[LJ Idol 10: Week 9 Runoff] And the Damage Done
[Content Warning]
Content Warning: Car accident, life-threatening injuries to non-major characters, sports-related concussions, police mentioned
I.
Melissa was fine. Physically.
Mentally? Well, it was going to be hard to get past the part where she wrecked her new car on the way home from a seminar on Work-Life Balance for New Teachers.
That, and the other driver was not fine. Physically. Melissa didn't know the particulars, but she knew it was bad.
The police had been reassuring. It wasn't her fault, they told her, just one of those freak things - a truck lost its cargo in front of her, she swerved to avoid what was in the road and didn't see the car coming the other way because it was dark and that car had a burnt-out headlight.
She couldn't help blaming herself, though. Doubting herself. She'd put herself through school on a fucking athletic scholarship, shouldn't that mean better reflexes than this?
When Katie finally made it out to Hartford, to get Melissa and bring her home, she was all sympathy at first. "Oh, sweetheart, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, how awful for you." She held onto Melissa, let Melissa cry and shake and breathe her way through it.
Until Melissa said something about what she was thinking, about how her reflexes should have been better, how she should have been able to avoid wrecking the car.
Katie pulled back from her. "No. You don't get to do this, Melissa. You don't."
II.
It wasn't very often that UConn took community college transfer students on NCAA scholarships. But they took Katie, and the first practice Katie joined the team for, Melissa felt like a better soccer player right away.
When they ended up in the same biology class, Melissa felt like a better student.
Katie was the kind of friend that Melissa's parents had always said she'd make playing sports, but that she never had until this year. Melissa always liked her teammates - middle school, high school, soccer, softball, whatever - but somehow, Katie's arrival had made them a capital-T Team.
Katie was usually the happiest person in the locker room, and on the bus, except for one day when she'd scored the game-winner and someone on the bus had yelled "Way to go, Killer Katie!" Her face darkened, and her voice was quiet and cold when she said, "Please don't ever call me that again."
Their winning streak was interrupted when Angela had a bad collision with one of Albany's players, and Katie insisted that Angela not try to shake it off, and even told the coach that if Angela went back in, she wouldn't, because that looked like a concussion and the game wasn't worth that.
Coach looked ready to argue back, then - something she saw in Katie's face stopped her.
Angela missed the next three weeks. Katie was right, it was a concussion, and Melissa was even more grateful that Katie had come to their team, because if Katie hadn't realized what was going on...well, you hear things, and that would've been horrible for Angela.
III.
"QUARTERFINALS! WE DID IT!"
And it was Katie's pass to Melissa that got them the game-winning goal, that got them in.
Through the bus ride back, and the after-party at Angela's, Katie barely left Melissa's side.
It was three in the morning when the party broke up, when they headed back to their dorm.
Three-fifteen when Katie kissed Melissa the first time, just outside Melissa's room.
Melissa had never done this before, not with girls. She'd thought about it, she'd read about it, but...
The stories about how incredibly impossibly soft a girl's kiss is when you're used to kissing boys? Lies, all lies.
Kissing Katie was like staring right into the sun - blinding brilliance, overwhelming heat leaving Melissa's legs feeling like they were about to melt underneath her, drag her to the floor.
Melissa moved back, just enough. "Katie? I'm not trying to rush things but if we do that again I don't think I can stand up...."
Katie smiled shyly. "It's...it's been a night, and we should probably talk about this before...whatever. Try to sleep, Lissie?"
Melissa did, somehow, until the next morning a knock on her door turned out to be Katie wanting to get breakfast.
And talk. About last night, but not just about last night.
"You should know, if we're going to do this. You should know I'm damaged goods."
IV.
The Litchfield County newspapers used to love her.
Katie Kowalski, local talent, possible future Olympic soccer star. (Really?)
She was thirteen, and elite private high schools wanted her on their varsity team her freshman year, but her parents said no.
She was fourteen, and NCAA scouts were coming to her small-town public school to check her out, and her teammates and even her opponents hoped the scouts might notice them too.
She was fifteen, and holding an old-fashioned fountain pen, smiling as she signed her commitment letter to Yale.
Then she was sixteen, and she wasn't Katie Kowalski anymore. She was "a player on the Salisbury High lacrosse team."
Not even soccer, lacrosse, her secondary sport. That was where it all went wrong. Where she made a play that was a little too aggressive, and a girl whose name she didn't even know fell down a little too hard, and left the field with lasting brain damage.
The papers wanted to make something up about the game providing cover for a vicious fight over a boy. Sells more papers and scares fewer people than admitting that the other girl was playing hurt, had a concussion from earlier in the season, shouldn't have been playing in the first place.
...Katie never even liked boys, that way.
She went to juvie, got sent away. "Private school" except it was for "troubled" kids, and neither the soccer nor the academics were good enough for Yale to keep its offer open. But she was good enough for Housatonic Community College, and after two years, she was good enough for UConn.
V.
"You don't get to do this, Melissa. You don't get to blame yourself."
Katie brushes Melissa's tears away.
