Thirty
‘IT’S ALIVE,’ MY brOTHER DRAMATICALLY PROCLAIMS the very moment my heavy eyes peel open. Rising from his slouched perch in the chair beside my hospital bed, Sebastian looms over me. Despite his jovial tone, concern pinches his face. ‘How ya feeling, tormentita?’
Nausea clogs the back of my throat. Groggy, I try to sit up only for my head to swim with the effort, sharp pain exploding in my shoulder when I fall back down a little too roughly. ‘Like shit.’
A finger pokes my wrinkled forehead. ‘I told them to slip you a little Botox, but apparently that’s unethical.’
I laugh, and I immediately regret it. Not because it makes my head hurt something fierce, but because it jogs my memory.
Reminds me where I am, why I’m here, why I shouldn’t be laughing at all.
I try to sit up again, and, this time, Sebastian is there to help me, a gentle hand on my non-ruined shoulder guiding me upright. ‘How long’ve you been here?’
‘Centuries. Your recovery time is abysmal.’
That ball of nausea pulses.
Sebastian winces. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean—’
‘It’s fine. Did Coach call you?’
‘Heath did.’
Briefly, the pain in my chest drowns out everything else. My eyes squeeze shut again.
‘Did you tell Marisol?’
There’s a loaded pause. In my mind’s eye, I picture his face, all scrunched and reluctant and woefully unsurprised. ‘She sends her love.’
Yeah. I’m sure she does.
I feel pressure on my leg before the mattress dips, Sebastian’s lean body carefully settling by my feet. Just as he does, the door opens, and a doctor saunters in with a nurse on his tail.
I know before he even opens his mouth that it isn’t good news – or at least not the news I wanted. He didn’t grossly overestimate my injuries. I’m not magically healed. It’s exactly the outcome he expected.
My season is done. My next season too. I have six weeks in a sling, a minimum of six months of physiotherapy, a year before I get anywhere close to my full strength back.
He talks about limited mobility and recovery periods and rehabilitation, and I sit there, silent and numb, once again letting someone else take it all in for me.
Pinching myself in the hope I might wake up for real this time. That this is all a nightmare.
The doctor asks if I’m in pain, and I shake my head. My shoulder throbs, but I can’t even feel it. Medicine won’t do anything for the type of pain I’m really in.
I’m examined and given a referral for the best physical therapist in the state, who specializes in athletic injuries – and another therapist who specializes in the same thing, just a vastly different kind of recovery – and promised a prompt early-morning discharge, and then they’re gone, leaving me and Sebastian alone again.
For once, my brother is lost for words. For once, he can’t wriggle his way out of an awkward situation with humor and charm. For once, he’s off-kilter, nervous fingers tapping an erratic rhythm on the bedsheet. ‘Dani . . .’
He reaches for my ankle and I shift, sluggish as I bend my knees up toward my chest. ‘Don’t.’
‘This isn’t the worst outcome.’
I know that. Why does everyone think I don’t? Why does it have to be the worst outcome for me to be upset, why isn’t this monumentally shitty outcome enough? ‘Did you hear him? I can’t swim.’
‘Did you hear him?’ he volleys right back at me. ‘Yes, you can. Not like you used to, I know, but—’
‘Then what’s the fucking point?’
‘Dani, come on. I know—’
‘No, you don’t know. You don’t know anything. You don’t care about anything, you don’t love anything.’
‘And you love swimming?’
I answer without thinking. With pure, angry instinct, ‘Of course I do.’
‘Then it shouldn’t fucking matter that you won’t be the best anymore.’
‘Of course it matters, Sebastian. What the fuck? You know how hard I’ve worked. I wasn’t a D1 fucking athlete for fun.’
‘You are a D1 fucking athlete, Daniela. An injury does not take away everything you’ve done.’
‘No, just anything more I could do.’
‘Oh, please. You could’ve been a fucking Olympian already by now, if you really wanted it.’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’
‘You’ve had scouts up your ass since you were twelve. You set records, Dani. I know you turned down a fuck-ton of professional teams after you graduated high school, and for what? To swim on a college team with people who don’t even like you?’
‘I needed the time. I needed the training. Mom wanted—’
‘Mom is dead, Dani. She doesn’t want anything. Neither does Dad, and neither do you, because your entire life is a ghost of theirs. You went to college because of Mom, you swim because of Dad. When the fuck are you gonna do something because of you?’
‘That’s not fair.’
‘That’s the truth.’
‘So what? I’m just a puppet? I wasted my entire life doing everything for people who aren’t even here to see it?’
‘God, Daniela, do you hear yourself? You’re twenty-one.
