---

It was the first football practice of summer and we were just having fun, throwing the ball around and stuff. I ran for a long one, turned... and a bike rack someone had pushed over from the parking lot tackled me.

When I stopped rolling and looked down at the odd feeling, everything... my foot, my leg... was wrong. The wrong way.

Cold and pain and a horrible, empty fear all came in a rush and I screamed and screamed as fast as I could breathe. I think I tried to make the bone go back in again.

Carson pulled me away, grabbed my arms and pushed me down flat on my back and started yelling, talking, telling me it was okay, just a break and please and I'd be okay and STOP MOVING! He almost laid down on me, pressing my arms into the ground, and I couldn't see anything, just him. He had scared eyes.

I heard "please."

He never talks. I almost listened, just to how much he was saying, all the words, the number of words... how, how he looked at me.

But the pain caught up in just a few seconds and I began to lose it again: how I had to move, and then moving was worse... and the cold... and I was so scared I couldn't breathe. Carson kept talking, breathing so I could feel it, and then I remembered to, and when I breathed I could stop screaming for a second, even with the pain.

Mrs. O'Connor was there. There were legs everywhere, faces. I remember hers because it was summer. I was bleeding. My leg was bent and twisted around, open. The bones....

I was so broken.

I cried. It didn't make me feel better, I just hurt in new places, in my chest and throat and face. I wasn't me any more. It felt like everything was over, like I was almost dead. Except Carson was there.

When someone brought a blanket to cover me, Carson finally let me go and I pressed my hands into my face while he still talked. I got blood in my eye.

-

They did first aid stuff. I couldn't stop sobbing and making noise at how horrible it felt, how I felt dead, not me... I was still crying when the ambulance came. Everyone saw.

----

It just got worse. The ER, Mom and then Dad coming, and into the hospital. Rooms and machines and pain and ceilings. They operated on my leg. Traction. A whole day of being so sick I wanted to die just from that. A bad infection, some specialist and another operation. More sickness. The horrible mechanical frame thing.

It was a really bad break and a worse recovery. I never felt good. I missed the first day of school. I missed everything. The more they said I was getting better, the worse I felt.

----

One day when they were telling us that I'd be going home soon, Carson knocked on the open door and peeked in. I think it was almost the first time I saw everything like it was all getting... I dunno, like a little better.

"Hey, clumsy!" He was holding a shiny balloon on a long ribbon.

"Hey, twinkletoes!" I grinned back, and at the balloon bouncing under the curtain rod thing around my bed, a puffy Hulk.

He gave me the balloon ribbon and plopped about ten magazines gently down on my bed and pulled up a chair. He plopped the magazines gently because vibrations could still make my teeth go loose sometimes.

"Lots more to read! The bike ones are from Jason and the old gaming ones from Mr. Jeffries." He looked over at the other bed and grinned. "Private room now?"

"He begged to be discharged right after you left yesterday, something about how he was afraid the big crazy guy would come back." The man had just been in for some two-day surgery and I was glad he was gone. He was really old and had moaned and cried and kept saying things to me that I couldn't understand and he was scary.

Lots of my roommates had been sick or moaned or made other disgusting noises. Most of them were really old men and all their visitors had been old too and sometimes it felt like I was in a room where people were put to die. But a lot of them made awful noises, or said things that didn't make sense or in other languages, and they were all scary or depressing to be next to.

I didn't moan or talk, I just cried. The nurses all told me it was normal for so much pain, but nobody else ever did before the last old man.

Everyone at the practice saw me cry.

I know it's stupid, and I had wrecked my knee and broken bones - one actually sticking out - but I still felt like a sissy. I knew what all the guys would say and that none of the girls would even talk to me again, and everyone would've heard about it.

I even worried about what Mrs. O'Connor would think, as if what the vice-principal thought was important, but it was.

When Carson had come by when I was out of recovery the first time, even though I was sick I'd been scared he'd make fun of me, but he didn't. Even when it happened more times, when I cried when it really hurt, he always said it was okay and he would too, if it were him. He even did once, when he held my hand almost like when it happened because I couldn't stay still from the pain. Nobody else was there, then.

But he'd seen me cry lots of times.

This time he smiled at me holding the balloon....

-

When we were alone he smiled different than at school, or around other people. Like when someone else was in the room, he didn't. And he hardly smiled at all at school. Sometimes people who didn't know him said he was always trying to look tough, but he smiles, a lot. And even if he is tough it doesn't mean he's mean.

