SEVENS

PLUMIT

I-- I was laying on the--the ground.
"Oh my god--."
On-- on my back.
"--don't move Lexi--"
On the-- the where? It was wet. I could hear it squelching.
"--need to--off the field. The nurses office."
Field. On the field-- or where did they say?
There was too much spinning. The people seemed to be switching heads and shoulders and-- my leg screams at me. I can feel it for sure but it doesn't seem connected to my body, nor did the yelling feel connected to my throat. And then there were dark eyes above me and the sound of a blowing whistle. The clouds behind Raf's face looked like they were made out of the color of his hair.
"Lexi--"
I screwed my eyes shut. There's a pounding behind my lids. I focus on it and as it grows I force myself to focus on what's going on around me. I groan. Something isn't right but my head is pounding too much for me to decipher where-- my leg flares again. 
"Lexi-" Raf was there and I felt like I could breathe easier. "Where hurts?"
"Leg, ankle. My head."
"Okay, let's get you inside kid." There was a medic in front of me now. I didn't remember her moving there. I nodded and felt arms help me up.
"Who?" I didn't want people touching me.
"It's just me Lexi." Raf said. He was breathing hard. I leaned over my knees as my head adjusted to the new position and I felt Raf's hand under my armpit and then on my back. It took me a moment to realize he was fixing my shirt which had ridden up around my chest and back.
I looked up and around. The medic looked more focused on my ankle which flared at each brush of her finger tips, but the only person close enough to have seen anything was Raf and Phoebe. I saw shock and sorrow in her eyes.
I yelped when the medic squeezed just above the joint of my ankle. "It looks broken, fractured at the very least."
Arms were around my chest and lifting me to my feet, or the one that wasn't wailing at me. Then there was a body to either side of mine and we began to walk to the locker rooms. We were at an away game, and the locker rooms felt alienating. Everything was linoleum and cheap plastic and rusting shower heads. I winced as I put too much pressure on my injured foot. When had I become accustomed to the luxury of St. Josephs?
Somehow I was now in med room. Though the walk there was a blur in my mind I knew at least that I hadn't fallen. A light was shone in one eye and then the other and fingers tenderly felt my skull and neck, before moving to check my ankle again. Then the medic pushed at my shoulder and gripped my neck getting me to lie down on the examination table.
"You're out Hamilton." Coach stated. I looked at her and stuck out my tongue, which was bloody and stung then cringed at what I just did. I definitely wasn't feeling right. The stars dancing across my vision were a good indication of that too.
To the medic Coach said. "Keep him from getting up."
The medic rolled her eyes but agreed anyway. Some good natured shit-- like how Raf would have told me to be a gentleman. I could feel my cheeks redden at the thought.

There were only seven minutes left in the game but the moment Coach and Jack left to watch the last half I felt almost anxious. I didn't want to stay in the nurse's office. I leaned my head up and stared at the wall at the head of the examination table. It had a large print of the human body tacked into the drywall. My line of vision leveled at the skin stripped, muscle exposed crotch. I frowned.
Thankfully the medic was dumb enough to think that I wouldn't leave if she did.
"I'm going to the bathroom. Don't move. I'll be right back-" and he left. I waited a breath and clambered to my feet. Someone had taken off my cleats, socks and shin guards, leaving my toes to the mercy of the cold floor. I hissed at the pain but smiled when I noticed a single crutch in the corner.
I wasn't sure where I was trying to go but with my head spinning I just didn't want to stay in the nurse's room. The eye diagram posted next to the skinless man glared at me, egging me on.
It only took a couple of steps for me to second guess myself but I couldn't stand being in the small room, I wanted fresh air. As I continued my stumble down the hall to where I thought the door to the field was. I had to stop half way down the hall and lean over an open trash can to puke my dinner into. Once I had straightened I grabbed the crutch from where I had dropped it and began wobbling down the hall again.
Soon a voice reached my ears. It sounded angry. I sure as hell didn't want to be any closer to the person behind it than I had to be. 
The pounding in my head seemed to still a little as a breeze floated in through a nearby door that had been propped open. The green "EXIT" sign above enticed me through it.
I stumbled outside into the gloomy threat of rain. I knew from the caked mud in my hair and jersey that there had already been some but the clouds looked ready to spill more. I leaned against the brick wall that the door was on and took a breath of fresh air. The distant volume of the game almost matched the dripping of the gutter too full of water. The space was a small secondary parking lot for over flow parking on busy game days, as best I could guess. But right now it was empty except for a few cars. It was empty enough for me to begin to calm down.
