Page 119 of Wild Catch
CHAPTER40
LOGAN
Icome to my senses with a jolt. Stabbing pain on my left flank immobilizes me and I swallow down a curse. Bright lights above me dance like they’re mocking me.
“What the…” I murmur, trying to sit up.
“Welcome back, Kim.”
Rather than trying to get up again, I just lay where I am and turn to the source of the voice. The head of the medical team is nearby along with McDonald and Socci, and a bunch of other staff members. I blink hard, trying to clear my vision but it doesn’t work. The dancing lights aren’t the ceiling fixtures, they’re the beginning of a migraine. Good thing I’m in the clinic, huh?
“What happened?” I ask. That’s when I notice that my voice is muffled by something. I paw around my face and feel the oxygen mask strapped around my head.
“You had a panic attack that made you pass out,” dude says with all the chill in the world, like he didn’t just voice my own worst nightmare.
“I—what?”
“Yeah, the guys took you off the field but we couldn’t get you under control in the clubhouse.” He’s scrolling through his iPad next to my bed, no doubt reviewing my chart. “I think we might have to change your medication and get you in therapy again.”
That’s—That all is fine, I don’t care. It wouldn’t be the first time I relapse. Something else is more pressing, though. Grunting, I brace my hands on the edges of the thin bed to lift my torso until I’m sitting. My side and my head pound just as strongly, but asynchronously. I peel off the oxygen mask and remove it, leveling a look at the doctor.
“Was I alone?” His eyebrows scrunch in confusion. I clear the grogginess off my throat and clarify, “When the panic attack happened. Was I by myself?”
“Ah.” He nods like he now understands with that big brain of his. “No, the team was there.”
“The team was…” I run a hand down my face.
“We have a really good crop of guys this year, to be honest. I’m really proud of the way they wanted to support you,” Socci says, smiling from ear to ear.
McDonald nods. “Machado surprised me, actually. I wasn’t expecting him to take control of the situation the way he did.”
“Sure made my job easy,” the doctor says with a chuckle. “I really thought for a second that the social media girl was gonna get you through it, but I guess it had already been too long with irregular breathing. How are you feeling now?”
“Rose?” My eyes go as wide as they possibly can. “She was there too?”
“Oh yeah. Wouldn’t let you go. We practically had to pry you off her to bring you here.”
“I thought the whole thing between you two was for show?” Socci’s eyebrows rise.
“I don’t think it is.” McDonald smirks at him.
Slowly, because my side is absolutely killing me, I bring my hands up so I can bury my face in them.
Maybe it shouldn’t matter to me if she saw me at my weakest. I’ve already taken myself out of the race. This might also be a blessing in disguise—she’ll finally understand that warning her off came from an honest place. This will make her move on and forget that I exist.
“Glad you’re awake,” a newcomer says. Beau’s entrance into the clinic filters in some of the noise in the clubhouse and I can clearly hear someone asking “how’s Kim?”
“Wait, the game is still on? I have to—” I swing my legs over the bed to get up.
“Nuh uh. You’re not going anywhere.” The doctor stops me with a hand on my shoulder—my bare shoulder. I look down at myself and find that I’m shirtless and there’s a massive ice pack strapped around my torso, directly over the area that hurts the most on my side.
“I’m placing you in the injured list,” Beau says, and if the revelations of the past few minutes weren’t already absolutely shitty, this is worse. “I don’t know which list yet, we needed you to wake up so we can run some tests.”
“I can’t go on the injured list. What about the series? What if this throws the whole season?”
Beau doesn’t mock the obvious dislike in my voice over this decision. He also doesn’t shoot me down as he could, because who the hell am I to question the manager? Instead, he says something even more lethal.
“This team isn’t as weak as to crumble without you.”
