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Everyone has come to in the kitchen at least once, completely bewildered, with a frozen question lodged in their head: What am I doing here? It's strange, but not alarming. Everything is under control. Nothing bad is happening. And if a few minutes sometimes drop out of your memory? That's not a problem. Neil is fine. Neil is always fine.
The shower after a morning run. Waiting for his order at the café. An awkward conversation with a classmate. The drive to night practice. A cigarette smoked during a break. The stairs to the roof. A heated exchange with Aaron.
All of that happened. Probably.
If you ignore it, it will go away. Neil believes this, because he's in his right mind (at least, he desperately wants to think so).
"Coming to" in the middle of a conversation with Matt that he didn't start, Neil is relieved to confirm he's mastered the art of picking up the thread mid-sentence with near-perfect fluency. Almost as relieving is the fact that no one notices anything. That would become a problem, but the blackouts are rare, and Neil is a good liar. He fires off another sharp retort, Andrew raises an eyebrow, but says nothing. Andrew's relaxed. That's good. It means Neil is fine.
It's not frightening if ten minutes gradually become thirty, forty, an hour. Only once every couple of days, it's survivable. It's not a problem.
If you ignore it, it will go away. And Neil ignores, ignores, ignores, ignores...
Half a seminar in applied mathematics. An evening run. Dinner with the upperclassmen. The first half of a major league match. Lunch break. Studying for the midterm. A stupid movie during the Foxes' sleepover.
All of it might as well not have happened, and just the thought of it makes Neil sick. The taut string inside him draws tighter, but no one notices anything. That's starting to be scary. But it's not a problem.
Neil is fine.
Neil is fine when he scrapes himself out of bed to go to practice before classes. Fine when he's standing in the shower and knows the others will linger a bit to wait for him, even though some of them are already late for class. Fine when he dashes back to the dorms for a forgotten assignment due today. And even when, muttering curses under his breath, he practically tumbles down the stairs because it's faster than the elevator. Neil is fine when he pushes open the door to the street and squints for a second against the bright morning sun. When he takes a step. When he crosses the threshold, still squinting and looking down at his feet, but underneath them isn't asphalt—it's not-very-clean white tile.
It smells like some kind of food, a bell jingles loudly behind him, and a vaguely familiar pop tune plays in the background. Neil freezes, snapping his head up.
He's in a café. An unfamiliar one. Just inside the door, having barely taken a couple of steps in. No one is coming in behind him, the room is mostly empty, and by the register stands a cardboard cutout of some strange animal—the same nightmare is on the apron of the woman behind the counter. Probably the local diner's mascot. They don't have anything like that on campus.
His eyes land on the clock. Breathe, Neil thinks, and tries to count his inhales in Spanish this time. The hands show 13:10 PM. He left the dorms at 9 AM, just over four hours ago. Neil mentally draws a fifteen-mile radius around Palmetto. And goes cold at the thought: "Best case scenario." Because if he doesn't remember hitching a ride...
To the left, right by the entrance, there's a newspaper rack. Neil takes a couple of steps on stiff legs and pulls one out. The Kershaw Weekly, the date is today's. He's God knows where, doing God knows what, and he can't breathe. Neil isn't fine. This is a problem.
His hand reached for his phone on pure reflex, and then the realization hit that his bag with the notes wasn't on his shoulder. Neil suddenly felt like he was going to be sick. His shaking hands fumbled for a second before his fingers finally located the phone in his left pocket and clenched around it as if it might vanish. After a few seconds, Neil heard the dial tone.
Truthfully, he wasn't expecting an answer—it was midday, classes in full swing—but the call was picked up after the first ring. Andrew waited in silence. Neil took a few deep breaths, trying to get rid of the feeling that something was constricting his throat, and finally let out the thought that had been circling his head for the past week:
"Something's wrong with me."
"Not news," Andrew said indifferently and fell silent, but he didn't hang up.
"Give me Bee's number."
A heavy silence followed. Neil closed his eyes, imagining the weight of Andrew's hand on the back of his head, mentally giving himself simple, short commands: inhale-pause-exhale, inhale-pause-exhale...
"Where are you?"
Neil stifled a hysterical laugh and stared at the seam between the tiles under his foot, trying not to look around again.
"Not on campus."
"Be specific."
"Kershaw." Neil glanced at the newspaper again to confirm he'd read it right. "I have no idea where that is."
