Playing For Love Page 4

  Ross finally got the car brought around and Jordan loaded me into the front seat before we all headed off towards the hospital. I listened while Ross told me that my mom and dad would be at the hospital waiting for us and that we should be there in about ten minutes. I heard it all, but all I could really think about was Jordan. How was I ever going to make him see me as more than just a little kid? Maybe this whole plan of trying to win him over is for nothing.

  Well, in the end I spend over two hours at the hospital. After an x-ray the doctors set my nose since it was really crooked from the ball smashing into it, and then did another x-ray to make sure it was still okay. “Setting,” by the way, is really just code for breaking it again, so it hurt as much as when the ball hit my face the first time. I actually cried from the pain this time, and I didn’t even care who saw it. This could have been because Ross left to take Jordan home, so it was just my mom and dad in the room at the time.

  The doctors then went over all the rules for my nose, like no playing soccer for a little while and said I needed to check back in with our family doctor in a few days so we could make sure it was healing properly and all that. We left then and that was when it got kind of gross. I had not gotten a really good look at my face until we got into the car, and I have to say it was a mess! The parts of my nose that I could see around the bandage were really red and blue and puffy and my eyes didn't look any better. It looked like I was punched in each eye, and then kicked in the nose or something.

  When I got home I tried to clean off any of the blood I could get to easily, and I could already tell that the bruises were going to get worse. I have a feeling it's no picnic under the bandage either, but I don’t get to take them off until Monday morning, so that'll have to wait. So now I’m resting and basically trying to think of how to tell my mom that I’m quitting soccer. I mean, the only reason I even wanted to play soccer was so Jordan would see me as this awesome sporty chick and want to date me. But, if he sees me as his little sister then I needed to try something else to get his attention. I don't know what that will look like, but after today it is pretty clear my soccer days are over!

  SEPTEMBER 12TH-FRIDAY

  Today's been a really long and exhausting day! Not that I did much of anything, but I think my pain medicine is just making me loopy. It's keeping my nose from hurting too much, but gives me no energy to go anything but nap and watch TV.

  Before I went to bed last night, my mom agreed that I wouldn't have to go to school today. So, by the time I woke up, it was already well into the school day. That for sure made the day start on a good note. When I went downstairs, there was a cute note from my mom since she had a meeting downtown with her editor all day. Since I don’t really know what homework I need to work on, and don’t really have any of my school stuff with me anyways, I plopped down and started watching movies on AMC. They kept me pretty entertained until Ross came home from school.

  “I have something for you,” he announced, handing me the biggest card I'd ever seen as soon as he walked in the door.

  It was basically a poster board that someone had decorated to be a massive greeting card. The front had a big soccer ball on it, with the words “GET WELL SOON” painted in sparkly gold letters. Then, when I opened the card, I couldn’t help but smile at all the names. Every girl on the soccer team had signed the card, as well as about another hundred people or so. I scanned for a few seconds to find Jordan’s name, and sure enough there it was! He wrote “Hope you are doing better Fi! See you soon! Love, Jordan.” The love was actually a heart that he drew, but still! It was amazing!

  “Skyler and Hayley wanted me to let you know that both teams won last night, and the girl on the other team that kicked the ball was super sorry,” Ross explained, taking a seat next to me on the couch. “Everyone has been pretty worried since you haven't post any updates on Facebook.”

  “Really?” I asked, surprised that people had actually been thinking about me that much.

  “Yup,” Ross nodded. “You should probably log on and post a picture of the card or something. I can take one of you holding it if you want.”

  “No!” I immediately protested. “I don’t want anyone to see my face like this yet.”

  “It’s not too bad anymore,” he offered with a shrug. “It looked a lot worse when it was still bleeding and super crooked.”

  “Maybe I’ll stick to just posting a photo of the card for now,” I tried, hoping it would be good enough.

  “That could work,” Ross agreed with a smile. “And I'll let everyone know at the football game tonight that you're still alive and just hopped up on a lot of pain meds.”

  “It's that obvious?” I asked, suddenly feeling self-conscious about my messy appearance.

  “Not really,” he said with a shake of his head. “I just know you've got to be since you didn’t even get up and get dressed. You never sit around the house in your pajamas all day!”

  “You’re not going to tell people that, are you?” I asked, suddenly imagining how it would sound to everyone, especially Jordan.

  “Don’t worry,” he said standing up. “Your secrets safe with me.”

  He stood there for a second, and without knowing what else to do I looked over the names again. So many people wrote their names or other sweet comments. People had also drawn hearts and soccer balls and all kinds of little doodles all over the open space, making it look like a lot of thought and time went into making it for me. I knew as soon as I found the energy to actually get up and go to my room I was going to have to hang it up somewhere so I could see it all the time.

  “I’m going to make some food before the game,” Ross said, breaking the silence. “Do you want anything?”

  “I think I’m okay for now,” I explained. “I had some Hot Pockets a while ago so I’m pretty full.”

  “Okay. If you change your mind let me know,” he added before heading to the kitchen.

