cosmetology cla.s.ses in the afternoon. She'd Googled around on a library computer, trying to figure out what had likely happened to her physically the previous afternoon. WebMD and some sports medicine sites, that's where she'd gotten the diagnosis-moderate concussion and shoulder subluxation-and the recommended treatment plan. Devon remembers how relieved she'd felt when she'd made this discovery, and how she hurriedly scribbled everything down on a piece of sc.r.a.p paper a librarian had given her. When she'd walked home, she took a circuitous route, wandering all the way down to Commencement Bay. She'd stood there a long time, staring out at the horizon. The water looked beautiful and new. The fog had finally burned off after so many gloomy days. The sun was out, s.h.i.+ning brightly. The air warm. She'd wished she'd had sungla.s.ses. The glare on the water hurt her eyes.
Not anything like the last time she'd observed that particular view, the time when she'd watched a sunset with Connor from his dad's balcony.
”Why did you feel so relieved, Devon?”
Devon looks up at Dom. Had she actually told all of that to Dom? Yes, she must have.
”It seems to me that discovering that you might have sustained a concussion and had injured your shoulder pretty seriously, you'd definitely want to go see a doctor, just to check everything out. I'd think you'd be worried, not relieved.”
Devon softly taps her two sandaled hands together. With Dom, there's always more questions. Questions, questions, questions. Never satisfied. Always digging for more.
”You want to know what I think, Devon? I think you were afraid to go to a doctor.” Dom's tone is clipped. ”I think all this c.r.a.p about your mom freaking out and you not wanting to spend money is just that, c.r.a.p.”
Devon stops tapping the sandals together. She feels her hands grow slick against the rubber. She tosses the sandals down, rubs her hands on the legs of her jumpsuit.
”I mean at this point”-Dom checks down at her legal pad-”around mid-January, you'd be”-she counts on her fingers-”about five months pregnant.” She turns back to Devon. Raises an eyebrow.
Devon looks away, s.h.i.+fts around. Her b.u.t.t's numb, sitting in one position for so long.
”So, if you had gone to a doctor, he or she would've undoubtedly discovered that you were pregnant. At five months, women start to show-”
”No!” The word flies out of Devon's mouth. ”No, I wasn't thinking that at all!”
”You didn't want a doctor seeing you. Be honest! You didn't want to take the chance-”
”No, you're wrong!”
Dom rolls her eyes. ”Come on, Devon!”
”No! I mean it. I didn't think I was pregnant. I mean, I don't think that I thought I was. I . . . ” Devon is rubbing her thighs faster and faster now. ”I know that you probably don't believe me, but . . . it's so confusing! All I know is that I was sort of happy that I didn't have to practice for a while. That I was going to be able to take a break from it. From soccer, I mean.”
”Uh-huh. And why would you be happy about that? I thought soccer was your life, Devon.”
Devon glares at Dom. ”Yeah? Well, how would you like to do something day after day for years and never get to take a break? Maybe I was getting sick of soccer! Ever think of that? I go to my varsity girls' practices. I go to the boys' practices. I go to my club practices. I play indoor soccer in the off-season. I do separate specialized goalkeeper training. I do camps and 3 v 3 tournaments all summer long. I was getting totally burned out. So . . . so, when I got hurt, I knew I had an excuse to stop for a while.”
”So, that's it? You just needed a little vacation from soccer? Right before your team was going to travel out of state for a showcase tournament? Right before your club league season started? You'd just leave your team without their keeper?” Dom doesn't look convinced. ”Okay, fine. Then let's go with that, shall we? Going to a doctor wouldn't have changed anything. The doctor would've undoubtedly made a similar diagnosis, done some tests, taken some X-rays, maybe an MRI, and you would've gotten your little vacation. Four to six weeks off. Maybe even more. End of story.”
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