Page 34 of The Cadence

I just couldn’t get the image out of my mind.

It had been the third quarter and the Woodsmen had been down by seven points to the Rackers, which I definitely didn’t blame on the defensive players.

The offense was just lackluster and it hadn’t surprised me that at the end of the game, the score reflected—

But the Woodsmen loss didn’t matter, not compared to what had happened in the third quarter.

It had been a routine kind of running play on first down, a draw where the dumb Rackers running back had taken the ball from the dumb Rackers quarterback and tried to get a few yards ahead with it.

There was nothing that had signaled to me that anything would go wrong.

It was only when the whistle blew and the play was over that I saw what was happening.

Everyone else stood up but Will was still kneeling on the ground, resting his helmet in his hand.

He’d stayed like that, almost like he was frozen there, and then Woodsmen personnel had run out onto the field to surround him.

He had still been kneeling in the same position as the national TV broadcast had cut to a car commercial.

Cully had been standing next to me, watching the big screens in the grocery store, and I’d turned to him in horror.

“Here, I have an idea,” he said, and took out his phone.

“My mom always watches the games with the sound turned down so she can hear Herb and Buzz do their radio commentary. They might still be talking.” He had muted the store’s TVs and turned up the volume on his phone so that I’d heard the now-familiar voices.

“They’re getting Bodine to his feet and it looks like he’s needing a lot of help as they walk back to the sidelines. The crowd is giving some sporadic applause but we should be hearing more support from them, Buzz. I know our Woodsmen fans would step up and—”

“He’s walking. That’s great,” Cully had whispered, and I had shushed him.

But all they said next was that he’d gone into the injury tent.

We kept the TVs muted to continue listening to Herb and Buzz, since they seemed to know everything Woodsmen-related and were very clearly on the side of our team.

The only other thing they reported about Will was that he was back on the bench but wouldn’t be coming in to play again.

The TV cameras showed him with a towel over his head so that I couldn’t even see his face.

“It’s good news that they didn’t take him to a hospital or something,” Cully said, and I nodded and thanked him for his help.

Then I waited for the game to end so that I could talk to Will directly and learn exactly what was wrong.

I waited for what felt like years and I wrote to him a few times… quite a few times.

On the way home from the store, with that image of him kneeling on the field plastered in the forefront of my mind, I finally heard back.

“I’m ok,” he texted. “It’s my ankle again but it’s fine.”

I pulled over so I could devote myself to reading and so that I could avoid an accident in this nice car. “What happened?”

Just a slight sprain, he said, and it was really ok. “I can tell.”

“Did medical tests also tell that? What tests? How many? When will you repeat them?” I had a lot more questions but as I was writing, two words came back to me.

“Hold on.”

Then my phone rang and I answered. “I figured you’d feel better if you heard my voice,” Will explained. “I feel better when I hear yours.”

“I do,” I said, because I experienced a rush of relief. “I was so worried.”

“I’m going to get hurt sometimes,” he told me. “That’s part of the job. But I’m ok, I promise. Can you do me a favor?”

I was nodding but also managed to say that yeah, I definitely could.

“Can you pick me up at the airport?”

“I’m coming right now,” I answered, and signaled and turned out onto the road before I realized that I didn’t know how to get there and would have to plan a little better. I hadn’t lived here long enough to learn my way around.

“No, don’t come yet.” He gave me the team’s ETA and he told me where to wait for him, and he also said that he’d tell the security people to let me through.

“I don’t think I should drive with this leg but if I get a car, everyone in the whole town will hear and talk about how I can’t even push on a pedal.

All the other guys just want to get home to their families instead of chauffeuring me. ”

“I’ll chauffer you! I’ll do it!”

“Calla, take a breath. I have to hang up but I’ll see you soon. Don’t drive too fast.”

I checked the speedometer and saw that it was good advice. “I’ll be there when the plane lands.”

“I know,” he told me.

And I was absolutely there, about an hour before he’d said to arrive.

