The trouble was that when I had the ball, my concentration went, and I did something stupid, just like now. Instead of cutting left and passing the ball, I ran forward with it in my hands. By the time I got the shout of warning, it was already too late to avoid it. Ted was right, though, I’d tried to make the run anyway and tripped on my feet.
Damn.
I was really off my game today, but this much was just ridiculous. I’d never been clumsy in my life, but suddenly I was tripping over my feet in the field. I was lucky I didn’t accidentally twist my ankle when I went down.
“Hey,” the guy beside me asked. “Are you sure you’re okay? That was quite a fall you took.”
I winced and tersely muttered, “I’m fine.”
Then the ball went flying, and everyone burst into motion.
When I made the first mistake, there were looks of concern. Not over the mistake, instead focusing on whether I was okay or not. My clothes had grass and mud stains from the many times I’d taken a dive to the ground. I hadn’t broken anything major yet, but if I continued being careless, then it wasn’t completely impossible.
The concern started flowing easier the more mistakes I made, but then there were some guys getting annoyed. When I made mistakes, I was ruining practice for everyone else. They needed to focus, but they couldn’t, and if I kept ruining it every time, they’d just lose the motivation to continue.
It wasn’t that I’d even made that many mistakes. I could count them all on one hand, but they were big mistakes that no one could ignore, and a couple times there I could have gotten myself injured because I was absent minded.
The others were wondering what had me so out of it that I wasn’t playing well anymore. No one had asked me directly, and I wondered if anyone had figured it out. It wouldn’t be that hard.
Where was Zoe?
I knew I wasn’t the only one thinking it. For the last few days, she hadn’t been anywhere in sight. Even when we didn’t get to talk, I always saw her around on the days we had practice. It wasn’t enough for me, not by a long shot, but at least I could see her.
Then, for some reason, about six days ago, we had practice but Zoe didn’t show up once. I actually didn’t notice until our morning practice for the day was out of the way. Since she was always there, I figured she had to be somewhere even if I didn’t see her, but up until the afternoon practice, Zoe didn’t show.
What was going on? Why hadn’t she been around? I hadn’t asked, but some of the other guys had, and no one seemed to know, not even her dad. These questions were the reason why it was so hard for me to concentrate.
I didn’t think anything had happened to her. We would definitely have known after six days, right? That was nearly a whole week. But I’d tried texting and calling and gotten no response from her, so getting worried was normal, wasn’t it?
Because I was so busy worrying about her, I couldn’t get myself to focus on the game.
“Howard!”
The shout of my name was my only warning. There were guys behind me, and I hadn’t even noticed how close they’d gotten. I held the ball in my arms, but there was a guy across the field, waving his arms and waiting for me to throw the ball at him.
Dammit!
The problem was that it happened unconsciously. I definitely wasn’t doing it on purpose, I just found my mind wandering on its own, and while I could do certain actions without thinking about it, I couldn’t play a perfect game without concentrating. I tried to make the pass. I didn’t trip this time, at least, but I’d panicked and the ball didn’t go the right direction. The other guy had to run to catch up with the ball, and I still got a bunch of guys throwing me to the ground and piling up on top of me. Probably because they were so close and they couldn’t stop in time to follow the ball.
“Ugh.”
When everyone pulled away, I remained on the ground for a few seconds before slowly sitting up. Even though I’d messed it up still, at least this time my team technically won the game. Some of the heat coming my way went down a bit because of that, but I knew I’d be walking on thin ice if I kept doing this.
“Howard!”
I was just about to run off the field to get some water. Sweat slicked my forehead, ran down my temples, and I wondered just what I’d done to feel this exhausted when we weren’t even done with the first hour yet.
The person calling my name was Grady, and he ran up to me from the other side of the field.
“Hey, there,” he said, falling into step beside me as we both headed to the refreshment table. “Are you doing okay? You took a couple bad falls there, don’t want to break anything.”
I flexed my shoulder, the only part of me aching bad enough for it to be uncomfortable. I’d fallen against my shoulder in that last tackle, but I’d managed to twist at the last minute, so I didn’t fall right on it. Nothing was broken, after some relaxing and stretching, it would feel fine.
“I’m okay enough to keep playing.”
I managed to get some water, while Grady got himself an energy drink. We spent some blessed seconds in silence as I quenched my thirst. I felt like dropping down to sit for a bit, but in the end decided against it. I was afraid that if I sat down, I wouldn’t be able to force myself to get up later.
“Seriously, is there something up with you?” Grady said in concern. “You didn’t have something for lunch that didn’t agree with you or anything, did you? We’ve been practicing together for some weeks now and I’ve never seen you as bad as today.”
“No, my stomach isn’t the problem.” I barely ate at lunch, I just didn’t have the appetite. The little I did eat, I forced down myself, because I knew I couldn’t play on an empty stomach, my body would just run out of energy quicker. “Sorry, captain. I’m just having a bit of an off day, I didn’t mean to negatively affect the team.”
“I know you didn’t, that doesn’t matter. We still have plenty of time to practice, but are you okay? Is there anything that’s bothering you? I know we haven’t known each other for that long, but if you don’t mind someone to talk to, I’m willing to listen.”