Page 25

“Ready!” Mali calls. She’s not ready. Everything from her posture to the ridiculous shorts she has on to how she keeps flipping her hair over her shoulder tells him she’s not ready. But he throws the ball (lightly) anyway.

She does a small jump that’s unnecessary because it went straight at her, but she does catch it in both hands. Then, before he can tell her, she’s spun the ball onto one palm, her hand tight against it, and starts running. She’s dodging, spinning, and tricking her way through players that don’t exist, but if they did, she’d probably make it to the ten-metre line before she got tackled to the ground. Zach forgets to give her tips because he’s distracted by the muscles in her legs, and by the way her arse moves as she runs. He’s probably going to try and kiss her later.

Even as her hair wraps around her face, she keeps running. Zach’s not sure where she’s going, but as she makes a beeline for the goal, he should have known. They started halfway down the pitch, and he knows she hates running, and that’s only from the laboured breathing she has when she runs up stairs. The distance doesn’t deter her, though. She keeps running. He should wait here, watch her score, and wait for her to return. And yet, he can’t help himself. He runs after her.

There’s no attempt to catch her (even if he thought he could) but he is closer to her when she realises she’s made it over the line. Her excitement is contagious, though, and he finds himself smiling as she touches the ball to the ground and immediately jumps into the air. He hears the players cheering for her too. Kai is coming back on to show her how to do a scrum, but Zach’s not sure she’s going to be able to reach. Maybe he’ll let her climb on his back.

“I did it!” she shouts, then deepens her voice like a commentator. “Number one goal scorer Mali Okeye has overtaken Zachariah Azan!” She picks the ball up again, and Zach can only assume she’s about to do the same on the other end of the pitch. He wonders if he’ll let her win, even as he makes no attempt to chase her.

And then he watches Toby move. Everything in Zach wants to believe it’s friendly. That he’s just going to pretend to tackle her, maybe even make a play for the ball. But Zach knows better than that. Mali would know too, but she hasn’t seen him coming.

“Mali!” he screams. His voice is almost inhuman. Fear travels through him with every stride he takes to get to her, to protect her, but it’s too late. She spins, and before she can scream, Toby’s shoulder hits her ribs, and she flies. The world stops spinning. Everything stands still. He can see Frankie’s face, open and scared. He can see Ezra already running across the pitch, but it’s too late.

Her body hits the ground, her head bouncing off the floor, and Zach barely keeps running through his shaky knees.

“What the fuck?” he heaves out, dragging Toby off her. Her eyes are wide, and he wishes she got knocked out. Now, she’s going to have trouble breathing, she’s going to be scared, she’s going to be in pain, she’ll be awake for it all, and all he can do is punch Toby in the face. It’s feral, the way he keeps pulling back, and back, and back. A bone crunches under his knuckles, and he’s covered in blood. There are hands on him, trying to get him away, but he’s too lost in it.

“Zach,” Mali whispers. He drops the front of Toby’s T-shirt and stumbles over, pushing people out of the way. “Stop… being…” Her breathing is too shallow, and it near kills him. “…a Neanderthal.”

“What hurts?” he asks, pushing her hair out of her face. She’s got blood running from her nose, but it doesn’t look broken. They haven’t moved her, so Frankie must be worried about a break at best, a punctured lung at worst.

“I’m… fine,” she wheezes.

“Don’t lie to me,” he says, reaching for her hand. She grips it tight. “Tell me, baby, please.”

She blinks a few times. “My chest, maybe… maybe my ribs… and my back. I think my face is broken.”

“It’s not broken, baby. You’re beautiful. Uhm, okay. Okay. Can you feel this?” he presses down on her thigh with his hand. She nods her head, and he does it until he reaches her feet.

“Ye—yeah, yes. I can feel it all.”

“Okay, that’s good. That’s really good. I don’t want you to move, okay?”

“Can you stay with me?” she asks, her face panicked.

“Yeah, of course. I’m right here. No, no—don’t close your eyes.”

“I’m tired,” she says, but she keeps her eyes open all the same. He’s so proud of her.