  It was then, once Ross walked away, that I realized that we'd just had a real conversation! And Ross didn't even roll his eyes at me once! It was pretty cool. But, it was also so confusing. I was sitting there, staring at the card, wondering what made him so normal all of a sudden, when it hit me; Ross was worried about me when my nose got hurt and was maybe finally deciding to be a nice older brother.

  The thought put me in an even better mood than I was already in after seeing the card. Before I could forget I quickly snapped a photo of the front of the card, holding it out in front of me so it was the only thing in the picture, and posted it to my Facebook page. I made sure to add a good caption to update everyone as well. “This card was the perfect pick me up that I needed today. I’m still in a little pain, but my nose is doing pretty okay, all things considered! Thank you all for taking the time to think about me! Miss you!”

  Within seconds, the photo was getting likes and comments from people at school who were happy to hear that I was doing well. I only scanned over a few of them before I was interrupted by Corra texting me. She was basically letting me know that her and Beth were coming over with movies and ice cream, and if I had any special requests for either, then I should let her know. I replied to her quickly then suddenly found the motivation to go put on a different outfit. Although Beth and Corra have seen me in my pajamas before, I wanted to look like I put a little effort into getting ready for the day, to make up for my mangled face if nothing else!

  I ended up putting on old jeans and a hoodie and actually brushing through my hair before returning to my spot on the couch. And, since then I don’t think I've moved more than a few times to go to the bathroom or get more snacks. Corra and Beth showed up and just joined me in watching movies and hanging out. Oh, and Ross stopped in before he left for the game to say goodbye and tell us to have a fun night. It was super sweet of him!

  The one thing that is a little bit of a bummer though is that Taylor decided to go to the game with her sister instead of hanging out with us. I know that I don’t know her super well yet, but I really thou
ght she would've come over too. I mean, she signed the card for me, and she liked the photo I posted on Facebook. But in a way, I guess I just expected her to skip the game like my other friends. At least I have Beth and Corra here. Well, them and my pain meds...that appear to be really kicking in....

  SEPTEMBER 13TH-SATURDAY

  After a long night watching movies with Beth and Corra I decided I wanted to go to the soccer game today to support the team. So, I got up early and tried to shower and put on an outfit that looked pretty cute while still wearing my soccer jersey. Thankfully my mom was able to wash all of the blood out of it, so I didn’t look like a crazy person wearing it. We left in time to get some donut holes for everyone to enjoy either before or after the game, then headed to school.

  Well, my plans to sit in the stands ended as soon as the girls saw me! They were super excited that I was back and were all hugging me and telling me how the rest of the game went and everything. It made me feel good, but at the same time it was kind of bad since they were all staring at my nose and eyes like I was some kind of monster! Even Coach Heather’s eyes about popped out of her face when she saw my bruised and broken face.

  Now, I have to admit that I don’t totally blame them. I mean, my nose is still covered with ugly white cast thing that stays on until I see the doctor Monday morning. But even with that covering my nose, I can totally still see that it is red and purple and swollen. On top of that I not officially have two black eyes. They're not as swollen as they looked yesterday morning before I iced my face every few hours, but they're not looking normal at all! So, all in all, I look just like a tried to catch a soccer ball with my nose. Which is more or less true actually.

  “You’re staying for the game right?” Hayley asked me once everyone had welcomed me and taken one of the donuts my mom was offering.

  “Of course!” I grinned. “We wanted to get here early to say hi to everyone and get good seats.”

  “You aren’t sitting on the bench?” Torri asked, having overheard my comment to Hayley.

  “Oh….I didn’t know that I could…” I said slowly, not sure if I was even allowed to sit on the bench when I wasn't going to be playing in the game at all.

  “Of course you can sit on the bench!” Coach Heather announced. “This is your team and you earned a right to be on this bench weeks ago!”

  I felt a little bad that my mom would have to sit alone, but she assured me that she had some friends she could sit with. So, instead of sitting in the stands and cheering from there like I had planned, I got to watch both games from the bench! I was going to sit with the JV girls during the varsity game, but everyone insisted I stay on the bench as a good luck charm since JV won their game. Now, I know I really didn't make much difference, but I stayed there and cheered extra loud the whole game. And again, not that I made a difference at all, varsity also won their game! It made the morning feel like a real success!

  After saying goodbye to everyone and receiving a big round of well wishes, we loaded into the car to head home. My nose was pretty sore from all the yelling and excitement, but I turned to my mom ready to make the plea of a lifetime.

  “Can we go buy makeup?” I asked, trying to ask nicely while making my voice firm at the same time since I wanted her to know this was important to me.

  “You already have makeup,” my mom laughed. “Or did you forget that you stole some of mine?”

  “I mean like real makeup,” I began again. “I don’t want to go to school Monday and have everyone stare at me the way the girls on the team did. I want to look at least a little normal.”

  “Is this about Jordan?” As soon as the words were out of my mom's mouth my jaw dropped open. “Don’t act so shocked. You girls talk about him all the time. And you’re not that good at whispering when you’re in your room on the phone sometimes.”

  “What?” I exclaimed, my face heating up instantly.