I’d driven past a gaggle of orange-clad fans on my way in and the security guard had directed me over to the hangar.

I saw the lights in the sky as the orange plane came in for a smooth landing and I made myself stay in the car as it taxied slowly past the main airport building and to this smaller one, which had “Woodsmen Football” painted on its side.

The players got out, and the coaches, and then Will. He was walking with crutches and Langston, the center, carried his bag for him. They approached where I was parked and then I couldn’t stop myself from jumping out and running over.

“Oh, Holy Moses! This is bad, Will. This is bad!” Because there was some kind of contraption on his leg, and the crutches, and—

“No, it’s fine. I promise,” he said, and then he did something kind of surprising. He reached forward and took my hand, and he pulled me to his chest to hug me. “You sounded so worried on the phone. Your voice was an octave higher than normal.”

“I was very worried but…but it’s not about me, so let’s get into the car.”

“To do that, we’ll have to let go of each other,” he said quietly. I didn’t want to.

But I did, because it really wasn’t about me and I wasn’t going to make a man with an injured leg stand there just so we could hug, no matter how wonderful and earth-shatteringly amazing it had felt.

It was like I was floating up to the stars, that kind of amazing, but no matter!

I stepped away. “I put the passenger seat all the way back so there’s plenty of room for you.

Thank you, Langston, I’ll take that bag,” I said briskly.

Will answered some questions about treatment and doctors on the way home but he would get a lot more information the next day when the Woodsmen team got their hands on him.

For now, my hands were on him—not really, just in the sense that I was the person currently in charge of his recovery.

That was why I immediately heated tomato soup and made grilled cheese when we got home, as he rested on the couch with his leg up.

“This is what my grandma made for me the first time I got sick when I was at her house,” I explained as I put the tray on the new coffee table.

There was plenty of seating in here now, but it was too heavy to move so I carried a chair from the dining room so I could place myself right next to him.

There might have been some kind of food emergency or another good reason that I needed to be close.

“Did you make this for her, too?”

“When she wanted to eat,” I answered, nodding. Then I exhaled a shaky breath. “I’m sorry. This all reminded me a lot of what happened with her. I was watching how you weren’t able to stand and then no one would say what was really wrong with you and if you were going to be all right.”

“I am, though. Here.” He handed me the paper napkin that I’d placed on his tray, and I wiped my eyes. I’d also put a dish of cut-up broccoli and carrots on the tray because vegetables were good for you, which was something else I’d learned from my grandma. “What did you think of the game?”

“The defense went to pieces after the third quarter and don’t get me started on the problems with the offense,” I answered immediately, and Will laughed. That made me feel better than any of the words he’d said to console or convince me.

“Did you eat dinner?” he asked.

I thought about coming home from the grocery store after his call, running around like a crazy person, and then leaving again. I didn’t seem to remember eating during that time. “I don’t think so,” I admitted.

“Want half?” He offered a triangle of sandwich and I gratefully took it. “Tell me about your day.”

I hadn’t mentioned anything to him about Cully’s shenanigans next to the loading dock because it felt a little strange to text about that.

When I looked at the dinner tray and the little bowl of vegetables, I also remembered the weird customer who found phallic food.

“There was a thing about a baguette,” I said, and told him the story.

Will agreed that it was very weird and suggested that I call him the next time I saw the guy.

“I can deal with it,” I answered. “Today he ran away when I confronted him and I doubt he’ll be back.

But that isn’t the only sex thing happening at the store.

” I told him about the loading dock and what was going on there between Cully and Kirsten, and also about the terrible smells, the garbage, and the rodents.

“There are rats?” He shifted his leg and I got nervous. “No, it’s fine.”

“I think the smell would bother me more. Also, a lot of body parts are open to the air when you’re doing that. Who knows what’s floating around back there? Could you catch something? I don’t even like to walk around that area, let alone...”

“Well, I can’t criticize. My own standards for, uh, encounters were lower only a few years ago,” he admitted.