"There you go, you’re all set." Fran looked at the doctor, her eyes filled with anger. It had been a few hours since she got there and now a cast dominated over the lower portion of her shin. Compound fracture, it would take weeks to repair itself. The broken bone ripped a tendon. No Christmas Tournament, no playing for the rest of the year. No playing next season. She needed a surgery to repair the broken tendon, but that would be later, after the bone was healed. That would take even longer to repair. She wouldn’t be able to walk until February, maybe.
She screamed when she heard.
"Let’s just go," she said, and grabbed her crutches. Tyler and Taylor helped her off the table and made sure she was alright before she headed off. Her leg looked horrible. The ugly white cast was over the lower portion of her shin and stitches up to her knee from the slit. She’d gotten fifteen stitches, and didn’t even flinch as he sewed it up. The bruise on her face remained, taking up her entire cheek. She looked horrible but she didn’t care. Battle wounds, from that Austin boy.
As she made her way back to the coach’s car, her eyes glazed over with tears. Taylor wouldn’t mind that she was crying, but Tyler would probably say she was diminishing. Well she was diminishing for all the right reasons. At least she wasn’t crying over losing Taylor or something girly like that.
Fran sat in the back of the car, her foot on Tyler who was sitting next to her. On the other side, Taylor sat. He put an arm around her and let her head fall on his shoulder. Tyler was trying his best to sign her cast while the car was moving.
My career as I know it may never be the same, she thought. Just thinking about it made the waterworks come on. She turned away from the coach and from Tyler and put her face in Taylor’s shirt, sobbing. Taylor gently stroked her hair, for some reason completely understanding.
She felt a grip on her hand. She looked over and Tyler was holding her hand, his eyes glazed over. She gave him a small smile and let her tears fall openly. As long as he supported her, she was alright.
Fran saw that her teammates had made their way to her front lawn, waiting for her to come home. When the car stopped she got out and the gasped at the sight of her cast. "Is it broken?" Kyle asked. She nodded. "Well then I think you should sit down."
"Huh?" Fran asked. "Why?" Kyle shrugged and admitted it was only a suggestion because they had to talk to her. She glanced around and sat down on the ground. "What’s up?"
"Well, we did win…" Kyle started, and pulled a can of Ginger Ale from behind his back. She screamed and put her head in her arms as the entire team doused her with fifteen cans of Ginger Ale. Taylor watched, laughing. Fran was still screaming on the ground until the last can was empty. Diana, having heard her screaming, came out of the house.
"What the hell?" she asked, walking across the street. "Where have you been?" she directed to Taylor. He pointed at Fran’s broken leg. "Oh my…"
"I kinda broke my leg at the game," Fran said, shaking off the excess Ginger Ale. "To explain the screaming, it’s a tradition after every game to soak me in Ginger Ale. Sorry about that." Diana laughed, looking at the team. They all looked away, feeling very foolish. "Okay! Who’s gonna sign my cast?" She held up a marker and the team eagerly huddled around her. "I feel so loved."
"You are," Taylor said, looking at the crowd of guys around her outstretched leg. "Leave a spot for the second-string water boy!" he yelled. Fran looked up to him.
"I don’t think you’re going to have much room. The cast isn’t big enough for sixteen notes."
"I knew I should of signed in the car! Sorry French, might have to take a rain check for this one." She looked over at Diana. She was mesmerized by the group of boys that had been so close to Fran. There was just so many of them… and all of them seemed to love her very much. How fortunate to have such good friends.
"Come on guys, leave some room for Taylor. Leave like a patch at the top or something." Kyle found his way out of the mob and took a seat on the grass next to her, and Tyler found his way to the other side. Taylor sat down behind her, and the rest of the players huddled around once they finished signing. Diana walked into Fran’s house, looking for Sally. Coach Curtis followed, both figuring to leave the kids alone. Fran was going to have to tell them about the rest of the season.
"Guys," Fran said, looking past them and down the street. She waited for their attention. "I won’t be playing for the rest of the season. I won’t be playing next season either." Kyle looked to Tyler who only nodded. "I’ll still come to all the games and dress out and stuff but I won’t play. I can’t. Season ends in late January and I get my cast off around the middle of January. I broke a tendon and I have to have surgery on it once I get my cast off. It’ll take weeks before I get the strength back that I had before. I messed it up pretty bad."
"No Christmas Tournament?" Kyle asked. Fran nodded. "Dammit Fran it was gonna be number five this year!" She nodded again, wiping at her eyes. She tucked her sticky hair behind her ears and stared off, not wanting to make eye contact with anybody. She didn’t want to look at anyone, it would show their faces and their grief.
