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“Take it easy,” I tell her. “You’ll be drunk in ten minutes.”
She rolls her eyes at me. “This isn’t my first beer. Don’t you remember all those high school parties?”
I roll my eyes back at her. “As if I went to parties.”
Except for one. The party where I finally caught Conner Wiseman’s eye.
Up on the big screen, the Cyclones have the ball for a chance to take the lead before half time. My eyes are glued to Conner as the ball is snapped. He looks for an open receiver but the two teams are locked in a death grip in every direction. Then Dillon Pratt breaks away and runs toward the end zone. I don’t know how Conner is able to see past all the bodies and the havoc but he does and fires away.
I jump from my chair as the ball sails through the air. One second feels like an hour.
The pass was perfect. And Pratt’s sure hands are a legend. He catches the ball and without missing a step runs the short distance to the end zone. The Cyclones take the lead.
I’m not too embarrassed to scream and jump up and down. But I’m puzzled when the celebration in the end zone comes to an abrupt halt. Dillon Pratt throws the ball down and sprints back to the field. The announcer stops speaking mid sentence.
Then the camera pans. The sight is a nightmare. The excitement has drained from the announcer’s voice.
“Wiseman is down on the field. The ball was already out of his hands when the hit came from Miami’s Aiden McDonald. He’s not moving, folks. He’s not moving. There’s Pratt crouched at his side, now screaming for the medics. You can hear a pin drop here in Em City’s Green Castle. Still no movement from Wiseman.”
Horror is too simple a word. It does no justice to the agony of watching the man I love lying unconscious in the middle of a football field.
As a teenager, Conner’s parents were cautioned not to allow him to play a sport with such a high likelihood of suffering a head injury. The brain damage he suffered as a result of his childhood accident makes him more vulnerable in the case of a concussion.
As I silently beg for a miracle, Conner’s own confession plays in my mind, adding to the torment.
“A hard blow to the head would be a bigger deal to me than it might be to someone else. But the game is what I do. I doubt I’d know who I am without football…”
Lita understands my anguish. She stands at my side and circles an arm around my waist. Without it, I might very well fall.
A stretcher is run out onto the field. When Conner’s limp body is lifted onto the stretcher I clap my hand over my mouth, smothering a wail of heartbreak.
The game announcer says words but to me they are just garbled noise. Onscreen, the only movement is from the medical team that rushes Conner off the field. The players stand still. The crowd is silent. Right now it feels as if the entire world has paused.
My phone begins buzzing in my pocket. Whipping it out with a silent prayer, I see it’s Tess. “Please tell me he’s all right. Please, Tessie.”
She struggles to speak. “Haven, we’re trying to find out what’s going on.”
Tess pauses when a murmured male voice says something on her end and she says, “Oh my god,” before coming back to the line.
“An ambulance is taking him to Em City Memorial Hospital.” Her voice cracks. “He’s still unconscious.”
I feel like a hole has opened up under my feet. I would have sunk to the floor if not for my sister holding onto me. “How bad is it?”
“I don’t know. But he’s strong, Haven. He’s so strong.” She chokes off a sob. “He’ll be okay.”
She sounds as if she’s trying to convince herself of this fact more than she’s trying to convince me. A baby starts to cry. Tess tries to soothe her son but she’s unable to stop crying herself.
“I’m going to the hospital,” I tell Tess.
“Yes,” she says. “We’ll meet you there.”
“Call me the second you hear anything.”
“I will. See you soon.”
I have to find my keys. I can’t remember where I left them. My office maybe. I stumble in that direction but Fiona stops me.
“I’ll drive you. No arguments.” She shakes her own set of keys and then barks out an order to Andrei to lock up after everyone leaves.
