8:35am (Darren Espanto and Kenneth San Jose)

E I G H T - Broken Ankle and Broken Dreams

Koby Yang

"Koby, you should've told me that your ankle hurt!" Kenneth said as he paced the small room in the clinic.
"I'm fine, really, it's probably just some minor injury, I won't even feel it after tomorrow," I assured him.
"That's not what the doctor said," he mumbled. I raised my eyebrow and looked at him.
"What did the doctor say?"
He frowned. "You sprained your ankle."
"It's just a minor injury," I pointed out," I'll be fine by next week."
"Whatever you say, Koby." He slipped out of the room as the doctor came in. He bandaged up my ankle and sent me on my way home. I stepped onto the ground one foot at a time. When I put my right foot in the ground, I slightly wince, but kept walking, pushing the pain away like I usually did.
I glanced at Kenneth out of the corner of my eye and saw him carefully watching me. I crossed my arms and rolled my eyes at him.
"Can you stop staring at me?" I asked as I sent a glare his way.
"Sorry." He took his eyes off of me for two seconds before I ran straight into a wall. He gasped and went over to help me as I pushed myself off of the wall. He wrapped his arms around me and meant to pull me up, but I pushed him away.
"I'm fine, Ken, just stop!" I snapped. He put his hands up in a mock surrender and backed up from me, a hurt look plastered cross his face. That's when I realized my mistake. Why did I always insist on driving away the people closest to me? The answer to that is one that I would never figure out. All that I knew was that I wouldn't do it again. I was keeping Kenneth right beside me for as long as possible, and I wasn't going to push him away this time.

-2 Days Later-

I winced as I stepped with my right foot, but I quickly covered it up and walked into the gym with my head held high. I marched over to where Kenneth was standing on the side and I stood beside him. He continued to watch the others dance with his arms crossed as if he didn't know I was there. Then again, he probably didn't know I was there. And that was when I decided I'd just stand there and stare at him like a creep until he noticed me. Which is exactly what I did.
We stood there for ten minutes before he finally turned around. The second he saw me, he jumped back and put a hand over his heart.
"I think you just gave me a heart attack."
A smirk found its way onto my face and I shrugged. "Oops."
"Anyways, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be resting your leg?"
"Yes, but I feel so much better now."
He skeptically looked at me. His eyes travelled down to my ankle. In a flash, he grabbed my arm and yanked me forward, causing me to stumble over his bag. I winced as I slammed my right foot down to keep myself from falling.
"You're not fine," he points out.
"Yes, I am!" I stubbornly said.
"No, you're-"
"Koby, what are you doing here?" Shelby asked.
"I'm here for rehearsal," I said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"What practice? The second you twisted your ankle, you were replaced by Clarissa." With that said, she walked off to check on someone else on the team.
The first thing I felt when I heard that was not hurt, or betrayal, it was, surprisingly, relief. I was relieved that I didn't have to be part of the dance team that I didn't want to be a part of in the first place. I guess twisting my ankle was a good thing after all.
"Are you okay?" Kenny asked as he put a hand on my shoulder.
"Yeah, I'm fine, I'm actually kind of glad," I responded. "I actually have to get to football practice though. See you later?"
"See ya," he said as he walked off with Clary. I sighed and watched as they walked to the other side of the gym. That was supposed to be me with him, but I guess things changed.

-----

"Late," coach said as I jogged onto the field.
"Sorry," I mumbled as I joined the group of girls in the middle of the field.
"That's the third time this week!" He exclaimed.
"I know," I muttered and rolled my eyes.
"That's it, you're benched for the next game."
"What?"
"You heard me, you're benched."
"Fine," I huffed. I put my hands on hips and blew a loose strand of hair out of my face. I knew it was useless to try to fight the coach because he would surely just bench me for longer and that was the last thing I needed right now. Right now, what I needed the most was to play a good, rough game of football and just forget everything that was going on. So I sucked it up, and listened to his play by play of what would happen.
After what felt like forever, he finally stopped talking and we got to practice. As soon as the quarterback got hold of the ball, I ran for the other end of the field, forgetting about everything that was going on in my life. I kept running, and glanced back every few seconds to check if she'd thrown the ball yet. She hadn't, so I kept running, feeling free for the first time in a long time. At last, Macy threw the ball towards me. I turned around and ran for the ball. I caught it just as it was about to hit the ground and I ran towards the end zone. I glanced back and saw another girl on the team a few feet behind me. I knew she would catch up to me anytime now, so I picked up my speed and kept running until I finally reached the end.
I was about to throw the ball onto the ground and yell, 'touch down' when I was interrupted by the coach.
"Great job, Koby," he said as he jogged up to me, "if you play like that in the next game, we're guaranteed a win."
"Yeah." I pressed my lips into a thin line. "Too bad I'm be-" A sudden jolt of pain shot through my body and my legs buckled. Before I could hit the ground, a pair of arms wrapped around my waist and pulled me up. I looked up to see Darren inches from my face. I turned away as he pulled me onto my feet. He let go of me and I stumbled back a few steps before I regained my balance by grabbing onto the goalpost. I turned back towards Darren.
"What are you doing here?" I asked with a glare.
"No thanks, no thank you?" He asked with fake offence in his voice.
"Not for you," I coldly responded. I crossed my arms and stared at him.
"What do you have against me?"
He didn't know. He didn't know how he'd been rude to me or how he'd been pushing me around before.
"Whatever, just forget about," I said at I waved him off.
"No, tell me."
"I said its nothing, just forget about it!" I pushed myself off of the goalpost and I walked off, wincing every few steps. At last, my ankle couldn't take anymore of the pressure and I fell onto the ground.
"I think you need to go to the nurse," Darren suggested. He helped me up onto my feet. I threw an arm around his shoulder for support and I felt his arm across my back.
We made our way into the school and to the nurse's office.

He helped me up onto the exam table. A few minutes later, the school nurse came in.
"What happened?" She asked.
"I'm not sure, but my ankle really hurts."
"Okay," she says apprehensively. "Can you move your ankle?" I tried to move my ankle. Every time I moved it, I felt a pain shoot up my ankle.
"I can move it, but it hurts to move it."
"It's just a sprained ankle, it'll heal with time." She helped me take off my shoe and sock and she wrapped up my ankle.
"Thank you." I hopped off of the table and lightly set my foot on the ground. I spotted Darren standing in the corner on his phone. "Hey Darren!"
He looked up and saw me looking at him. "Me?" He asked as he tucked his phone into his back pocket.
"No, I was talking to the door," I sarcastically said.
"Haha, very funny." He crossed his arms. "What's up?"
"Can you help me get to the coach's office?"
"Why should I?"
"If you're not gonna help, why are you still here?"
"Fine." He walked over to me and wrapped his arm around my waist for support.

-----

"What do you mean I can't play!?" I asked as I slammed my hands down on his desk.
"I mean, you can't play," he simply responded.
"Why not?"
"You're benched-"
"For one game!"
"-and you have a broken ank-"
"Sprained ankle, it'll heal in no time. I'm feeling better aleady, see?" I stand up straight.
"Don't risk your health for a few games. I'd rather have a healthy receiver than one that'll break their ankle."
"Fine. Fine. FINE." I grabbed my bag off of the ground. "I quit," I quietly said before I walked out of the office.

~~~~~

I'm so sorry that this took so long, I've been working on it for a month. (If one or two sentences a day counts.)

-The Anonymous Writer
November 22, 2015
10:34am