"Tomas Aleksey!" I squinted in the direction of the voice. The woman was storming towards me. Her hair, nearly white, whipped about her face which was blotchy and red. Her pale skin only accentuated the thinness of her arms and legs. 
"Mama?"
I couldn't quite figure out if she was real. I'd had concussions before but I couldn't remember any of them causing hallucinations. But maybe being tackled to the ground had different side effects to being beaten or thrown into furniture. It might be something to look into.
"Mama? Is that all you have to say? Do you care about anyone but yourself Aleksey?" She took several steps closer standing right in front of me and sticking two fingers to my chest. There was no warmth to them. But the air was cold, maybe that's why she felt so lifeless.
It had been over a year since I'd seen my mother. Her temper was the most familiar thing about her, and almost enough to clear my mind. As I looked her over I had a hard time recognizing the rest of her. She seemed to have aged, and shrunk while I'd gone through puberty in her absence and rocketed upward. Her cheeks were sallow and her blue eyes were sunk in her face. Her platinum hair, the color of my natural color, was limp. She reeked of cigarette smoke.
"You shrunk." It was the wrong thing to say but all I could focus on. I was at least a foot taller than she was.
Her hand darted out and hit me upside the head. I flinched but didn't stop looking at her. I couldn't wrap my mind around the fact that she was here.
"You've never been bright." She didn't take any extra time in studying me like I was her. She instead drew out a pack of cigarettes and lit one before stuffing the rest into the baggy front pocket of her teal hoodie.
It was hard but finally I swallowed the mass in my throat and spoke. "Where- where were you? Where did you go?"
"Don't be thick Aleksey! I have been trying to save our lives! I am gone for a year and a half and when I come back you've gone off on some escapade with a fucking Rugby team! I thought I told you that sport was worthless!" She stepped back and waved her hands around animatedly.
"Mama-" I tried to take a step but flinched back into the wall with the weight on my injured foot.
"You're fucking sixteen Aleksey! What do you think you're doing? You can't leave! I was expecting to come back to you at the apartment and not have to worry about your worthless ass! But I come back to the apartment and find that it's being rented out to a new family and you gone! If you had gone out and gotten a job then fine- you are doing something useful! But you joined a rugby team! Enrolled in a school that will drain our pockets! One your father sent his son to!" She slapped me this time.
My breath caught and I wished she would hug me. I hadn't seen her in over a year and all I wanted was someone to hug me. I thought of Selena then, how she might have hugged Jean. My mom was not Selena. I shook the thought away.
"Thankfully I'm smart enough to keep your sorry ass alive. I need you to talk to your father. Get him to do a paternity test. If the judge has definitive proof that he's your father he'll have to pay some amount of money to take care of you. Then we can swindle him as much as possible until you turn eighteen." She took a drag of her cigarette. On the exhale I could have sworn that the smoke exiting her lungs was black. 
"What? Why would we do that?" I didn't want to hurt Pierre or Jean or the team like that but I knew if she asked I would, it's what a gentleman would do right? Take care of his mother? Or would he stay loyal to his friends? I felt the urge to puke rise up my throat and into my nose.
She huffed another acrid lungfull. "Because the health care won't cover what I need!"
My head was spinning even more now and I suddenly wished I had stayed in the med room. "Cover what? Healthcare?"
"It's no wonder your father left you're dumber than a horses ass! I have cancer! Lung cancer! You wouldn't even care though would you because you're so self absorbed!" She didn't show any signs of nerves or sadness that I would have expected of someone with cancer but then again my mother never showed any emotion other than anger.
"Shouldn't you stop smoking?"
My mother lunged forward gripping my wrist in her free hand and bringing my palm to a visible place between us. She looked down at the spiral burn covering my hand.
"I'm surprised you didn't learn to not question me the first time." She blew smoke in my face and reached to bring my head closer to hers dropping my hand in the process. "You will listen to what I say and do everything without me having to ask twice."
I could feel the heat of the burning cigarette behind my ear and I moved away from it. She pulled back, sneered and flicked the ashy end at my face.
"Get the money or I'm calling the cops. Once this is all over you and your worthless ass won't have to see me again because I'll be sending you straight back into care!"
My heart stopped. I could feel the weight of the sky on my shoulders. My mom began to walk away headed to the parking lot around the buildings corner. I fought away the panic rising up out of my stomach and to clog my throat.
"Mom-" I stumbled after her, ignoring the burning in my leg and barely managed to  grab her wrist. Stopping her. "Please if I get the money- please don't send me back- stay with me! I'll come back to the apartment! I'll take care of you!"
