The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady - Elizabeth Stuckey-French [47]
But her lingering injury was her left knee, which she kept twisting when she landed on it just so. The bursa sack in that knee, according to the PA, had gotten inflamed. She really needed to rest it, so she’d be ready for soccer camp in July, but how could she do that? It was wrapped up tightly today, making her feel like Lurch on the Addams Family. Things could be worse, she kept reminding herself. Another goalie she knew, in a game just a month earlier, clutched the ball close to her face after she’d captured it—a big no-no—and had gotten kicked in the jaw. Now this girl’s jaw was broken and her mouth wired shut.
Stay down there and get a goal. Please. Her teammates in their ghostie gray jerseys reminded her of soldiers on a battlefield, some with current injuries and some haunted by past injuries: Janie with her shin splints and Haley with her torn ligament and Amanda’s turf toe and Maddy’s broken nose.
Whoa. The Trojans’ center defense, a hulking s/he, delivered a slot ball down the field toward Suzi. Their right midfielder pounced and kept it moving. Suzi tensed up into the attack position. Take it away, she urged her teammates. Take it. Because of her knee, part of her dreaded having to defend their goal, but at the same time this was when she liked the game best—when it was up close and tense and she couldn’t think about anything else. The Sharks’ midfielders weren’t doing their jobs. Mia tried. Ali tried. A Trojan forward, little blond devil girl slipped in there, swiped the ball, and dribbled it toward Suzi.
Suzi stepped out into the penalty box. Once she came out she was committed. She had a personal goal for each game: to come out of her box at least twice. She’d already come out twice, and those two had gotten by her. Not this time.
She clapped her hands, spit on her gloves, watching the ball, and here it came, zinging toward her from left field and she lunged forward, her weight on the bad knee, and her kneecap popped.
At least she’d stopped them from scoring.
She lay there on the ground, trying to breathe. She lay there, feeling like she was underwater, the pain in her knee like a weight pulling her down. Her father was bending over her, Annika, Mykaila, her team members, saying things, but they were above the water and their words were muffled. None of this was surprising. What was surprising was the fact that she felt so relieved. That’s that. She marveled at her lack of emotion. But then Nance was kneeling beside her, getting down into the water with her, stroking her hair, holding her hand, and that’s when Suzi started crying.
* * *
Suzi didn’t listen to her iPod or to Star 98. When her friends and Davis called, she had nothing to say. She didn’t feel like reading or MySpacing. She didn’t want to be out on the couch in the den, watching TV. She wanted to lie in her room under her purple and orange sixties mod-daisy-patterned comforter and do nothing.
Unlike Ava’s room, which underwent a radical change every few months—Ava threw out all her dolphin posters and everything dolphin-related when she plunged into Elvis—or Otis’s room, which never had anything but science crap in it, Suzi’s room—the smallest of the three kids’ bedrooms—was layered with things from every stage of her life and every interest she’d ever had. Her white iron bed, which her mom had rescued from a junk store and painted pink for her second birthday. The black wool carpet with colored butterflies that Suzi herself picked out at T.J. Maxx when she was four. Her old posters of animals and newer ones of rock groups—My Chemical Romance, Panic at the Disco. The clutter on her desk and dresser and in the corners of the room and under the bed—plastic Pooh figures, lip gloss, shells, bird feathers, ticket stubs, crayons, soccer trophies, Brownie badges, dusty photos of her friends, stuffed animals, American Girl dolls. Her bookcase full of board books