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eilenwrites · 1 year

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ONE SHOT: ANTERIOR CRUCIATE LIGAMENT

Summary: Stream of consciousness 1st person pov, Vivianne Miedema reacts to Beth Mead tearing her ACL in the game against Manchester United.

Author’s note: I hope you enjoy this one shot take, it’s my first time ever publishing on Tumblr and I’m pretty nervous about it. I would love your opinions so feel free to comment, like and reblog. With love, xxx Ellen.

The second she goes down I know what’s going on. The second she plants her foot and her knee goes, I have a pretty good idea what the diagnosis will be. The second she grips her leg and screams I know the dreaded three letters will come. Anterior Cruciate Ligament. And I’m on that pitch and I have to fight until the end because we are losing to Manchester United of all teams and I don’t want to be here. My whole body aches, my breath is short, I want to run to her and make sure she’s alright but instead I have to run up and down the pitch and try to score in the minute and a half we have left while she’s sat in pain and crying. How is any of it fair? How does any of this make any sense? The whistle blows and we have lost. And she limped off the pitch and I can see her hugging Kim, because Kim knows too, and I can’t run to her because I have to stay with the team and be a good person and pretend like this defeat does not taste like poison in my mouth. I have to make small talk and walk around the stadium like it’s a goddamn parade because people pay to watch us play and they deserve some sort of recognition. Get me out of here. Get me out.

The minute the stadium looks empty enough and we have all done one lap and had our team talk that Beth misses, all I can do is look for her. Someone tells me to go change and I ignore them because she’s all I want to talk about and the only person I care about finding. I’ve been professional about it all. I waited until after Jonas went over this defeat and tried to talk us up and motivate us for the rest of the season, I’ve held my tears in. But right now I can’t do this any longer. I need to be with her. I need to make sure. I need to go to her. Jordan takes one look at me and she knows. She knows nothing she can say will make it any easier so she just points me in the right direction. She’s gone back inside with the medical team. My ears are ringing and I think I might actually faint. And I can’t. I have to be strong for her because she will blame herself and be horribly sad and I have to be the steady one. For her.

Seeing her is a relief and I feel bad that it is because the tears are still fresh on her cheeks and she looks so distressed. But it’s her, she’s the same, and seeing her is still a good thing. I can’t say anything. I don’t want to. I just hold her while someone is taking a look at her knee and four different people are talking about her like she’s not right there in the room crying her eyes out. The body of an athlete truly is property and nothing more. They’re losing one of their assets so that’s a bad thing. Feelings be damned, what’s worrying is that there won’t be performance. My girl is more than this, why is no one looking at her? Why is no one willing to make eye contact? She knows. She knows. She KNOWS. Just tell her. I can’t be the one to tell her. Don’t make me be the one that has to crush her under the weight of the three letters. But they leave, they all leave and I can’t just act like any of this is alright. I tell her I love her. She knows I love her. I tell her anyway, probably ten times in a row. She says it back every time because we promised we always would.

But I walked off, Viv, how did I walk off if it’s my ACL she asks and I don’t have an answer. I can’t tell her that many people live a regular life without that damn ligament because actually it’s possible, just not comfortable or compatible with an athlete’s lifestyle. I don’t tell her that but I pull her closer and that’s even worse, because she knows me too well and she knows that when I don’t speak it’s because I know more than I want to let out. I tell her that we need to wait for the scans to confirm and that she needs to listen to the medics and use the crutches until further notice for the swelling to go down and for the scans to be accurate. She isn’t moving much and when I ask if she’s in pain she just looks at me and starts crying again. It’s not physical pain. It’s the pain of knowing that her season is over and her world cup hopes have just been crushed. It’s the pain of fate slapping her once again and I want to take the pain and make it all mine so she does not have to feel any of it. She squeezes my hand so hard it hurts but I don’t even complain one bit because really I’d endure one thousand times that if it meant she would be hurting a little less.