It was hard to tell from the silence on the other end whether Andrew knew where that was. Which probably meant it was further than fifteen miles. A grim-faced guy shoved Neil with his shoulder as he passed, muttering something under his breath. Neil stepped aside from the door, bumped into a bright red couch, and mechanically sank onto it, pressing the phone hard to his ear. The silence thickened.
"The hell?"
A reasonable question. Neil swallowed hard.
"I don't know. I don't remember. I need Bee's number."
Silence again, broken only by the faint sound of footsteps. The slam of a car door directly next to the speaker made Neil jump so badly he almost dropped the phone.
"More specific," Andrew demanded instead of answering. Neil had to look around again, even though the sight of the room was already making him queasy.
"Some kind of diner, something like... 'Bojangles'? I'm not sure."
"How many times?"
I'll have to tell him anyway. Neil stared at the not-so-clean table covered in crumbs, almost feeling his attention begin to scatter and the pause stretch out. He needed to say something.
"Waking up God knows where?" Neil let out a strained chuckle in a desperate attempt to dodge the question. "Lost count."
Any other time, that joke would've ended the call immediately. Now, Andrew didn't bother to acknowledge he'd heard it, but he also didn't hang up. The silence was replaced by the steady hum of an engine. Andrew was silent and clearly wasn't about to end the call. The last thing Neil wanted right now was to be left alone with this godforsaken place, the dirty table, and himself, but there was another problem. He called out cautiously:
"Hey?" Andrew didn't respond, but Neil knew he was listening. "My phone's dying."
Andrew swore long and colorfully in German before hissing through his teeth:
"You should've said that sooner. I would've grabbed your charger and shoved it down your throat when I got there so you'd always have the fucking thing on you." The engine noise grew slightly louder. Andrew seemed to sigh quietly or mutter something else, but Neil couldn't make it out. "Look down," Andrew finally ordered. Neil obediently dropped his gaze and grunted in acknowledgment. "You'll be right there and you'll be waiting." Getting no response, Andrew pressed: "Yes or no, Neil?"
Suddenly, Neil felt utterly helpless. It was a simple, logical instruction: stay put and wait to be found. But he couldn't say "yes," no matter how much he wanted to, because he knew too well that he couldn't trust himself right now. And he certainly couldn't lie to Andrew.
"I'll try," Neil finally forced out, the most honest thing he could say.
"If you move an inch, I will never step foot on the court again." Andrew's voice was completely flat, though Neil clearly understood it was the most terrifying threat Andrew could think of. "Understood?"
"Yes."
The call ended, and Neil was alone again. His gaze automatically fixed on the table, so he could see as little of this place as possible—the unfamiliar faces, the wide windows, the strange streets beyond them. The irrational urge to call Bee subsided but didn't disappear completely, lodged at the edge of his mind like a splinter. He wasn't fine. Something was wrong with him. A four-hour blackout and a trip God knows where—that wasn't scary. What was scary was a blackout exactly like that during a game. Or in one of the beanbag chairs with Andrew.
The intense focus on feeling "here" and "now" was almost physically painful. Every time he looked at the clock, Neil's greatest fear was seeing the hands had jumped forward a couple of hours, but time, as if to spite him, dragged on with agonizing slowness. A waitress approached his table three times, each time walking away with a more dissatisfied expression. They weren't kicking him out yet, but dark looks were already being thrown from the register. Even if Neil'd had money with him, he still wouldn't have been able to swallow a bite.
Barely thirty minutes had passed when a familiar car pulled into the diner's parking lot. Neil lunged for the exit, ignoring the buzzing phone in his pocket. Seeing him in the doorway, Andrew got out of the car and leaned against the hood, waiting, his sharp gaze fixed on Neil's face. Neil stopped in front of him, feeling such an overwhelming sense of relief that it made him feel slightly nauseous again.
Andrew looked him over with an unreadable expression and slowly circled him once, then a second time. Neil bit his tongue, along with the "I'm fine" that wanted to escape, letting himself be properly scrutinized. Finally, Andrew gave a short jerk of his head and headed for his door.
The town scrolled past in a deafening silence. The quiet simmered around them, filling the space, and Neil wisely kept his mouth shut, unconsciously pressing deeper into his seat. He wasn't fine, but it was almost not a problem anymore.
"Why Bee?" Andrew finally asked, not taking his eyes off the road. "Maybe you got hit in the head with a ball. I think something flew into your skull the day before yesterday."