She yanked her hand away and slapped me again before sticking her finger in my face one last time. "Get me twenty five thousand by the time i'm back in town in December or I will send the cops straight to your hiding hole! And don't ever touch me again!"
She stormed off trailing a lung full of smoke. She rounded the corner of the building and my lungs felt like they were released from a death grip. My head spun. I wanted to scream for her to turn around and come back but couldn't do more with the thought but spin it around in my head. Finally I turned back to where I had dropped the crutch and head back inside but stopped.
All doubt of my mother being a hallucination were wiped from my mind. All thought left my mind in fact as I faced probably the  only person who could have made that situation worse.
Pierre looked like he had been slapped. But his eyes moved from where my mother had disappeared to me. I couldn't decipher what emotion his face was displaying. 
This time when the world spun it wasn't all just a part of the concussion.
My legs felt like they were falling through air. I couldn't feel anything around the voice in my head screaming at me to get away. I couldn't face Pierre, couldn't face the anger and hatred he would show me. It would break me.
I barely managed to bend down enough to grab the crutch before I heard Pierre behind me. "Hey wait. Alexei wait."
The door was still stuck open with a painted rock being used to keep it from closing in its frame. The home school's colors of green and blue covered the surface of the rock and in white paint were the words "We are family". I managed to swallow the bile in my throat.
I heard Pierre jogging across the small back lot. Throwing the crutch in first I began to push through the crack, the door too heavy to pull on one leg. I was able to put enough weight on my injured leg to step through the crack and plant my other foot. But pulling my other leg through my toe caught on the rock holding the door open. I fell to the floor in pain but saw Pierre nearly at the door. I kicked out. The rock was pushed out of place and the door fell closed, locking automatically.
I fell back to the floor. I was sprawled across the hallways but didn't care. There was a rushing in my ears, I was safe, for the moment. With my good foot bare and pressed against the closed door I could feel Pierre banging on the other side to be let in. He would have to go around to the field entrance to get in again. I would have time to get out of the building.
I didn't get my chance though. The clicking of cleats on linoleum brought my attention down the hall. Jean and Raf were speeding down the hall. They struggled to stay on their feet without slipping on the mud caked into their cleats.
Jean turned his head over his shoulder and called back down the hall. "Hey! We found him!"
Raf fell to his knees beside my head. "What happened?"
I was going to answer but Pierre chose that moment to knock one last time on the door. Raf raised an eyebrow and looked at it and then back at me. Jean reached for the handle and pushed down. The door swung open and Jean was faced with his father.
"Dad?"
"I--" Pierre seemed stunned at being faced with his son-- or sons as it so happened to be.
I wanted this stopped now before anything came of it. If I could get Raf to take me out of the situation, have him take me to the emergency room or something.
"I heard him knocking and tried to come let him but I must have hit my head harder than I thought because I fell over before being able to open the door." The lie wasn't hard, and just to make it more believable I rubbed the heels of my palms into my eyes chasing away the ache behind them. When I pulled my hands away I looked Pierre right in the eye.
He straightened and smiled a little. "I could have just gone around sorry. But I wanted to talk--"
A litany of footsteps filled the hall and I looked away from Pierre, both relieved and sad. The team rounded the corner following Coach. "I thought I told you to stay put Hamilton." Coach shouted. As she neared she slipped in the trail of mud and fell into Maria.
"I heard Mr. Bissette knocking." I said dumbly.
"Well let's get you to the nurses office, I'll call your mom so she can take you to the emergency room." Coach adjusts her sunglasses indicating that's the end of the conversation.
"She's out of town." I blurt. "Raf can take me." I look up at Raf who is still sitting by my head. He looks back at me and though I couldn't say anything out loud I knew he understood when he opened his mouth.
"Yeah that's fine. There's a halloween store next to the hospital anyway and I doubt Lexi has a costume yet anyway."
"Costume?" I began to sit up and Raf was there to help me.
"The party is tomorrow." Mal said.
"Can we come too? Bleu asked from behind Coach.
    "Well if we want to coordinate costumes that seems logical." Raf says. His breath on my ear as he lifts me to a standing position. Jean and Pierre both jump forward to help Raf help me up. I hold up a hand to stop them. If either of them touched me I would break. Raf kept a hand on my waist to help me keep balance while he lent down and grabbed my crutch.
    "Well why don't we all get cleaned up and then we can head out." Mal said.
    "Great idea." Raf said. He kept his hand out to catch me as we began walking down the hall.
    "Alexei--" Pierre started to say from behind me.
    "Sorry about the door Mr. Bissette." I said before we walked away.