What You Don't See

Second Chances

I looked at the round black and white wall clock hanging directly above me.

39 seconds. It’d only been 39 seconds since I last checked. Is it possible that time slows down when you’re in pain? I think so.

I had only been sitting in the waiting room for 40 minutes but it felt like hours. The small conversation eventually dwindled down.

Now I was just listening to Cole’s heavy breathing and the faint music blaring through his headphones.

Turns out we won the section championship. After Brian injured Jake with his dirty slide tackle, their whole team was a little shaken and the guys were more determined than ever to come through with a win. Being section champions ranked us higher than we've ever been before. Next was state championship. The only problem was, with Jake out, I wasn't sure how well we'd do with two of our starting forwards out but I promised myself I would be there every step of the way.

I shot up from my seat when I saw the nurse walk towards me. Although she had a smile on her face, the ball in the back of my throat still expected the worst.

Her eyes scanned the room noticing that she had everyone’s attention and she began to speak after briefly looking over her clipboard. “I suppose you’re all here for Jake Warner?” She took our silence as a yes and continued, “Well the surgery went very well. He has a compound facture in his right fore arm. Because it was a displaced fracture, we were forced to re-break it so that it can heal correctly. Other than that, he suffered a severe concussion and a mild neck sprain, but with further X-rays it seems there is no critical head trauma or any internal bleeding which we are very lucky for with the hit he took.” She paused, I guess letting her words sink in. I still wasn’t entirely sure what all of it meant. “We expect he’ll make a full recovery. Anyway, he’s awake right now but on heavy anesthetics, so you may want to wait a while for all of you to go in at once. The drugs should wear off in an hour or so.”

“Brooke would you like to see him first?” I heard my dad ask behind me.

My heart soared at the thought. No matter what anyone told me, I wouldn’t be happy until I saw him for myself. I followed the short brunette back to Jake’s room and didn’t hesitate when I pushed the door open. He was lying still on the other end of the room. He seemed much paler than normal, his right arm was wrapped up and he had a beige neck brace around his neck. With his eyes shut, he didn’t here me come in.

“Hey.” I breathed out, putting my hand on his cold arm, feeling him shiver underneath me. The only other sound was the steady beat of his heart rate on the monitor.

He opened his beautiful grey eyes and his lips curved into a sloppy grin. “Hello.” He slurred.

I felt my heart pick up, mirroring his expression. I laughed at his attempt to greet me, choking back the tears. I didn’t want to look like a complete baby. I mean there I was, perfectly fine while Jake was lying in a hospital bed and I was the one trying not to cry. How ridiculous is that?

"Are you okay?" He whispered quietly, suddenly rubbing a thumb under my swollen eyes.

"Me? You're asking me if I'm okay?”

He continued to frown at me. "Yeah I'm fine." I finally answered. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" He slurred.

"That this happened. It's all my fault, if I had never gotten involved with Brian then-"

He scoffed at me, putting his hand over my mouth to stop me.

I looked down at my shoes and bit my lip. It's true, he never had a problem with Jake, it was only ever Brian and Chase who had problems. Well it was. Until I put him in the middle of it. Suddenly the tears were pouring out again instead this time I started sobbing. Like everything was crashing down on me. I did this.