You haven’t had a life yet. Just think for a second, okay?
Think about whether or not you actually enjoy competing.
Fuck, Dani, think about whether or not you actually enjoy swimming anymore, genuinely think about it instead of getting all defensive.
Ask yourself why you picked a degree you’re actually interested in, that you need a PhD to really do anything with, while every other student athlete is doing Business or Communications or Sports fucking Management. ’
I start to protest, to refute every last one of his silly little points, except something stops me at the last minute. My gut doesn’t agree.
‘You hate your team,’ Seba continues tentatively.
Just as cautiously, he moves to sit beside me, a bent leg propped on the bed while an arm stretches across the pillow keeping me upright, so careful not to touch me.
‘You scratch yourself raw before every competition. You don’t get out of the pool satisfied or proud of yourself. So why do you do it?’
‘I like how I feel when I win.’
‘Do you? Or did you like how Dad made you feel when you won, and that’s never gone away?’
I don’t confirm or deny. I can’t bring myself to.
God, my head hurts.
‘I know swimming and training and competing is all you’ve ever known, but it doesn’t have to be all you ever know. Just think about it.’ He kisses my temple, smirking against it. ‘Don’t have anything else to do, do you?’
My laugh is raw and guttural, my fingers harsh where they pinch thin skin. ‘I worked so hard. It can’t all be for nothing.’
‘It wasn’t. And your accomplishments aren’t just null and void now. Nothing you’ve done changes.’ He pauses – he dares to fucking smirk. ‘And you met Heath.’
I can’t help but laugh, though it’s a pained, broken rendition. ‘So it was all for a boy. Great.’
‘It was all for whatever you want it to be for. Look, you don’t have to figure it out now. You don’t have to be okay with it. But you will be okay.’
A choked whimper escaping me, my head falls to my brother’s shoulder. ‘It’s not fair.’
‘I know it isn’t. And I’m so sorry, Daniela, I really am. I just don’t think it’s the catastrophe you think it is. I think . . . fuck, don’t kill me for saying this, okay? But I think it might be really good for you.’
What he’s saying makes sense, I’m sure, but right now, to me, it doesn’t. Right now, I can’t hear anything but the doctor’s damning words. Right now, I . . . I just can’t. I’m too tired. My heart fucking hurts. Everything hurts. I just want to curl up in a ball and not exist for a little while.
A quiet sigh skates across my forehead as gentle fingers comb through my hair. ‘Do you need anything? Heath brought your stuff over while you were doing your Sleeping Beauty impersonation.’
‘You saw him?’
‘He was here when I got here. Still here. All your friends are. They’re in the waiting room.’
My stomach revolts at the mere concept. ‘I can’t right now.’
‘That’s okay. Visiting hours are over anyway. They just wanted to wait until you woke up. Make sure you’re okay.’
My throat tightens.
‘A shiny new boyfriend and a bunch of friends too. Lucky girl.’
‘He’s not my boyfriend.’
‘What did lover boy do?’
God, I don’t think I’ve ever loved my brother more than I do right now, just for the simple act of not assuming it was all my fault.
I give him the Cliff’s Notes version, skipping over the whole fake aspect of it. I just say that we had a fight about a month ago, we fought some more last night too, and he just stood there. Loving me.
‘Well, duh,’ Sebastian scoffs, throwing his eyes up to the ceiling. ‘He’s had a crush on you for, like, years.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Uh, because I have eyes.’
‘You could’ve said something.’
‘My bad. I assumed you weren’t interested in the nice, happy, pretty man, considering Satan was your boyfriend.’
My nose scrunches. Can’t exactly fault him for that – I wasn’t interested. I was barely interested in Ben. The majority of my interest lay with swimming. Just swimming. Always swimming.
That doesn’t just go away. Can’t be changed with a single speech. I can’t be told that’s so wrong and just, suddenly, immediately believe it.
But . . . I can think about it. I will think about it. Later. Tomorrow.
If it doesn’t hurt so fucking much.
Birds are still chirping the next morning when Sebastian wheels me out of the hospital, clutching a prescription I have no intention of filling and a pamphlet I don’t need to read; my brother has already narrated a dramatic rendition of proper post-operative care, and he provides more than one encore performance on the long, torturous drive home.
It slipped my mind, in all the chaos, that we’re several hours away from Haven Cove. That I would have so much time to sit with my thoughts, no distractions other than what Sebastian is willing to provide – the license plate game can only get a girl so far.
Food for thought, however, he provides in spades. His little speech at the hospital runs through my head on a constant loop. The what ifs and the whys and the thinks of it all.