Page 70 of Play For Me

But if I told her all that. she’d probably leave. And I really, really don’t want her to leave.

Instead, I sit next to her at the desk, me in the desk chair, Cecelia sprawled in the armchair she dragged over from the corner. She makes us both two containers of microwave mac and cheese (“Just to start,” she says) and I pour Sprite into the tiny plastic water cups hotels like this always provide. And my hands don’t even shake—probably because I can actually feel my fingers now. Weird. That’s usually the last thing to go back to normal.

“Why don’t you have any ice?” she asks. At first, I think she means an ice pack for her knee, and the voice in my brain immediately does that rapid fire thing where it tells me she’s actually just here to treat her injury and I’m an idiot if I think it’s anything more personal.

I shove the voice down when I see her peering into the empty ice bucket. “I don’t know,” I tell her. “I didn’t think I needed it.”

She gives me an incredulous look. “The first thing I do when I get to a hotel is fill up my ice bucket. What if you want water?”

“I’ll get it from the tap?”

“But it won’t be cold.” She taps the bucket. “Hence the need for ice.”

“Aren’t ice machines notoriously filthy?”

She glowers at me. “That’s an urban legend.”

“No, I’m pretty sure?—”

She holds up a hand. “Sol, I’m gonna stop you right there. I have spent a disproportionate amount of my life in hotel rooms and will likely continue to do so as long as I’m playing soccer and half my family tours the country to perform music. A nice colddrink with ice is one of the true enjoyments of life. Do not take that away from me.”

I shake my head, smiling at her.

Holy shit, I’msmiling. Like, the muscles in my face are actually moving enough for me to be able to do that. Less than twenty-four hours after seeing my mother and I’m already smiling.

Interacting with either of my parents usually sends me spiraling for days.

I try to keep my focus on Cecelia and not thoughts of my parents. “Would you like me to go get you some ice?”

She sighs, flopping back into her arm chair. “No, it’s fine,” she says in a long-suffering voice. “I can deal with lukewarm Sprite.”

“The challenges you face,” I say drily, and am rewarded with one of those bright smiles that always make my heart trip.

We eat mostly in silence. I’m not quite feeling better enough to be more sociable than just sitting with another person. And it’s not like I’m usually particularly chatty anyhow. Cecelia doesn’t seem to mind, though. She appears perfectly happy as she puts back three containers of mac and cheese and a banana.

“As your trainer, I should probably be appalled by this as a post-game meal,” I tell her.

“Are you kidding? I’m carb loading.”

“You’re supposed to have protein after a work-out.”

She peers down at her empty container. “There was probably some protein in that powdered cheese.” Then she nudges my shoulder. “I ate a grilled chicken sandwich right after the game and I had a protein shake before I went to Target. I’m fine.”

The guilt seeps back in, stronger and sharper now that I’m not feeling so numb. “I fucked up your knee,” I mutter, looking down. “I’m so sorry.”

“What are you talking about? You didn’t do anything to my knee.”

I give her a sharp look. “You should have had treatment before the game. We both know it.”

She just shrugs. “If I had asked you to treat me, would you have said no?”

I shake my head. Even as shut-down as I had been feeling, I never would have said no to her.

“Then it sounds like a me problem,” she says easily. “I could have asked you or one of the other trainers, but I didn’t, because I didn’t want to draw attention to the fact my knee is still giving me problems. That’s on me, Sol.”

It doesn’t do much to make me feel better, but this could be the in I’ve been looking for. “Maybe you should tell them, then. That way you’ll have a whole team of coaches and trainers looking out for your injury.”

She slumps back in her chair, looking defeated. “I’m scared to tell them. I’m scared it will make it more real if I tell them. I’m scared they’ll treat me differently or minimize my playing minutes.” She sighs. “I’m just scared.”