"You never let me blame myself. Not once."
Content Warning: Car accident, life-threatening injuries to non-major characters, sports-related concussions, police mentioned
I.
Melissa was fine. Physically.
Mentally? Well, it was going to be hard to get past the part where she wrecked her new car on the way home from a seminar on Work-Life Balance for New Teachers.
That, and the other driver was not fine. Physically. Melissa didn't know the particulars, but she knew it was bad.
The police had been reassuring. It wasn't her fault, they told her, just one of those freak things - a truck lost its cargo in front of her, she swerved to avoid what was in the road and didn't see the car coming the other way because it was dark and that car had a burnt-out headlight.
She couldn't help blaming herself, though. Doubting herself. She'd put herself through school on a fucking athletic scholarship, shouldn't that mean better reflexes than this?
When Katie finally made it out to Hartford, to get Melissa and bring her home, she was all sympathy at first. "Oh, sweetheart, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, how awful for you." She held onto Melissa, let Melissa cry and shake and breathe her way through it.
Until Melissa said something about what she was thinking, about how her reflexes should have been better, how she should have been able to avoid wrecking the car.
Katie pulled back from her. "No. You don't get to do this, Melissa. You don't."
II.
It wasn't very often that UConn took community college transfer students on NCAA scholarships. But they took Katie, and the first practice Katie joined the team for, Melissa felt like a better soccer player right away.
When they ended up in the same biology class, Melissa felt like a better student.
Katie was the kind of friend that Melissa's parents had always said she'd make playing sports, but that she never had until this year. Melissa always liked her teammates - middle school, high school, soccer, softball, whatever - but somehow, Katie's arrival had made them a capital-T Team.
Katie was usually the happiest person in the locker room, and on the bus, except for one day when she'd scored the game-winner and someone on the bus had yelled "Way to go, Killer Katie!" Her face darkened, and her voice was quiet and cold when she said, "Please don't ever call me that again."
Their winning streak was interrupted when Angela had a bad collision with one of Albany's players, and Katie insisted that Angela not try to shake it off, and even told the coach that if Angela went back in, she wouldn't, because that looked like a concussion and the game wasn't worth that.
Coach looked ready to argue back, then - something she saw in Katie's face stopped her.
Angela missed the next three weeks. Katie was right, it was a concussion, and Melissa was even more grateful that Katie had come to their team, because if Katie hadn't realized what was going on...well, you hear things, and that would've been horrible for Angela.
III.
"QUARTERFINALS! WE DID IT!"
And it was Katie's pass to Melissa that got them the game-winning goal, that got them in.
Through the bus ride back, and the after-party at Angela's, Katie barely left Melissa's side.
It was three in the morning when the party broke up, when they headed back to their dorm.
Three-fifteen when Katie kissed Melissa the first time, just outside Melissa's room.
Melissa had never done this before, not with girls. She'd thought about it, she'd read about it, but...
The stories about how incredibly impossibly soft a girl's kiss is when you're used to kissing boys? Lies, all lies.
Kissing Katie was like staring right into the sun - blinding brilliance, overwhelming heat leaving Melissa's legs feeling like they were about to melt underneath her, drag her to the floor.
Melissa moved back, just enough. "Katie? I'm not trying to rush things but if we do that again I don't think I can stand up...."
Katie smiled shyly. "It's...it's been a night, and we should probably talk about this before...whatever. Try to sleep, Lissie?"
Melissa did, somehow, until the next morning a knock on her door turned out to be Katie wanting to get breakfast.
And talk. About last night, but not just about last night.
"You should know, if we're going to do this. You should know I'm damaged goods."
IV.
The Litchfield County newspapers used to love her.
Katie Kowalski, local talent, possible future Olympic soccer star. (Really?)
She was thirteen, and elite private high schools wanted her on their varsity team her freshman year, but her parents said no.
She was fourteen, and NCAA scouts were coming to her small-town public school to check her out, and her teammates and even her opponents hoped the scouts might notice them too.
She was fifteen, and holding an old-fashioned fountain pen, smiling as she signed her commitment letter to Yale.
Then she was sixteen, and she wasn't Katie Kowalski anymore. She was "a player on the Salisbury High lacrosse team."
Not even soccer, lacrosse, her secondary sport. That was where it all went wrong. Where she made a play that was a little too aggressive, and a girl whose name she didn't even know fell down a little too hard, and left the field with lasting brain damage.
The papers wanted to make something up about the game providing cover for a vicious fight over a boy. Sells more papers and scares fewer people than admitting that the other girl was playing hurt, had a concussion from earlier in the season, shouldn't have been playing in the first place.
...Katie never even liked boys, that way.
She went to juvie, got sent away. "Private school" except it was for "troubled" kids, and neither the soccer nor the academics were good enough for Yale to keep its offer open. But she was good enough for Housatonic Community College, and after two years, she was good enough for UConn.
V.
"You don't get to do this, Melissa. You don't get to blame yourself."
Katie brushes Melissa's tears away.
"You never let me blame myself. Not once."