Jonas comes in and he’s being so Jonas about all of it I want to simultaneously hug him and never speak to him again. He tells Beth that she’s being so brave and that he would not have left her on the pitch so long had he known she could have gotten injured. It’s like he is pretending that he didn’t see her get two-footed about fifteen times before that final knock took her out. He tells Beth that the club is behind her no matter the medical verdict and everything will be put in place for her to get back to being fit as comfortably and safely as possible. He means it in a nice way. He says it in a nice way. It sounds like a death sentence. Season? Dead. World Cup? Gone. Knee? Deceased. The eulogy hasn’t been made yet but all hopes have been buried already. Jonas puts his hand on her shoulder. We all love you Beth. We are all here for you. We are your family. Beth says thank you and I want to scream. DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT IF YOU LOVE HER. UNDO IT. MAKE BETTER DECISIONS. GET HER OFF THAT PITCH BEFORE SHE GETS HURT. I don’t. I’m a coward. He says we should go and get some rest. I volunteer to go get Beth’s things from the locker room because the physio has to put her in a brace.

They’re all looking at me and I know they want to know but I can’t say anything right now or else I will cry. Leah opens her arms and I almost fall into her. She knows a lot more than I’ve told her. She knows the break I took saved me. She knows I am shaky still and Beth has been strong for the both of us. She knows I needed life to be soft upon my return and it’s just not going to be. She whispers in my ear and asks me what I need. I say water. Out of all things, I need to drink. Manu is looking at me like she saw a ghost. I pack Beth’s things and Katie tries to make a joke that I don’t understand because I’m simply not listening. Jen doesn’t let me do it on my own. She says she’ll pack while I sit there and have a drink and eat something. She says it’s non-negotiable. I don’t have the strength to fight back. Steph hands me a tissue before it even registers that I am crying. Mana has packed all of my things while Jen took care of Beth’s. Family through everything, Frida says. I want to believe it. Family in shambles but still standing together, Lia says. I believe that.

We can come with you if you want. I don’t. I really don’t. But Beth will want to see her friends so I let them come with me. Jen, Jordan and Steph. Leah too because she’s holding me steady. When we open the door Beth is trying to get off the physio table without bending her leg or putting weight on it. They don’t even need to say anything, Jen picks her up, Jordan kisses her forehead, Steph brings her her crutches. She’s standing and she’s dried her eyes and put on her brave face. Gotta keep things interesting she says. The girls can barely force themselves to fake a smile. She looks straight at me and tells me to take her home. She means my house and that fact never fails to make me smile. Leah walks with us to the car and hugs Beth goodbye. She hugs me and tells me to call her no matter the time if I need anything. She knows I won’t but I like that she offers. I need a few minutes before leaving the parking lot because my vision is blurred by tears. Please Vivi if you start crying too I will never stop. I tell her that I’m sorry because I really am. It sounds empty because sorry is not even a third of what I’m feeling. Despair. Terror. Dread. I can’t say that. Calm down, Viv, just drive. Just focus on the road. It’s only a few miles. Focus on getting home safe. She tells me she loves me. I say it back. This is the only thing that is still safe.

I help her out of the car. I help her into the house. I help her undress. I help her shower. I help her get into bed. I can’t help her fall asleep. She won’t stop moving and she won’t stop crying and she won’t stop thinking about it all. I want to love her until this doesn’t hurt anymore. She takes shelter in my arms and I’ve never felt so inadequate faced with the immensity of her pain. I try my best. I am steady. I am the rock she needs. I am unwavering and unyielding. What good am I without football she asks. I’ve wondered the same about myself so I can’t act like I don’t know what she means. What good are we when what makes us us no longer works. What are we when the one most defining thing no longer holds. What is left when the thing is gone. I don’t score as much anymore, so they call the goat a ghost. She won’t be playing, will Meado become Knee-do? Cruelty comes easy to so many. She sees the best in people always and it devastates me that maybe they will consistently show her their worst. My sweet love. She deserves all the good and instead got struck by lightning.

I have to pick up the phone when her mum calls because she keeps dodging it. June hasn’t been well and Beth doesn’t want to upset her. It’s more upsetting to her that her injured daughter isn’t picking up the phone. Beth thinks it’s none of my business but she takes the phone when I hand it to her. She hates being wrong but for once she is. June had to know and now we can go and get the dreaded scans. She doesn’t need the added weight of a secret to make the moment even harder. On the way there we talk about the video of Leah fixing my hair. She tells me she’s watched it twenty times and fallen in love with me all over again. I don’t tell her about the video of her injury that I’ve had on replay hoping it will change what happened to her. Instead I tell her that I fall more in love with her every day. It’s true too. She doesn’t think she will be a very inspiring injured person. She thinks she will be incredibly impatient and irritable. She thinks I will stop loving her because of it. I say we will cross that bridge when we come to it. I could never unlove her. She’s stuck with me forever now, sorry baby, sorry, you are. She laughs and it’s sweet because she knows she can believe me.

