Page 106 of Play For Me

CECELIA

This is not happening. It’s not. There’s no way this is fucking happening.

My brain is a jumble of panic and pain. I just keep remembering, over and over again, the sound that my knee made.

The same sound it made when I tore my ACL last year.

Please,I think, not even sure who I’m begging.Please don’t let this be real.

I want Solomon. The second I went down all I could think was that I needed him. He would figure out what was going on. He would fix it for me.

When they told him to go back to the field, I knew he was seconds away from refusing. I could see it on his face—he would have told them no, told them he was staying with me, no consideration given to his program or the need to keep us a secret. I couldn’t let him do that.

But God, I had wanted him to.

Because now the trainer is helping me up onto one of the treatment tables and it’s cold in here and I’m so scared, and I just want him, damn it. I want him to stand next to me and holdmy hand, his calm and quiet radiating off of him until I feel calm and quiet myself.

“CeCe!” I look up and see my parents standing in the doorway. My mom has a fierce look on her face but my dad looks about two seconds away from crying. I take a deep breath, forcing the panic away.

I cannot lose it in front of my parents.

“You guys sure picked a good game to bring half the family to,” I tell them, attempting a joking tone. They’re not buying it. My mom pushes her way past Genie, the team’s student manager who’s been hovering worriedly at the door since we got back here, and comes to my side, taking my hand, her attention going straight to my knee. She doesn’t even try to hide her grimace at the swelling, and my stomach churns.

She knows, too. She knows that I’m totally screwed.

“Mrs. Ransome,” Devon says, nodding at her. “Mr. Ransome.”

Dad comes up on my other side, leaning down to kiss my head. There are tears in his eyes and it makes me want to cry, too, but I have to keep it together.

“You look a little green, Dad,” I tell him, still trying to keep it light. “Don’t puke on me, okay?”

“I’ll do my best, baby girl,” he says, his voice shaky.

Meanwhile Devon is rotating my knee and pressing into the tissue and I’m doing my best not to scream in pain. After a moment, he looks up and meets my eye and I justknow.

“We need to do an MRI,” he says, voice carefully even. “This could very well be an MCL sprain. Or irritated scar tissue from your ACL graft.”

I grit my teeth so I don’t start screaming. Yeah, it could be one of those things. But the dread pounding through my blood doesn’t lessen. It’s like my body knows what’s happening without being told.

My knee is fucked. Again.

Do people come back from this twice?

“We’re gonna try to stay positive,” Mom says, squeezing my shoulder. Is she not meeting my eye, or is that just my imagination?

“Yes,” Dad agrees quickly, kissing my head again. “I’m sure everything is going to be fine.”

I want to agree with them, put on a good show, pretend to be confident. But I also want to burst into tears. I want to scream and cry about how unfair this is. I worked so freaking hard to come back from my injury. Sol worked so freaking hard to keep me healthy and playing at my best. All the effort, all the pain I went through, and it’s all going to be for nothing.

It isn’tfair.

Devon is applying ice and compression while he talks to my parents about what needs to happen next, something about contacting the team doctor and setting up scans. I barely hear him because it’s taking all of my focus to not completely lose my shit right now. Eventually he gives my leg a gentle pat. “I’ll give you some time with your family. I’m going to get you a brace and some crutches for tonight. Keep it elevated while I’m gone, okay?”

When he opens the door to leave, I hear voices in the hallway outside. My first thought is that Sol is finally here, but then I see my brother Will’s tall frame in the door, Wyatt right behind him. They’re wearing nearly identical expressions of tense worry. Aunt Daisy and Uncle Daltrey come in next, then my sisters-in-law, and the other Littles are pushing their way through, too—and I cannot do this right now.

I can’t keep up a brave face for all of them. I can’t tease Vega for the tears streaming down her face. I can’t pretend like I’m not absolutely losing my shit sitting here on this treatment table.

But I have to. I’m not the girl who falls apart. I’m not the girl who cries in the middle of a room full of people. The game must be nearly over which means any minute now this building is going to be filled with my coaches and my teammates—what will they think if they find me sniffling like a baby?