Page 35 of Last Line of Defense

Her hand strokes my back with infinite tenderness, calming my racing heart.

“I know that perfectly well, Alicia…” she murmurs without breaking our contact. “But get this through your head: you’re not alone in this rough patch. Not anymore.”

At this very moment, sitting on the examination table, with my left knee burning beneath the ice and my entire professional future teetering like a house of cards before my eyes, I realize that missing the season terrifies me. That losing my spot on the roster, my successful athletic career, my image… All of that carries enormous weight in my life. But losing what’s just beginning to blossom between Clara and me… That truly terrifies me a thousand times more than hanging up my cleats for good.

13

High Frequency

Clara

I could classify fear into many categories, but the fear I feel every time Alicia is within arm’s reach is that silent panic that gnaws at your stomach, makes you remember down to the last detail how badly you suffered in the past, and keeps you on your toes so you never repeat the same mistake. That fear sits with me in the office, patiently biding its time, watching me as I apply a bandage, and when I finally let my guard down, it strikes without mercy.

What we have has ceased to be a simple physical attraction or a monumental fling. I wish it were just that. Desire is easy to manage: it’s wild, uncomfortable, as untimely as can be, but simple to satisfy. You can justify it to yourself as a temporary hormonal lapse, a bad decision, or a red line you crossed in a moment of weakness. Fear, on the other hand, always seems to show up just to suddenly open your eyes, and it has made me realize just how difficult it is to control the way Alicia has gotten into my head, and how complex it is to give shape to that constant, exhausting worry that wells up in my chest every time I see her pushing herself on the field, ignoring the pain as if she were immortal.

I’m starting to care too much about Alicia, and that’s where the real danger of this whole situation lies. The real risk isn’t having kissed her passionately or having fucked her against the sink. The real danger is that this whole tsunami comes with something I’d strictly forbidden myself from ever feeling again toward a member of the team I work for. Something much more serious. Much more stupid. Much more irreversible. Affection. Need. Love.

I know all too well how those damn love stories end. Basically because I already lived through one years ago.

Alicia is still sitting on the treatment table across from me, completely silent. After her failed training session, the excruciating sharp pain that shot through her joint, and that confession about her fears, the atmosphere in the rehabilitation room has changed. I can feel the tension in the air. I force myself to return to safe ground: purely technical work, anatomy, a clinical diagnosis, and control of the situation. I roll over on a wheeled stool, position myself right in front of her legs, and very carefully peel back the compression bandage holding the ice pack I’d applied as an emergency measure to assess the extent of the swelling. The skin on her knee is cold and reddened from the ice, and the joint shows slight swelling. Alicia watches my every move with a stillness that’s very unusual for her—the kind she only displays when she’s truly exhausted. But not exhausted from running; rather, mentally drained from within. I’m absolutely certain that enduring that level of pain on a daily basis isn’t healthy, much less comfortable.

“It hurts right here when I press, doesn’t it?” I murmur, gently pressing the pads of my thumbs into the inner side of the joint, searching for the tendon.

She lets out a brief, restrained exhale and clenches her teeth against the sensation.

“Was that just now a medical question, Doctor, or torture?”

“No, it was an empirical statement,” I reply, offering a half-smile from the corner of my mouth without taking my eyes off her leg. “I’m going to give you a very gentle relief massage around the quadriceps and patellar tendon. It’ll do you a world of good by easing the tension and helping reduce the swelling. So please be a good girl.”

“Look, I can’t promise you a thing. Getting all excited like a schoolgirl every time you lay your hands on me is an inseparable part of my charming personality,” she retorts instantly, with that teasing, roguish tone that always manages to throw me off balance and make me let my guard down.

I can’t help but let out a silly giggle as I reach over to the side table to grab the bottle of massage oil. I pour a little into my palms, rub them together to warm it up, and position myself between her legs again.

“Your natural charm is starting to get a little exhausting for my nerves.”

“Yeah, but you love it that way,” she replies, lowering her voice to a deep whisper, “and we both know it perfectly well.”

Those kinds of truths she blurts out without batting an eye are what make me lose my professional composure. Because I know that behind her usual provocation lies that sweet, deep, and dangerous feeling we both share.

I begin to massage the muscle with slow, firm, circular movements, feeling how the stiffness of the fibers gradually gives way beneath the pressure of my hands. Touching her this way is becoming torture. Even the silence that reigns in the treatment room or the monotonous patter of rain that has begun to beat against the windowpanes feels like a provocation to me. The rest of the staff and the coaches left the training facility a while ago, and all of Ravenhill FC seems suspended in a bubble of intimate calm that forces me to feel a thousand things at once.

Alicia rests her palms on either side of the treatment table, tilts her head back for a second, and lets out a long sigh, releasing all the pressure of the day. When she looks at me again, I notice something radically different in the depths of her eyes.

“It’s funny…” she remarks in a very low voice, breaking the rhythm of the massage. “It’s funny that you know absolutely everything about me, and I barely know a thing or two about you. You know my physical limits, my chronic pain, my tantrums… and yet I keep running headfirst into a concrete wall every time I try to get to know you a little better.”

My hands continue with the massage, but I feel my breath catch for half a second at the trap she’s set.

“What you’re saying isn’t true. There’s no wall.”

“Of course there is, don’t give me that,” she insists with a gentleness that chills me to the bone. “You know perfectly well when I’m lying to you, when my knee really hurts, when I’m in a lousy mood, or when I’m doing something stupid like I did this afternoon.”

“Well, that last one you mentioned is ridiculously easy to spot—it’s not exactly a feat,” I joke, desperately trying to lighten the weight that’s starting to build in my chest.

She barely smiles, a tiny twitch, but her eyes remain fixed on my lips, relentless.

“I barely know who you really are once you walk through the gates of the sports complex. Who you are when you take off your uniform, leave your armor as a relentless physical therapist in the locker, and lock yourself in your apartment. Come on, tell me about yourself. About your family, your past… whatever. Anything that doesn’t have to do with cruciate ligaments, menisci, and rehab charts.”

I don’t answer right away. There are questions in life that aren’t hard to answer because of their complexity, but because of all the emotional baggage they drag along with them. For years, I’ve made it my business to turn certain parts of my life into locked rooms, and now here’s Alicia standing right in front of the door with an ax.