MRIs really take too long. I need the hungry radiation machine to give me my Beth back. Let her go. Come to think of it, we don’t want to know. Don’t give us the news. I want to live in this suspended moment before we really hear about it. I want to inhabit unsure territories with that Schrodinger cat of an ACL, dead or alive, it’s safe within her flesh it doesn’t matter just yet. I love her, torn ACL or not. I love her, mum, I will carry her through it no matter what. Mum says she will come and help if Beth needs surgery because June won��t be able to make it. Thank you mum, I have to go, she’s back. My love, it will take a few more minutes, let’s make ourselves comfortable. She just sits on my lap while I hug her really tight. It’s the only way she can stop herself from fidgeting. Distract me, she says. So I talk about Christmas and how I need us to decorate the house to make it pretty. She cries when she tells me that now she will have all the time in the world to put up the decorations. Fuck ligaments. All of them. I trust none. They steal all the joy away.

The verdict comes and she is so brave about it, so exemplary. She thanks the doctor because she knows you don’t shoot the messenger. She thanks the assistant before we exit the practice because she’s been raised well, yes June, she’s polite through it all. We are outside and I hold onto her hand because I’m afraid she will run away. Away from me, away from injuries, away from pain. But she doesn’t run. She doesn’t have a functioning knee, but that’s not why she’s not running. She stops dead in her tracks. She sits down on the pavement. She doesn’t care that it’s dirty and there are a few fallen leaves. She just sits. I know to exist in the outskirts when she needs time for the pain to register. I sit right next to her, her hand still in mine. I had hoped for a happy surprise. She had prepared for the worst. We are both devastated all the same. That pavement has probably never seen such soppy words because I choose this exact moment to tell her I love her endlessly. She tells me I shouldn’t because she ruins everything. Every single thing she loves leaves her. The Olympics. Her mum. Football. She doesn’t say Dan but I know she also thought Dan and it’s ok. I say I’m going absolutely nowhere. I’m right there on the pavement. With you, Beth, always with you.

Everyone at club and country desperately needs to hear the news from her. I tell her agent to do her job and tell them instead because she should not have to be the one to break the news over and over again. Her agent thinks I’m rude but she won’t say that to my face. I don’t care. Surgery should be in about ten days. Yes she will make it public when she’s ready. No she’s not doing interviews right now, leave her alone, we have things to do. Beth wants to stay home and moans because I won’t let her. I say we need to go do some shopping. We need you out and about because I have to be sure you’ll survive when I go to Italy for the next game. I take her to our favourite restaurant. The staff don’t ask about the crutch, I called ahead and made sure they wouldn’t. She allows herself to eat. She smiles sincerely at the whipped cream smiley face on her crepe. I ask her what would be most helpful and she just says keep loving me. That was the plan. And I know we will be alright.

On the tube home we take a picture. It’s not even a good picture. But everything about it is us. We are close. We are holding onto each other. I’m taking the picture because she’s too busy being the prettiest of the two. The beanies are an adorable touch. Less able to stand. It’s a good joke. It’s a great joke, even. She laughs about it and then tells me she is still the funnier one, and I let her win that one because she needs a win. I post the picture to my private account. It’s good enough for the real one, too, she thinks. And I agree. It’s vulnerable to love so openly. It’s vulnerable to show something so unpolished. She doesn’t think twice about it. She is braver than I will ever be. She is tougher than I can ever dream to be. I don’t boss you around that much, do I? I love that she is oblivious to it. I would do anything she asks yet she never asks for more than she should. She loves me, steady or unsteady. She loves me when she needs me and she loves me when I need her. She is okay. We are okay. We will see each other through it all. Carry each other through it all. Love each other through it all. I love you. I love you. Always, always, say it back and mean it.

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