‘Don’t be silly. It’s arnica gel. Take it.’ She holds it out towards me. ‘I saw you wince when you stood up, and this helps,’ she explains when she registers my confused expression. ‘Come on. You’re always sorting the snacks. I wanted to do something nice for you for a change.’
I weigh the tube in my palm. Nobody ever notices any crack in my armour, never mind tries to mend it. Her gesture is so small yet so vast that I don’t know where to put it.
‘You didn’t have to.’
‘Yeah, I know.’ She shrugs. ‘But I wanted to.’
Something catches in my chest. A snag I can’t explain. I close my fingers around the tube and tuck it into my jeans. ‘Ta. I mean it.’
She smiles. ‘You’re very welcome. Now, can we go inside before my face falls off?’
‘Is that so? Why don’t you fluff up, then? Heard that’s how sparrows do it.’
She snickers, slaps my arm, and hooks hers in my elbow.
We buy tickets and climb to the back row. Our row. Ava puts her coat under her seat and snuggles in right beside me. No gap or buffer.
I keep stealing looks at her while the trailers blast. Hair shoved into a messy bun with strands escaping around her neck after God knows how many hours of physio. The projector light catches the exhausted shadows under her eyes, the physical toll of her week showing right on her face. Even looking like she desperately needs ten hours of sleep and in the blue wash from the screen, she’s so damn pretty. The prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.
She catches me staring. ‘What’s it, Mister?’
‘Nothing. You’ve…erm…got popcorn on your chin.’
She doesn’t. But she wipes at it anyway.
The Mistletoe Mistake starts. A high-powered CEO in a red cashmere coat gets bonked on the head by a falling branch in a Christmas tree farm and forgets who she is. The locals adopt her. Hijinks ensue.
‘Unlikely,’ Ava mumbles in my direction. ‘I don’t think you forget your entire personality and life from minor blunt force trauma.’
‘It’s festive force trauma. Different rules.’
A short laugh breaks out of her. ‘Is that covered by the NHS?’
‘Naw, you need to go private,’ I say. ‘There’s a specialist in London. Very exclusive.’
She giggles and leans into my arm. Not sure she knows she’s doing it, it’s that subtle. Her warmth settles into me, and the light shines on the line of her cheekbone.
‘Maybe I should get his number.’ She shifts in her seat, stretches her right leg out in front of her. ‘Add him to my collection.’
I glance at her foot. The compression sleeve is visible beneath the hem of her jeans.
‘How many specialists does one ballet dancer need?’
‘Depends on what joint loses an argument with the floor.’ She rotates her foot. ‘You tackle men, I tackle gravity.’
‘That’s one way to put it.’
Three rows of empty seats sit between us and the handful of folk scattered down the slope, so our voices just get lost in the gloom.
‘Ballet is easier on the head than rugby. But at least as hard on everything else.’ She stretches her legs out and crosses her ankles. ‘Your body is a tool. You use it until it breaks, and then you keep using it. It’s not great, but that’s the job. Could be stacking shelves at Tesco.’
I look down at my own hands. It’s a brutal, unsentimental way to view yourself, but she’s right. It makes perfect sense. She knows what she signed up for and deals with the damage. I respect the hell out of that.
‘Last weekend, I took a knock to the ribs and finished the match. Physio strapped me up tight and told me to crack on. Turnover in the seventy-second minute went right through my torso. Couldn’t breathe properly for two days.’ I crack my knuckles. ‘We won, though.’
She turns her head briefly. ‘Exactly.’
Understanding clicks into place. We’re the same species that keeps going because stopping isn’t an option. We learned early that pain is part of the game.
