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It’s Ellis’s turn at bat now. She hasn’t gotten a single hit all night because their pitcher acts like he’s trying out for a spot on a D1-level team. I bite my thumbnail as I watch her walk up to the home plate. She’s walking so slow you’d think she’s walking to her execution. Her legs look like they’re shaking, and she turns back to look at me. I give her a head nod to let her know everything’s fine. What’s the worst that could happen, right? She’ll most likely strike out again, and then she’ll get to come sit in the dugout with me.
She gets into the batting stance I showed her earlier. She looks cute with her backside sticking out like that.Not the time, Josiah.The pitcher smirks at her, surely intending to intimidate, before he hurls the ball in her direction. The ball goes straight down the middle. Ellis’s head follows the ball, she swings her bat, and miracle of miracles, she hits the ball and sends it soaring through the air.
She stands stunned for a second before she remembersshe’s supposed to run to the base. She throws her bat to the side and takes off toward first base. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Ellis move so fast. The other team’s player gets the ball and throws it to their first baseman. It soars through the air toward the player standing at the base. Ellis isn’t watching where the ball is, and she makes it to the base at the same time the ball does. The next thing I know, Ellis is on the ground, and she’s not moving. The first baseman crouches down next to her.
I’m moving before I can even think about it. I jump over the dugout and sprint onto the field. I slide on my knees so that I’m right next to her where she lies on the ground. I scan her body with my eyes. Her chest rises and falls as it should. Good, she’s breathing. I rub my hands up and down her arms, feeling for possible injuries. I don’t feel anything.
I take her body and cradle her in my arms. Her head turns so that her face is buried in my chest, and that’s when I see it. There’s a huge bump on her head—so close to her temple. A few inches lower and she probably would have been gone. I look up at the guy who had thrown the ball, allowing every bit of my anger to show on my face.
The guy’s face is ghostly white. His friends and teammates gather around him, patting him on the back and shoulders. One has the decency to come over and ask if she’s okay, but I don’t know how to answer. I have no idea if she’s okay. My hands start to shake.
This never should have happened. If they had just relaxed and not been so serious, Ellis would not be lying here unconscious right now.
I move to place Ellis back on the ground so I can give the guy a piece of my mind—maybe with an uppercut to his face—but Caleb rushes up to me and places a hand on my shoulder. He pushes me back down to the ground.
“You worry about getting her to the hospital. I will handle everything here and meet you there in a little bit,” Caleb says.
I look down at Ellis in my lap. She’s still unconscious. Would it be safe to move her? You aren’t supposed to move injured people, right? Too bad I can’t ask her that. She’d probably know since she’s a nurse. I don’t know what to do. What if I hurt her more than she’s already hurt? Should I call an ambulance? I don’t know, but I do know that I’m wasting precious time while I sit here panicking instead of acting.
I scoop her up in my arms and walk carefully to my car. I don’t know who, but someone opens the back door for me so I can lay her out on the seat. I don’t like this. What if she rolls off the seat while I’m driving and hits her head again? I stand, looking at her in indecision.
“I’ll ride back there with her,” Sarah, one of the women on the team, says. She doesn’t even wait for a reply. She climbs in and sits on the floorboard, ready to keep watch over a still unmoving Ellis. Why won’t she wake up?
Just open your eyes and let me know you’re okay.
As I drive to the hospital, Sarah calls to let the emergency staff know we’re on our way. I try to tune it out so I can focus on the road, but it’s not working. I’m not liking what I’m hearing.
“Umm, they might be a little dilated,” she says into her phone. I look at her through my rearview mirror and see Sarah peeling Ellis’s eyelids open and looking at her eyes. My heart is pounding against my chest. From all my years in sports, I know what the signs of a head injury are, and I’m worried about how bad this one might be.
“No, she still hasn’t woken up,” she continues. “We’re about fifteen minutes away now.”
And it’s the longest fifteen minutes of my life. I’ve never been a crazy driver, but I’m driving like a maniac down thehighway to get this woman to the hospital. I’m just thankful that Ellis talked me into going to the eye doctor, so now I can see well enough to drive fast.
This was not how the night was supposed to go. We were supposed to play a friendly team and laugh and have a great time. We were all going to go get burgers afterward, and Ellis was going to beg me to let her come back next week while I drove her home. It wasn’t supposed to end with me driving her to the hospital.
We somehow manage to make it to the hospital in one piece. There’s a doctor and a few nurses outside waiting for her with a gurney. I place her on it, and I watch helplessly as they wheel her inside. I try to follow, but a nurse stops me with a hand to my chest. She says something to me, but I don’t hear it through the hum in my ears and all the chaos happening around me. I try to follow Ellis again, but the nurse pushes me back more forcefully this time and shakes her head. How can she expect me to just wait out here when my whole world is in there and I don’t know if she’s going to be okay? This is going to be the longest night of my life.
16
Ellis
I peel my eyes open slowly. The lights are so bright they’re making my head pound, so I snap them shut again, wincing when the pain intensifies. It feels like I’m on a rocking ship in the middle of the ocean, but that can’t be. I’m not on a cruise. I was just playing softball a second ago. I raise my hand to clutch my head, but there’s a pulling feeling on my arm. A rustling sound next to me grabs my attention, so I open my eyes again to see Josiah’s face hovering over me.
He looks so handsome, like a fallen angel…it makes me sick. Like…really, really sick.
“I’m going to throw up,” I say as I turn to the side. Josiah holds up a trashcan in front of me just in time. When I finish, he hands me a warm, wet washcloth so I can clean off my face. Next, he holds a cup of water with a straw up to my mouth.
After sipping some of the water, I look around the room and realize that I’m in the hospital…and it looks like I’m the patient. I think back to the last thing Iremember. I was walking up to the home plate to take my turn at bat. The pitcher had an evil smirk on his face. I remember he made me really nervous because he was throwing the ball way too hard for an amateur game of softball. But I can’t recall how I ended up here in this hospital bed with an IV in my arm and a raging headache.
“Are you okay now?” Josiah asks, reaching his hand out to rub my forehead but pulling it back at the last second. He looks frustrated and worried, and it makes me scared.
“I don’t know. What happened?” I ask as I try to get myself into a seated position. I sit up, but the entire room starts to spin from the movement, so I lie back down. Josiah raises the back of the bed so I can rest against it.
“You don’t remember?” he asks, crossing his arms and looking far too serious. Is there something wrong with me? Do I have some type of rare tumor that has caused me to black out and forget something? I shake my head and immediately wish I hadn’t.
“You were hit in the head with a softball. You’ve been unconscious for almost an hour.” He studies me, scanning my body up and down.
Headache, dizziness, vomiting. I know what all of that means. “I’m guessing I have a concussion?” I ask.