“I know you are,” he replies. He lies down next to her, and she tilts her neck to look at him. The blood runs down her cheek, and he clenches his jaw so hard he thinks his teeth might shatter. Finally, Frankie is back, and she'll determine what happens next. He has to trust her. “If you keep your eyes open the whole time, I’ll make you tea forever,” he promises.

Mali laughs, coughing as she does. “You’d do that for me anyway.”

“I would,” he whispers. “I would. But please, just for me, keep your eyes open.”

She looks at him, and she looks terrified, like she’s in so much pain it can’t be good, and he swallows down bile. “It’s a good thing I like your face.”

“You have the hots for me so bad.”

She laughs, but her face scrunches in pain, and her eyes water.

“Don’t leave me, okay?” she whispers.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Zach leans against the dining table, taking a deep breath. Mali is okay. She has bruising to her ribs and back but no breaks. He breathes out. Toby is off the team. He breathes in. Mali is home, asleep in her bed. He breathes out. I watched her head bounce off the floor. He breathes in. She’ll be up and walking slowly tomorrow. He breathes out. She said I’d never let anything hurt her, and moments later, someone almost took her head off.

There’s not been a moment since he met her where he’s ever thought he was good enough for her. That there would ever be a way in which he deserved her. He just didn’t think he’d make it as painfully obvious as this. Zach is only good for one thing, and he couldn’t even get that right.

He wonders if this is the sort of shit he could bother a therapist with. The first time he went to see the team therapist, he was nervous, but he’d thought it was the right thing to do. Everyone kept saying he was angry, that things get fixed in therapy, that it would be good for him. But within the first twenty minutes, the guy wanted to bring up every tragic thing that had happened to Zach during his childhood. Zach barely knew where to begin, and by the time he’d gotten his trauma out, the session was over.

He’d complained to his mum about it, and anyone would think he’d called her the worst mother in the world. He’d forgotten that while his mum was more progressive than most of her friends (she didn’t kick him out when she caught him kissing a guy, but it did take a her a few weeks to look at him again) therapy was not something she abides. At the time, he only had her, so he said okay and never went again.

His problems never went away, but he got slightly better at containing it. He was fine being the moody guy no one wanted to talk to. He was fine following a ridiculous company who stole half his wages around the country. He was fine with the idea he’d have sex and never form an attachment. He was fine.

And then Mali came along, and everything he pretended he never wanted was wrapped up in a tiny purple-haired package who laughed when he could only talk to her with Google as his wingman. The woman who was furious for him when everyone else was waiting to find out what he could do for them next. The woman who smiles at him the moment he walks through the door. Falling in love with her wasn’t the plan—it wasn’t even on his radar—but he never had a choice.

Now, he has real fear. Deadly fear.

When he Googles it, it appears this is the kind of thing he could talk to a therapist about. He’s not looking to figure out the fear. It makes sense. She easily could have died. That’s reasonable fear. But living the rest of his life without her, her no longer existing, the realisation that he wants her for the rest of his existence. That part of his happiness, his safety, his life, hinders on her being happy and healthy. That’s the real fear.

Zach wants to talk to someone about it, and the only person he feels comfortable enough to talk about it with is knocked out on pain meds because he failed.

The doorbell rings, and Zach closes his eyes for a moment, then gets up and answers it because he’s still a functioning member of society, even after almost thirty-four hours at the hospital. He needs to see his mum because Devon won’t answer his calls. Zach doesn’t want to leave Mali here, alone, but he can’t call her parents because it’s the middle of the night. Thankfully, they’d already gone home yesterday. Game day had turned into practice, and no one wants to be around Frankie shouting for that long. Now, Zach’s mum will probably be asleep, but she also might have been alone for an entire day. At the hospital, Mali said Zach’s mum went to dinner with her parents, so at least the evening was okay.

The thought of leaving either of them is going to split him in half.

When the door opens, Mosi’s got him in a hug before he realises it’s him, and Zamina is patting his shoulder from behind her husband. It was sheer luck that Zach convinced them not to come to the hospital. It was taking a while to be seen. She wasn’t allowed visitors. It made no sense for them to come just to sit in the carpark. Zach texted them every ten minutes. He sat on the phone with Zamina for an hour. He made sure he told them when they were on their way home. Now, it’s one a.m., and they’re on the doorstep.

