He scrubbed his hand down his face. “Fuck. What a fucking mess.”
I knew how he was feeling, because I felt it too. We’d been playing together for so long and been best friends since our first day at college, that I could see the frustration, anger and guilt almost rising out of him like steam. The feeling that we’d let our team down. And I knew he wasn’t looking forward to playing with a new line.
“Anyway, how are you feeling? Sleeping okay?”
“Yeah, okay, I mean, I keep having these weird fucking dreams, but they’re probably from the drugs. Apart from that, okay I guess. My leg is hurting more today, but the doc said it was because I walked yesterday.”
“Molly?”
“Nah, I still haven’t seen her.” I sighed, my thoughts taking over. “I think she’s avoiding me.”
Drew was the only person I’d ever admit that to. He was the only person I ever admitted a lot of things to.
He sipped on his coffee. “What? No way. Why would she do that?”
“I dunno, but something feels off, like I’ve upset her. I’ve texted her and she hasn’t replied. She’s been in, but only when I’ve been asleep. And I definitely haven’t been asleep like I was on the first day.”
“She’s probably just been in surgery or something. You know she’s busy. I’m sure it’s nothing; the pain meds are probably fucking with you.”
“Yeah, I hope so.”
“Clevs, there’s literally no reason why she would be avoiding you.”
I didn’t want to admit that it was starting to hurt my feelings.
Ishuffled the walker forward again, taking a step to catch up with it. Each one I’d taken hurt like a motherfucker, and more than I cared to admit. In my knee. In my thigh.
Practically in my brain.
Marco was next to me. “Come on, man, you’re doing better than you did yesterday. We’ve knocked three minutes off your time.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really, and that’s five minutes faster than the day before and seven minutes faster than the day before that, so keep going or you’ll lose it.”
I groaned, taking another step. As I looked up I could make out Wolf and Freddie at the very end of the corridor. And they were talking to Molly.
Molly who still hadn’t come to see me.
“Mol? Molly. MOLLY!”
I watched as she walked off in the other direction, down a corridor to the left and once more out of my sight. And it wasn’t like I could run and catch her up.
“Fuck. Fucking walker.” I stopped and whipped my head round to Marco, who was looking at me like I’d lost it. Which I had. “She fucking heard me, right? She’s avoiding me.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, I dunno, man.”
“Marco, I’m telling you, there’s no way she didn’t hear me.”
No. There was no fucking way she hadn’t just heard me calling. I looked back up to find Wolfie and Fred walking toward me, both wearing excited smiles, no doubt delighted to see me out of bed. And Wolf had Flossie strapped to her chest.
“Why’s Molly ignoring me?”
The pair of them stopped still at my snapping, their faces taking on a similar expression to the one Marco had, and I could see him raise his eyebrows at them in response, silently warning them not to ask.
“What?” They replied in unison.
“Nothing,” I grunted.