Neil shrugged vaguely. He would be happy if it were that simple.
"I've had blackouts before, after... A long time ago. This is different." He caught Andrew's quick glance and added: "Worse."
Andrew nodded. Neil's phone buzzed shortly—a text from Nicky—but it died before he could open it.
"How long?"
Neil shrank back. There was nowhere to run.
"A couple of weeks."
Andrew slowly turned his head and narrowed his eyes. Neil really didn't want to watch Andrew's expression shift to something threatening, but he couldn't afford to look away. And then, somehow, it got even worse.
"Saturday."
"I said yes."
Neil cringed internally, desperately hoping that only he had heard the questioning tone in that statement.
Any memory of the previous Saturday brought a suffocating wave of guilt. Neil'd come to himself; the wind was blowing, he was on the roof, pressed against a cold concrete wall, kissing Andrew, and he had absolutely no recollection of how they'd gotten there. Everything was fine. Neither of them was doing anything unusual, Neil was acting as cautiously as if he were himself, but he wasn't himself. He couldn't trust himself, he shouldn't have gotten that close to Andrew, because he had no idea what he was doing during the blackouts. Neil should have told Andrew right away. Andrew must have sensed something was wrong anyway, Neil should have told him...
"And you don't remember that," Andrew concluded darkly, quickly pressed a couple of buttons on his phone, and threw it at Neil. "Make an appointment with Bee. Now."
Neil caught the phone with an outgoing call and hastily hit "ignore."
"Not now. It's under control, I'll text her."
"Control doesn't look like this. You forget who you're sleeping with and why the hell you're hauling ass fifty miles off campus." Andrew snatched the phone from Neil's hands, pressed something again, and forcefully shoved it back. "If you loosing your damn mind, I want to know about it."
Fair point, but everything inside Neil resisted the realization. Because if you ignore it...
Andrew handed him his cigarettes, not taking his eyes off the road, and gave a calm nod:
"We'll handle this. Bee will help or find someone who can. After all, she's not the only shrink in the state."
It was probably the closest thing to reassurance Neil had ever heard from him. He fished out a cigarette, clamped it between his teeth, forgot to light it, and, as soon as the call connected, put the phone to his ear.
"Hello, Andrew." Her voice made something protest in Neil's chest, but he responded.
"Hi, Bee."
She didn't sound surprised, or at least she didn't show it. Her new greeting was just as friendly:
"Oh, hello, Neil. Is everything okay with you?"
"We're fine, Bee," Andrew cut in, and without taking his eyes off the road, added: "Neil wanted your number."
Neil's mouth refused to open, his tongue refused to move. None of this made any sense. He was fine.
But they would handle it.
"Yeah, I... I think I need to talk."
"Of course. Right now, or would you like to come by?" Neil expected to hear at least a hint of mockery after his rather curt refusals of her conversations, but Bee's voice was calm and kind. "My consultations are done for the day. I'm at your disposal anytime."
Neil nodded silently, then again, desperately fighting off the ideas that kept popping into his head—ways to avoid going to her at all costs. Andrew held out a lighter, and Neil grabbed it like a lifeline, his eyes locked on Andrew's face. He can't lie to Andrew.
"I'll come by. Today."
"Good, I'll be looking forward to our meeting, Neil."
It sounded like a goodbye, so Neil hung up and sank back into his seat, a heaviness in his chest as if he'd just made an irreversible mistake. He wondered if things could get any worse. He let out a short huff. Of course, they could.
"You're going to tell the coach?"
"No." Andrew gave a surprisingly grim chuckle, shaking his head meaningfully. "You're going to tell the coach."
...that one of his strikers could black out from reality at any moment, or vanish God knows where. Neil decided to think of a gentler wording. Otherwise, Wymack would eventually hang himself by news like that.
The cigarette smoke was a slight distraction from the thick and heavy devastating exhaustion, as if Neil had walked all the way to that godforsaken Kershaw, instead of just making an appointment with a therapist.
"And now what?"
"Now everything will be fine. Unless it's early-onset Alzheimer's. Then I'll check you into the cheapest nursing home I can find." It didn't sound like a joke. Andrew shot him a quick, indifferent look and raised his eyebrows questioningly for a second. "Yes or no?"
Neil pretended to think about it. A strange sense of relief settled somewhere inside.
"Yes."