We usually talked about normal things, like my day and what was happening around the ward (that I could see), and he told me about school and stuff, different than Brenda. We'd look through magazines and laugh and make wishes at the stuff in them or even read the good parts out loud, like 'Hey, listen to this!' Regular stuff.

-

Anyway, this time, after I said the docs said I might be going home soon, I just kept talking and talking. All day I'd been thinking a mile a minute and with him there, I talked. I let out some of the stuff I was afraid of, even a little, like that I'd never be able to walk right. Or the infection and all the things the doctors said....

How it almost seemed like even my mom and dad didn't even hear them, what the doctors said, the bad stuff. They were always so positive it was like they pretended.

And I told him that I was afraid to tell them about how scared I was, afraid they'd tell me to cheer up and then I'd have to lie. I was afraid that I'd scare them, how scared I was. How I thought different about myself, that being so afraid all the time was making me crazy or something.... That I had to lie all the time.

That they wouldn't be the same to me because maybe I didn't trust them any more... the same. I didn't know that, if that was true, but I felt like I didn't trust anything anymore. Couldn't.

-

Carson just watched me and let me talk. His eyes are almost like him talking, when he doesn't. I mean, like you can tell what he's thinking, or feeling or whatever, just from his eyes, a lot of the time. They looked like he understood.

After a while he put his hand on my leg, on the cast. When I ran out, or stopped for a while, he just sat there and thought. He didn't look happy or tell me to cheer up. He looked really unhappy, but he said he was okay.

-

Except for my sister, he always seemed like the only one who didn't tell me to cheer up, and I'd never told Val the worst stuff.

I knew he wouldn't tell on me, tell my parents stuff either. It was important, and he'd told me right at the beginning, almost the first time he visited me alone... like, it was okay if I wanted to feel bad.

I punched the pain machine and it beeped and whirred once and I felt a bit better after a few dozen heartbeats. It didn't cheer me up, but I hurt just then. Everything but my leg.

-

After a long while, a long time after I'd stopped, Carson asked if I still wanted to talk and I shook my head no. So he asked if he could talk to me and I nodded okay.

He just looked at me, like seeing if I looked like that too. After a minute or so he said he thought I should maybe tell Mom and Dad about some of it, that he thought they'd understand, but even if I didn't, he'd still be quiet about it if I wanted. And he said he thought maybe he'd feel the same as me if it happened to him, but it was hard to even imagine.

Then he was quiet. We were, I guess. He ran his finger up and down the edge of the cast, where the place for the dressings was, where it was open.

-

After a long time he told me just plain stuff, about the team and other things that were going on. Ordinary things. He kept his hand on my leg and it felt nice. Safe, maybe.

Sometimes when my eyes were closed I felt like my leg would do things, like shake or move, and when I looked, it wasn't. With his hand there, it didn't ever do that.

-

He never talked before, usually, just a few words, so it was pretty amazing how different he was. I wondered if he talked more at school too, or just with me. It was nice just watching him, or closing my eyes and listening when I got tired. I felt better, listening. And after what I'd told him... that he sounded the same.

-

Valerie came in with Aunt Lucy, who was visiting the city for the day, while Carson was telling about one time when his dad had crutches he wouldn't use after he sprained his ankle and instead he hopped everywhere on his good leg and made little 'ouch' noises all day and drove everyone crazy. It wasn't really a funny story, but it was funny to see him make faces.

He stopped when they came in and I introduced him to Aunt Lucy as "the one who laid on me when it happened" and then Valerie and Carson explained what that meant and I realized that it sounded like he was the one who hurt me. Or something.

They figured that out about an hour before I did. I actually couldn't even figure out what they were talking about for a while. Thirty minutes after the pain pump.

Drugs good. I watched them talk instead of listening.

-

I thought of something. That Carson was the only guy from school who came to visit me, except just once when some of the team came with the coach. Of all the girls, only Brenda came and she did almost every day, like Carson. She was almost like him, like my best friend too; but she was different, more like my sister, really.

I didn't have many friends, but those two were really good, Carson and Brenda. The guys on the team were just... not my friends. I mean, except for Jason sometimes. I didn't hang out with them, it was just that we did practices and played pick-up games and stuff. And Jason's a clown, like the joker of the team so most of the guys kinda thought he was useless, but he was nice, and funny, really.