“Oh, hey,” he replies, hugging him back. He tries to move them, which isn’t that hard because Mosi is like five foot five on a good day. Zach could run to check on his mum now, if they’re staying.

“Hey, sweetie,” Zamina says, her voice kind, like she’s not about to hit him for letting Mali get hurt. “Is she asleep?”

“Yeah,” he replies, and Mosi lets go just in time for Zach to see his mum close the porch door. She’s here. In front of him. He doesn’t have to leave at all.

“Ma?”

“Oh, come here,” she says, pulling him into a hug. Zach sighs. He always feels better when his mum is here. By the time Zach’s back in the kitchen, the kettle is on, and there’s piles off food on the side.

“Mal likes chicken soup when she’s unwell, so this should see you through the week. I made extra. Mir says you eat like an ox.”

Zach smiles. “I do. Thank you.”

“How are you doing?” Zamina asks.

“I’m alright.”

“Sweetie,” his mum starts, sitting at the dining table. Mosi places teas around. They’re not Mali, but she’s the only reason all three of them are here at the same time. Zach can’t believe he’s spent the past three years looking after his mum alone, begging people to help, and Mali has got it sorted in a matter of weeks. He didn’t even ask her to. She just did it. Because she cares about him. She thinks about what he might need. The things he’s terrified to ask for, and she does it anyway.

“I just need her to never be hurt,” Zach says, rubbing his eyes like it’s going to take any of the ache away. “I really just need that.”

“Oh, son,” Mosi says. “Having a child is the hardest thing in the world.” Zach sees the tiredness in his eyes now. They weren’t at the hospital, but they clearly didn’t sleep either. “You raise them, and you send them out into the world hoping they’ll be happy, safe, and kind. Mali’s been just that, but we’ve never seen Mali anywhere near as happy as she is now. She’s always been kind, but it’s different. She’s being kind and being smart about it. She’s protecting herself more. That’s because of you.”

Zach frowns, and Zamina takes over.

“Mali can talk for England—we’ve all witnessed it—but she doesn’t talk about anything as much as she talks about you. She tells us you had a strawberry smoothie in the morning, and we know Mosi is a superfan, but honestly, he’s never asked. She tells us what you’re fixing for her. She tells us how she had a go at Toby because he was always rude to her, and she only had the courage to do it because you were in the kitchen, looking at her.” And then he let her get hurt by the same man. He should have knocked Toby out months ago.

Zamina keeps talking, so he shoves thoughts of murder to the back of his mind. “She’s taken all her favourite qualities from you and moulded them into herself.”

His mum smiles at him. “She’s kind of obsessed with you, sweetie.”

“Don’t beat yourself up,” Mosi says. They’re all being too kind. “There’s nothing you could have done. If you told her not to do the run, she would have told you to go eff yourself. All you can do is let her run free and be there for her after. That’s all she wants.”

“I could wrap her in a suit of armour,” he mumbles, and Zamina laughs.

“You could, and she’d get a silver wig to match it, but she can still get hurt. It’s not your fault if she does.”

“I love her,” he says, mainly to himself because he hasn’t even told Mali yet. There’s no big gasp. No shocked faces. He wonders how obvious it is. “And I don’t know how to contain it all.”

“Just let it out, sweetheart.”

Mosi frowns. “Why would you need to contain it? Son, you’re not very subtle. You sit on the floor of a hospital just so she can sit comfortably against you. You take her makeup off with gauze and wet wipes you stole from a nurse, and you pay someone hundreds of pounds to go and get her a hot chocolate so you didn’t have to leave her.”

Zach frowns. “How did you know that?”

“Mali-Ali sent so many photos.”

Zach chokes out a laugh. “She’s such a stalker. I miss her so much.”

Zamina laughs. “She misses you too. Even in her sleep. She told me when she called us to check in on Mir.”

“We were already together, but it was sweet all the same,” his mum says. “I really like Mali for you. Well, I like her anyway, but I especially like her for you.”

“I like her too.”