Page 103 of Little Do You Know

I have a slight headache, but that’s expected after hitting your head? There’s no ringing in my ears, and I’m not experiencing any sensitivity to light.

Malik and Lyndsey take longer than I thought they would, but I lie back on the table while Owen and Coach C talk about today’s game. They’re discussing the last quarter after I came out, and how the team essentially fell apart. It makes my blood boil that we almost lost today after having such a big lead.

I should have seen the lineman coming, but I didn’t. I don’t really remember getting up and collapsing either.

Lyndsey takes the clipboard from where I had it sitting next to me, scanning over it. “Did you answer this honestly?”

“Yes,” I say shortly, sitting up feeling disgusting because I just want to shower.

“How does your head feel? Does anything else hurt?” she asks, looking me over quickly.

I try to keep my sarcasm to a minimum, but I’m pissed off. I don’t know how many times I have to say I’m okay before they believe me. “I feel like I got hit by a train, so of course I’m sore. Nothing is broken,” I insist, and Coach is quick to interject.

“Check his shoulder, please. It looked like Walker might have landed on it,” he adds, crossing his arms over his chest. I resist the urge to roll my eyes.

Lyndsey lifts my left arm up, moving it around at different angles to ask me what hurts and what doesn’t. I comply because I know it’s going to get me out of here sooner. She starts poking around at the muscles, and I grit my teeth as she hits a particularly sore spot. “Does that hurt?” she asks, and I shake my head. Lyndsey then pushes her fingers in harder on the back half ,causing me to try pulling out of her grip. “Liar, take your shirt off,” Lyndsey demands.

“No, just hurry up so I can leave.” Owen snorts, and I glare at him. I didn’t notice it until she started poking at it, but now it’s throbbing. She bristles up, grabbing a pair of scissors before I can react to cut through the fabric. “That’s my shirt!”

“You had the opportunity to take it off and chose to be a stubborn ass. My job is to help you, so let me help you.” And then she moves my arm again. “Can you really not feel this?” I try to turn and look to see what Lyndsey’s looking at, but based on the look on her face, I’m not sure I want to see.

Coach comes over to see what she’s looking at, and a spike of fear runs through me. The draft is only a few months away. I can’t get hurt now. Owen is looking over at me with concern as Malik tapes his ankle. I don’t know what to even think right now. We both know what a shoulder injury means for any kind of professional career. “Walker, take your damn shirt off, and let her look properly.”

I pull the rest off carefully to keep my shoulder from moving since they’ve effectively scared the shit out of me. “What is it?” I ask in a much calmer tone than the one I’ve been using. They seem a lot more concerned about my shoulder right now than my head. Should I be concerned?

Lyndsey starts to test different stretches, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say some of them felt like hell. The adrenaline must have been masking the pain, and now that things have settled, it’s starting to surface.

“I don’t know. Your mobility isn’t catching—which is good—that means there isn’t a tear. I think it’s just going to be a deep bruise, but we won’t know until it finishes bruising and the swelling goes down. Just to be on the safe side, I don’t want you doing anything with it for the next few days. You need rest: no lifting, no running, and certainly no practicing,” she says firmly, looking at Coach C, who nods his agreement.

“We have a bye week and then two more games before the bowl games start. Will Walker be okay to play by then?”

Malik hands Lyndsey a bag of ice, and she starts securing it tightly to the back of my shoulder using plastic wrap. “I need to clear him first. I’m concerned that he blacked out, but he isn’t showing any of the major signs of concussions, so I don’t think Sebastian has one. Just keep an eye on him. If he takes it easy like I’m telling him to, then he should be good to play. The key word is should,” Lyndsey says, shooting me a look that terrifies the crap out of me.

Got it, I need to follow her orders.

“You don’t need to tell me twice. Thank you.” I look over at Owen to see his ankle taped tightly and a set of crutches. “What about Owen? I thought it was just tight.”

He waves me off and stands up with the help of his crutches. “It’s a sprained ankle. The crutches are overkill. I’ll be fine in a few days so it looks like we get to be bench buddies.”

Coach shakes his head, cursing under his breath. “What the hell am I going to do with you two?”

“I didn’t exactly plan on getting hit today,” I say, grimacing as I adjust the ice on my shoulder. “How did that guy even get through? I never saw him coming.”

“Ryan injured his knee before halftime, so I pulled him for the second half, replacing him with Peters. Somehow, Peters got confused about the formation we were in and who he was supposed to be blocking,” Coach explains, clearly having replayed what happened multiple times.

After we’re excused from the training room, I toss my destroyed shirt away. Owen crutches alongside me as we head toward the locker room. “Are you actually okay?” he asks, and I look at him, annoyed.

“If another person asks me that question, I’m going to lose it. I’m fine. Are you?”

“I’ll survive. Bash, you really scared everyone today. Stop being such an ass to everyone trying to make sure you’re fine,” Owen warns as I hold the door open for him.

I inhale deeply, trying to calm my mind because he’s right. I am being an ass. “I’m sorry. I’m just stressed.” The locker room has cleared out.

He stops at his locker, a few down from mine. “I bet, but stressing about it isn’t going to do anything. You can’t change what happened today. You heard Lyndsey; after a few days of rest, you’ll be back to normal.”

“I heard her say, we won’t know more until the swelling goes down.”

“Whatever. I wonder if anyone caught Lia on film trying to run onto the field. If she weren’t so lazy, she might be faster than me,” he muses, and I look at him skeptically.

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