"If you guys try hard you can get the championship without me. I’m not everything, ya know. You’re great. You’re a great team, I’m just good at wing. I mean we wouldn’t have a shutout without defense. Matt, you’re the best defender I’ve seen in years." The brunette smirked at her compliment. It was something wonderful when the great Fran Carlston gave a compliment. "Tyler, your glove is pretty damn quick…"
"Shut up, Fran. You know you’re the team," Tyler said. Fran finally looked at everyone. They were nodding.
"I am not this team!! I am not what you think I am! I’m just good at what I’m do and I just don’t dread things. I don’t fear a loss, I don’t fear getting hurt." She glanced down at her leg. "But I do fear losing my dream."
"It’s just two seasons, Fran. You’ll be better than ever by March," Kyle reassured her. "But this just isn’t our season. The Vikings can’t be the best every year."
"But we could be," Fran whispered, her gaze dropping. "We could be the undefeated for six straight years; twelve straight seasons."
"That’s boring!" Kyle yelled. Her head flipped to him. "Don’t you get tired of being the best? Don’t you get tired of always winning? Don’t you hate getting doused with Ginger Ale after every game?"
"Actually, no. I enjoy knowing that no one is better than us and that no one can get as far as we have. We’ve worked so hard at this, and now just one screw up will cost us the championship. Coach said that if we won he was taking us to New York…"
"Then we’ll miss out on New York," Kyle said. "There’s other times to go. If you try to play right after getting your cast off then you could just break it again or something worse. Hell, you might never be able to play again if you don’t take things slow." Fran rested her chin on her knee, her fingers grazing over her bruise. Her battle wounds. This was what she had to show for her life. She loved what she did, and a few bumps and bruises, broken bones and tendons weren’t going to stop anything.
"We’re going to New York, and you guys are getting us there," Fran said. "That’s all there is to it."
Fran got up, grabbed her crutches and headed inside. Taylor, Tyler, and Kyle followed her inside while the others went home. Whenever she was final with her decisions, those were the only ones brave enough to get the verbal beating. The three found her at the foot of the stairs looking up. She noticed their presence. "I never realized how many stairs I have."
Without hesitation, Taylor scooped her off her feet and carried her up the stairs. Kyle and Tyler each took a crutch, playing around with them as they made their way up. Sally watched as they went over to Fran’s room, smiling. "Three at once, I see," she joked. Fran gave her mother a look.
"Shut up."
"Hi Sally," the three boys said in unison. They glanced at each other before entering her room. Kyle was the last in, so he shut the door. Taylor rested Fran on her bed before sitting down next to her. Tyler ran to the swivel chair at her desk and spun around a few times. Kyle stood against the door, collecting his thoughts.
"Do you really think we can win without you?" he finally asked. Fran looked over her bruise in a small mirror, ceasing any form of eye contact with her teammates.
"Yes, I do. I’m not everything, as much as you guys think. Why do you think you can still win when I’m on probation? You know I’m on probation a lot. Damn people thinking I’m too rough…" she mumbled.
"Well yeah cause we know you’ll be with us in the next game. We can beat the easy teams without a problem, but it’s teams like the Hawks…they’re hard."
"As my first act of first string bench warmer, I’m gonna make sure you guys are alright. I know hockey, and I know it well. I’ll be first to let ya know if ya mess up." Tyler exchanged a look with Kyle before getting up and heading to the door.
"Hey Fran," Tyler said. She gazed to him. "You reek. I think you need to take a shower." She rolled her eyes and shooed the three of them out of the room.
"Kyle, if you want to beat the Hawks, listen to me!" Fran yelled at the boy in front of her. This was the longest and most tiring practice she had ever been to, and she was sitting on the bench. Kyle wasn’t listening to her, he wasn’t taking her comments well at all. "Your control sucks. You have to work on it if you don’t want the puck stolen from you. I know as a matter of fact that I could steal it sitting at center ice as you pass by. You can’t keep putting it so far in front of you."
"You know what, Fran. Fuck you! You’ve been telling this team shit all day long and we can’t exactly know what you’re talking about all the time! Stop acting like the coach of the team!"
"Curtis put me in charge this practice, alright? Now get out there, I’m coming out." He skated off, pissed. She opened the door and went out on her crutches. She made it to the center of the blue line and grabbed a stick from one of the other players. "Okay! Defense I want you to stop these." She started whipping out slap shots. Every once in a while she’d look up to see how they were taking the shots, and found it much to her disapproval. But I’ve bitched enough. They’re gonna hate me by the time Christmas rolls around. A burst of pain shot through her leg as she put a bit of weight on it, but she only ignored it.
"Fran!"
"Oh shit," she muttered as she looked over to the side of the rink. There stood Coach Curtis, fuming. Her stick fell to the ice as she put a hopeful smile on her face. He didn’t return it. He was pissed, man was he pissed. Her eyes ran over the rest of the team, standing along the goal line. They were perplexed and completely shocked. Coach Curtis never raised his voice, and he sure as hell never did to Fran.