He told Carson he was afraid of hospitals and told him stuff to tell me instead. He sent me lots of magazines too, some of them really weird, like old monster movie and anime fanzines and ladies' fashions.

I thought about Valerie too. I think it's different for a sister to be a friend, like she is. Carson's sister isn't, not like me and Val. They don't do anything together and Carson says she's always mad at something and never talks to him. They used to, but it changed like years ago. He really hates it, too, I can tell.

-

I had three really good friends, and felt like I had tons. I started to cry a bit. Drugs. Everyone was embarrassed. I was, anyway. I didn't even know what they were talking about. Carson and Val both said it wasn't anything, after.

----

Brenda came for a long visit on Friday when the team had a game. She skipped gym so she was early and she had all my homework for the weekend even though I really could hardly see straight most of the time. I was supposed to be keeping up but was completely behind.

Anyway, she seemed all serious and looked at me like I was sick or something. "You've really lost a lot of weight."

"Yeah. The dietician... Ms Taraska says maybe about thirty pounds." I looked at my arms.

"Aren't you eating enough? I mean, I could bring you some junk food, if it's okay, or if you're allowed? Is it just the hospital food?" She looked all over my face. I knew it looked bad too. And my hair always felt dirty.

"No, you don't have to. Mom and Dad already bring stuff, but I just can't eat very much... I mean, I don't, I can't seem to digest anything. Ms Taraska and the doctors say it's probably the infection and antibiotics but I'll be getting better, or more weight back, now...." I had to look at my hands. I hated my hands. They were all skinny, and shaking.

"Are... are you gonna be okay?"

I think she expected me to nod or smile or something, but I didn't think I was ever gonna to be okay ever again. Ever be the way I was.

-

I guess she was still scared when she left 'cause Carson came after the game and said she'd called him. I told him I was just afraid. He said he was too, really.

----

When they took the cast off, my skin looked like yellow and grey spoiled meat and the big incision that I hadn't been allowed to see before looked horrible, all red and purple and twisted and they had to give me a sedative stronger than the pain pump, only partly because it hurt so much without the cast. And it smelled.

They said it was healing well, all closed up.

They put on a closed fiberglass cast they promised would be much more comfortable. It seemed to feel bad almost right away, but everything they did ached worse when it was new.

-

They checked my circulation for another couple of days (no black toes) and that the infection was still gone (I wasn't hot and had a good blood test). Even with the horrible itching and it still hurting I could at least stand up a few minutes with crutches and use the bathroom, and I was finally allowed to go home.

I almost cried for joy, even if it hurt worse every day, but that was because I was off the pain pump and on these little pink pills.

----

Dad had to be at work and there was no way Mom was gonna be able to hoist me around by herself if I needed hoisting, so Valerie took the day off to help too.

I could really barely sit up by myself. Besides having basically not moved for two months, the little pills really knocked me out (and didn't do a very good pain job, compared). Mostly they seemed to make me all emotional.

Mom and Val were both trying so hard to make me feel safe I almost cried just from that, and I'd been thinking again all morning, all about friends, so I was kinda weepy already.

And I was scared, even if I didn't tell them. It felt as if my leg would break like a fluorescent tube and then I'd die. I know that's stupid, but it really felt that bad. Like the cast was all there was. I mean, like without a cast, in a second I'd just have broken pieces, or nothing.

So when I was finally standing up on one leg, after Val and the nurse helped me up, and after the ~pounding~ pain damped down a little, for a second anyway, I leaned over and hugged Valerie as hard as I could.

I don't think I've ever hugged my sister before in my life. I mean, she was surprised, and she kinda patted my back.

"Hey, umm...?" She stood back a step after I let go, still holding my arms for my balance, and looked pretty scared. "What's the matter?"

Until just then I hadn't really thought about it, about hugging her, what they'd think. I just did it and was suddenly hugely embarrassed. My eyes started to hurt and I turned around to grab at the wheelchair and try to sit down and pay attention and to feel better and think of what to say. What to think. I missed the chair and almost fell before they all grabbed me and I guess that distracted them.

-

What I was thinking, it was stupid and they wouldn't understand. ~I~ didn't, even. But I wanted to hug her, I mean, when I did, even if I didn't understand why I did something like... so different for me. If I'd thought about it that way, I wouldn't have.

I wanted to be back in the bed, not leaving. I wanted nobody to come and see me again, so I could cry. My emotions were all over the place. Like wanting to be alone.

I wanted Carson there so I could cry.

-

End of Part 1