Thoroughly Whipped

Twenty minutes later, I had a notepad full of information thanks to Susan. I smiled, watching the children playing soccer or tag, and felt my heart break wondering what they had been through. I loved my parents with everything I had. I couldn’t imagine losing them. Some of the children before me where as young as five. I couldn’t fathom being that young and losing the person you loved most in the entire world, what it could do to an infant soul.

Feeling tears building in my eyes, I waved to Mr. Caprio across the gym and decided to duck out so as not to cause a scene. Knowing the way to the ladies’ bathroom, I walked down the old corridors, laughing, remembering my first kiss against a wall or the time my friend Dina drank her first wine cooler in the bathroom and then vomited all over Billy Day as soon as she stepped out.

After I’d finished in the bathroom, I was about to head home when I heard the unmistakable sound of children laughing. “The east entrance,” I said, realizing the new field would be just down here. Mr. Caprio had said it was closed, but that had never stopped me before. As I got closer to the door to what used to be the old basketball court, the shouts got louder.

Opening the door, I was met with a flurry of activity. Gone was the old cracked concrete of the basketball court, and in its place was vibrant green artificial grass. Children were running around, throwing what looked like a football. No, it was bigger than a football. It was white, and I quickly realized it was—

“To the left!” A voice shouted. A deep, very proper voice, with a very English accent, one I knew very well.

A flash of white whizzed by me. Harry Sinclair. Harry Sinclair in a white rugby jersey with a red rose on the left breast, gray sweatpants, and sneakers. I froze as I watched him pass the ball, hands suddenly thrust in the air when one of the young boys scored a…goal? Touchdown? Home run? Hell if I knew!

As if he could sense my shocked gaze, he looked over at me, and the wide smile he’d been sporting suddenly slipped from his face.

“Harry! Head’s up!” Another boy shouted, pulling his attention away from me. It all happened so fast. The young boy threw the ball and even I, a complete moron at sports, could tell it was never reaching Harry, who was supposed to be the target. Instead, it sailed over Harry’s head, bowing high and wide, and smacked straight into my face. To say I toppled to the ground like a sack of last week’s potatoes would be an understatement.

In typical Faith fashion, I landed on my ass, clutching at the side of my head, which I felt was about to break free of my skull, and fell to the ground. Feeling it was better not to scare the kids with such a gruesome scene, I began crawling back through the doorway. It was a crawl I had perfected under Maître Auguste’s strict instruction.

I had made it to the far wall in the hallway when Harry came barreling through, searching for me, and ran toward me when I waved my free hand.

“I’d heard rugby was a dangerous sport, but Jesus Christ, Harry! A heads-up would have been nice,” I said as Harry crouched down to face me. He gently took my wrist and moved my hand off my head. It must have been the knock to the brain; I couldn’t take my eyes off him as his blue eyes searched my face and he pressed the wounded area with timid fingers.

“Ow, you sadist!” I snapped, and I hissed at the onslaught of pain.

“It’s not bleeding. But you may be concussed.”

“Awesome,” I said.

“Miss Parisi, has no one ever told you to duck when balls are flying toward your face?”

My head was throbbing, but I was not going to miss that kind of invitation. I held Harry’s hand, which was still on my head, and said, “Harry, usually when balls fly at my face, I have my eyes and mouth wide open.”

Harry’s mouth parted in shock. Then shaking his head, but with a reluctant smile on his lips, he said, “You are incorrigible, Miss Parisi.”

I winced when I saw a bright light above me. Panic flooded my bones. “Harry, I can see a light. Is that the light? Am I fucking dying right now?” The light seemed to expand, growing ever closer to me.

“Relax,” he said.

“I can’t! The light! It’s coming for me!”

Suddenly two hands pressed onto my cheeks, and the light ebbed when a face blocked it out and hovered before mine. A perfect face. The most handsome of faces. “An angel,” I whispered, feeling all kinds of dizzy.