"Get your ass off the ice right now!"
Kyle skated over and picked her up, bringing her to the side of the rink. Tyler followed close behind with her crutches. "Good luck," Kyle whispered as he set her down. She gave him a worried look, only to be picked up again by the coach and brought into the locker room. "You’re gonna need it."
Coach Curtis set her down in the locker room on one of the benches. He turned around and paced around to the other side of the room. "Coach, I…"
"Don’t even, Fran. Don’t even. It’s been two days since you got your cast on. Two days! You haven’t even had time to begin the process of mending and already you completely disobey what the doctor says and what I say. Do you never want to play again?"
"Of course I do, that’s why…"
"You were out there, without your crutches, standing on both feet. You were shooting slap shots at the team when you shouldn’t even be standing up!" Fran looked down. "I directly told you that you could help out them team by telling them what would benefit them. I did not tell you to go out onto the ice…"
"Fuck off!" Fran screamed, her head snapping up. He stared at her, wide-eyed. "Do you not know me at all? This is all I have! I lost my father, I lost my mother, though I lost her in a different way. I suck in school, so all I had was Taylor and hockey. Taylor’s gone, and now I lose this. I was perfectly fine out there, I had all my weight on my other leg. My leg is fine, I’m fine. If you just take this away from me then you’re taking everything."
"Fran you’re thirteen years old. Obviously you don’t act like it at all but look at yourself! You’re relying all on one thing. You have other things in life than hockey, but you just don’t look for it. While your leg is repairing, look for other things. Just don’t keep relying on this."
"You don’t understand," Fran said, putting her face in her hands.
"And maybe I never will but try something out. I’m taking you home now. Don’t come to anything for the next week, I’m putting you on probation."
"Why?" Fran asked, her head shooting up again.
"You’re a disrespectful little girl. Maybe when you’re at home you can learn some manners." Her mouth dropped. "Don’t start, you know you shouldn’t speak to me like that. Go home, get better." She grabbed her crutches and headed off, appalled.
Coach Curtis dropped her off at home, where she waited for him to drive off before moving. She sat on the ground and looked at the sky, calming herself down. The sky was a bit cloudy, the sun shining down on her from the west. It would be setting soon, soon the stars would come out. It was a full moon tonight. Her eyes gently closed, letting a soft breeze blow through her long blonde hair.
A hand took out her ponytail, letting her hair blow freely behind her. Her eyes opened to see Taylor, sitting in front of her, watching her. His knees were pulled to his chest, his hair gently framing his face. It was moments like these that made her realize just how attractive that boy was. She could just imagine him in a few years…
"Hey Frenchie," he said, his voice cracking. She held in her laugh to just a broad smile. "Stop it." She burst out laughing, putting a hand over her mouth. He shifted to sit next to her, and stuck his arm around her. She took his rat-tail, his soon to be infamous rat-tail, and swung it around. She wondered how many girls would kill to be in that position, be with Taylor Hanson. To be kissed by him, to be held by him…things she hoped that only she would know. How selfish.
Fran shivered. "Something wrong?" he asked, his voice low. Mustn’t disturb the peacefulness, now shall we? she thought.
"Just thinking." Obviously he wasn’t going to let her stop at that. "In a few months, I have this feeling that there’s going to be a whole bunch of girls wanting to be in this exact position." A smile came across his face and he looked away. "And you like that, don’t you?"
"Well yeah it’d be fun, but I just have to say that none of matter if I can hold you forever." She smiled and gently kissed him. "I got something for you today." An eyebrow raised almost involuntarily on her face.
"Are you going to give it to me or am I going to have to wait?" He smiled and reached in his pocket. Her eyes grew as he pulled out a ring. "Oh my God," she whispered and took it, inspecting every bit. It was a glistening sapphire, the band a beautiful silver. He remembered that she didn’t appreciate gold as much as silver. An inscription lined the interior. Taylor and Frenchie forever.
"Now this is your typical promise ring," he said, smiling. She giggled as he slipped it on her finger. "My promise to you is to keep in touch. If at any time in my career—however long or short that may be—if I don’t keep in touch and call whenever I can, I want you to give this back. If any doubt of how much I care about you is in question, I want you to give this back. You’re so important to me, you keep me here in this world. If I ever get egotistical you know to smack me. Don’t go light, I want you to smack me as hard as you can." She laughed. "I’m serious."
"Taylor, I just might kill you."
"Don’t aim for any major organs or send me in the direction of sharp objects." He lifted her chin and kissed her. "A promise is a promise. I love you, Frenchie." She wrapped her arms around his neck, not being able to disturb the broad smile on her face.
"I love you too."