Page 79 of Colliding with Ten

“It was impressive,” he continued. Then he smiled. “But I felt terrible after.”

We laughed until it faded. All the while, he held my gaze.

Priya cleared her throat. “Okay, let’s talk about the injuries. Both of you have had significant ones. Lennox, you came back from a torn knee two years ago. Ayla, you’re still in recovery from the same injury after the collision earlier this season.” She looked between us. “What does coming back entail?”

Lennox thought before answering. “The physical part is easier. You do the work, and your body responds.” He flexed his throwing hand. “What nobody tells you is that there’s a version of you that existed before the injury, and you spend months trying to get back to him. But he’s not there anymore. You have to figure out who you are on the other side of it. That, for me, took longer than the knee did.”

I stopped thinking about what to say and listened. What he said connected to everything I’d felt during my recovery. The injury changed my life, and I knew those changes weren’t finished. He glanced at me, a flush on his ears, before looking back at Priya.

“Ayla?” Priya said.

I collected myself. “The hardest part for me was not being able to move. Dance has been the biggest thing in my life since I was five. When you take that away, you realize how much of that was a part of your identity.”

“And now?” Priya asked.

“I’m finding it again.”

“I want to show you both something,” Priya said, reaching for a folder on the side table. She pulled out two photographs and held them up side by side.

On the left: a small boy in a youth football uniform, helmet on with chin strap hanging loose. He was maybe nine or ten, holding a football with a serious expression.

On the right: a girl in a pale pink leotard, tutu askew. Her hair was pulled back, but several curls had escaped. She was mid-jump, arms thrown wide, with her head tilted back.

“Oh, my God. Where did you get that photo?” I said, recognizing myself.

Priya chuckled. “We called your brother.”

I winced.

Lennox and I both looked at the photos again. “I remember that game. We lost by twenty-four points.”

“No wonder you looked so serious.”

“I was a serious kid.”

“You were nine,” Priya said

“I don’t think I knew what being a kid was back then. I was very competitive.”

He turned to look at my photo, and his expression changed. The corner of his mouth pulled upward. “Is that tutu supposed to be like that?”

“It was probably a very long day of rehearsal,” I said. “I was seven and very enthusiastic.”

Lennox and I grinned at the picture together, looking at the girl who didn’t know she was being photographed. She was too busy flying. I remembered other photos from that year, always taken from below, as if the photographer were shorter than the adults. She was always breathless, trying to keep up.

My mother had taken that photograph. By then, her hands had begun to shake, the disease taking over her body. She’d crouch and brace both arms to control the camera, holding it through sheer determination. She was always there to catch me mid-air.

The room didn’t change. Priya talked about the campaign’s theme of beginnings and where it all started. Lennox still looked at the photographs. But the air felt strange around me. I pressed my lips together and breathed through my nose as my throat thickened. I focused on a point above Priya’s shoulder.

Don’t cry on camera.

Then his hand closed around mine between our chairs, below the camera’s frame. I couldn’t look at him, or I’d lose my composure.

Priya kept talking as I tried to catch my breath. She paused, tilting her head with careful attention. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. Just—” My voice was steadier than expected. I looked at the photograph again. “It’s a good photo. Whoever took it knew what they were doing.”

Priya smiled. “Any idea who it was?”