“Olly?”
There were a lot of voices around me. A lot of speculation and a lot of muttering. A lot of instructions being given by the doctor and by Coach. But somehow I heard him.
“Keaton?” I said, lifting my head to look up.
“I’m here,” he said, running into my line of vision. He was still holding the video camera. The doctor was asking a few of my teammates to help lift me up.
“Did you at least get it on camera?” I asked. I was trying to joke. I thought it might make the pain go down.
“I did,” Keaton laughed. But his laugh was high and tight. Like he wasn’t really finding it funny at all. “I’ll show you later. Are you…?” He stopped short of saying the last word.Are you alright?
Probably because he could see for himself that I wasn’t alright at all.
But seeing him…
They lifted me into the air and started to move. They were carrying me off the field. Keaton disappeared into the group of players that were huddled around.
He was gone.
“Keaton?” I called out. I didn’t like the sound of my voice just then. Like I was desperate to see him again.
“I’m here,” he said again, appearing out of them like an angel. Was I delirious? Maybe the pain was making me delirious.
“I’m sorry about before. It wasn’t your fault. It was mine. Come with me,” I said. I sounded needy. Desperate. I was. I didn’t know why but I knew I needed him beside me. I had to think of a reason. “Keep filming.” Yeah. That was the excuse. Keep filming me for the documentary. Not because I need you.
I needed him.
Why did I need him?
And was I ever going to play again?
Those two questions swirled through my head as I watched him snap open a viewer on the side of the video camera. He pointed it at me and jogged after the stretcher. He came close by my side and I managed to pretend to smile down the lens.
So long as he was with me, I could do this.
So long as they didn’t tell me my career was over.
Keaton
I put the camera down quietly on the nightstand, trying not to make a sound. I didn’t want to disturb Olly. Not while he was sleeping so peacefully.
I took a shuddering breath, trying to collect my thoughts.
It had been a hell of a day. I went to the field to record his practice even though I knew he was mad at me. For one thing, I didn’t want to fail this project, and for another, I thought maybe I could find an opportunity to make up with him. In honesty, I thought he would wake up this morning and apologize – but he was already gone by the time I woke up. When I realized he’d left me behind I had to scramble to get ready as fast as possible and get over there.
The look he gave me when he saw me in the bleachers nearly killed me. I thought about putting the camera down there and then and walking away.
But I needed this project. Did the people you filmed always have to like you? No, I didn’t think so. That was what being a documentary filmmaker was all about, wasn’t it? Facing tough realities, facing hate, facing people who wanted to keep what they were doing secret.
And anyway, I wanted to watch him.
I was getting addicted to it. Watching him doing everything. And more than anything, at least once before he told me to leave him alone for good, I wanted to watch him doing what he was best at.
I wasn’t prepared to watch him get hurt, having my heart jump into my mouth as I leapt from the stands without thinking about whether I was allowed to or not.
And when he’d asked me to follow him, something in my traitor heart had wished that he wanted me with him because he wanted – well,me.
Until he’d said he wanted me to keep filming and I realized he was just concerned about making a good movie.