  “Don’t worry,” she assured me. “I don’t think Ross has ever caught on, so your secrets still pretty safe.”

  I let that sink in for a minute before I tried to talk again. I’m sure when I did my voice was a little bit deflated for sure. “Okay, it has a little to do with Jordan. But not just him. I didn’t like the way even the coaches looked at me when they saw me today. I can’t walk around school on Monday and watch every person I pass stare at me and talk about how bad I look. I just want to move on from the nose thing and go back to normal. But if all anyone sees when they look at me are puffy purple bruises then it'll be next to impossible.”

  When I was done talking, I had to carefully wipe my eyes since I started crying while explaining things to my mom. It was hard to tell her all of that and be so open about it with her. We've always been really close, but this was different. This was looking right at my mom and telling her how bad I felt about the way I looked and also tell her that I wanted to go against her wished for me to not wear makeup until I was a senior. I never cared about the rule much before since I didn’t have a real desire to use makeup, but now it suddenly felt like the rule was a little old fashioned.

  “I don’t know if I’m okay with you wearing makeup all the time, but I don’t want you to feel nervous about going back to school,” my mom assured me, reaching over to hold my hand. “I love you, and if you think it'll help you be ready to face the world, and Jordan, after all everything then I'll do my best to be okay with you wearing makeup. Just please nothing too crazy.”

  And I have to say, I really did try to stay clear of anything crazy! I picked colors that I think I'll wear the most, and totally steered clear of things like colored eyeliner and fake eyelashes and pretty much all of the lipstick completely. But, I ended up getting a lot of stuff to try out, and that’s exactly what I did! I sat with my mom at the kitchen table for at least three hours looking up videos on ways to make my makeup look natural and how to put it on so it did its job and all that. It gave us a lot of time to talk about something I have been thinking about over the last two days too.

  The thing is, I don’t know if I want to stay on the soccer team or not. I feel like now that I am injured it might be a good idea for me to leave the team and just support them with cheering and all that. Honestly, I just don’t know how I feel about playing in games and running the risk of getting hit in the face again. My mom didn't seem as easy to sway on this one, and instead told me that we could talk about it with the doctor when we go to get my cast off of my nose on Monday before school.

  So, I still don’t really know how I feel about staying on the team, but right now I have some really pretty copper-colored eyeshadow on that makes my eyes look awesome and some blush that is totally the wrong color, but helped me to see what NOT to do. Also, my conversation with my mom all afternoon was really amazing! It was cool to try makeup with her and chat about Jordan and soccer and everything. I’ve been so busy since school started that I’ve missed just hanging out with my mom. A little lame I guess, but when your mom is as cool as mine, it’s pretty awesome spending time with her!

  SEPTEMBER 15TH-MONDAY

  So yesterday was rather low key. I walked on the treadmill for a while, but decided not to run since my nose might not like all the jostling around, and then I spend more time working on my makeup. Oh, and I spend a LOT of time watching makeup videos online. I was trying to get myself all ready for what it would be like to make my nose look normal once the cast came off.

  Well, this morning was the moment of truth! We had a doctors appointment first thing in the morning and I got the cast off of my face. The doctor was super nice and cleaned my nose up really good before showing me what it looked like. And, surprisingly, it was not as bad as I thought it was going to be! It is still pretty swollen and has this cut near the bridge of my nose. But, considering I imagined my nose to be totally crooked, or falling off of my face or something, I was okay with how it looks overall.

  What I wasn't okay with, however, was the nose guard the doctor started talking about. My mom had asked him if I could still pla
y soccer and he explained that we could head on over to CVS to get a nose guard, and as long as I wore that I would be fine to play still. Even the idea of wearing it wasn't pleasant, and when I looked it up on my phone I started crying right there in the doctor's office! There was no way I could wear that and not look like a total idiot! But, my mom insisted that she would get one while I was at school, and sure enough it was waiting for me at home. It is super ugly with metal and plastic parts all with padding to keep my nose from getting hit. As soon as I saw it I knew I need tell my coaches I will be leaving the team! But I'll get back to that in a minute!

  Getting past the trauma of the face mask, I was actually really excited to get to school and see everyone! I made sure my mom gave me time to put on some makeup in the car after my appointment so that the bruising was barely noticeable. I also woke up super early today so I could straighten my hair and put the top half up so it was out of my face but still more or less down. So, with my hair and makeup doing a good job to take attention away from the cut and swelling on my nose, I got to school just as everyone was starting second period. And, it was crazy as soon as I walked through the hallways with my late pass!

  I walked out of the office and Taylor, Corra, and Beth were waiting for me. I had text them that I was on my way to school, and they actually got passes from their teachers so they could be there at the office when I walked in! Everyone else was in class, so it was nice to have a minute to be welcomed back by them. I got massive hugs, and compliments on my makeup. Since Taylor had not seen me on Friday it was a real test to see if she was going to notice how bad my nose was or not.

  “Aside from the cut it isn't super noticeable!” she assured me when I asked it my nose looked totally awful. “If I look really hard, I can see that it's swollen and stuff, but I have to really be looking for it!”