His shorts were sticking to the sweat on the backs of his legs. As he peeled the material away with one hand, Sam used the other to flap the bottom of his shirt, trying to waft some air up onto his chest. There was no breeze at all, and the sun felt moist and heavy on his skin. Flies crawled on his shoulders, getting in his eyes, and they kept settling back on his hair whenever he swiped them away. He was out on the wing. He hadn’t played wing in a long time. Before his voice had gone, the coach usually put him in the centre, on the attack, leading the ball up to the goal; but now he stood waiting, watching the ball being passed in the distance.
The trees lining the soccer field were drooping and still, and he could see Katie, his mother and Dettie all standing together in the shade. Roger was there too, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and sandals with long socks. He seemed flabbier than Sam remembered, his polo shirt pulling tight across his chest and around his belly. When he wasn’t clapping he would rest his hands in the little valley above his belly. This was Roger’s first outing with the whole family.
Roger had arrived early to attend the welcome-back speech the coach delivered to Sam before the game. He was even planning to stay after the match for the celebratory sponge cake and lollies that were softening on a fold-out card table near the car park. When the coach called Sam ‘brave’ and insisted everyone shake his hand, Roger had clapped louder than anyone else. Now he and Katie were laughing about something together over on the sideline, and Sam couldn’t tell if it was his sister’s smile, or Roger’s arm on their mother’s shoulder that was making Dettie so mad. She was standing back from their conversation, shaking her head, sipping sharply from a briskly of water.
For most of the first half of the game, kids on both teams had been nervous whenever Sam was near them. If the ball came in his direction the players would peel away, keeping their distance. Once, when he’d actually gotten his foot on the ball, the opposition’s defender just let him take it. He’d stopped chasing, pretending to kneel and adjust his skin guard under his sock while Sam kicked the ball on to a teammate who wasn’t even asking for the pass. In the second half, people were starting to relax, even if he still felt them slowing their pace around him, tentative, as though he were breakable.
There was shouting, and a low thump sounded in the distance. Suddenly, the ball was on its way back up the field. A loose kick had sent it tumbling and leaping across the turf. Two of the other team’s players were following it, trying to match its pace, but Sam was closer. It was coming towards him, unguarded, crossing most of the field. Both teams were facing his way. Unlike before, this time someone was yelling at him, telling him to go for it.
He ran, startling the flies crawling on his cheeks. At first he could hear his mother’s cheering through the air rushing in his ears, but soon it was just the sound of his feet thudding on the grass, the suck and wheeze of his stoma. He was already puffed. Ahead, the ball had slowed, crawling to a stop, and somehow the other two players had drawn closer. He held his breath and tried to push harder, but the taller of the two was there already, hooking his foot around the ball and flicking it back down the ground.
Sam eased off—they were gone already. He let his legs slacken to a heavy jog. He was wheezing, feeling the pound of his heart in his neck. His belly was tight. He stood, gasping, trying not to appear too winded while everyone watched.
His calves hadn’t sprung the way he remembered. Instead it seemed like he was landing harder on his ankles, heavier than before. With all the radiation, the medicine, the trips to the hospital, it had been months—almost a year—since he’d played a real game, and now his body felt completely different. Not his own. He was actually thinner than before, but his speed was gone. Now everything felt like lead.
On the sideline, his mother was still clapping, bobbing up and down on her tiptoes. She’d been so excited when Sam had agreed to rejoin the team that he’d found her ironing his uniform in the middle of the lounge room a week before the game. She’d even pressed his long socks and scrubbed the dried dirt from the edges of his cleats. Now she was yelling out encouragement, even though everyone else was watching the ball being passed around the goal at the other end of the field. Roger was nodding, giving him a thumbs up, but the pitying expression behind his smile made Sam look back down at the grass.
Soccer had become another of the many things that felt unnatural now. Like watching Katie sing along to the radio, or the way he heard someone else’s voice in his head when he read to himself. Or how at school his teacher would only ask him to answer questions once she’d knelt beside him, blinking patiently while he typed his answer onto the computer screen. He could picture her face perfectly, nodding, wide-eyed, staring at him, just like Roger was now, over by his mother. Trying to be friendly. Smiling. He was tired of everyone smiling. Simpering. He was tired of feeling clumsy and out of place in his own skin.
There was another shout down the field, and again the pounding of feet. One of the players on Sam’s team, the captain, had broken away with the ball and was heading in his direction. Everyone else was following, shouting. Sam was completely in the open. He waved, but the captain pretended not to see, dipping his head and pushing on. Behind him was a shorter kid with a flat nose whom Sam had seen at the speech before the game. Then, he’d been clearing his throat loudly, continually spitting into the dirt; now he was gaining, stretching out one leg as he ran, prodding at the ball. Sam waved harder, jumping slightly as he jogged into a better line. From his angle the goal was open. The goalkeeper hadn’t been paying much attention to him the whole game. Sam could feel the muscles in his throat tighten, wanting to call out. He could see the short kid nudging closer to the ball.
With a swift flick, the ball was clipped out of the captain’s control and the short kid spun around to meet it. Glancing over his shoulder, he smirked quickly at Sam, sizing him up as no threat, then turned back towards the rest of the players. Sam felt his face flush. He sprinted forward, following. He ignored the ache in his chest, pumping his burning legs until he caught up with the short kid, drawing level beside him. He seemed to need two steps for the other kid’s one, and he tasted the sweat beading off his face, but he blocked it all out. All he could think about was the short kid’s smug little grin. For a moment, all the other people on the field, everyone else’s tender half-smiles, all their polite but sad nodding, all their pity, faded away. He was fired up, focused on that cocky smirk, and he ran.
The ball leapt between the kid’s ankles as he and Sam wove side by side through the other players. Every time the ball tumbled just beyond the kid’s reach, Sam’s heart leapt until he saw him catch up to it again. Sam was inching closer. Stretching out his leg. Trying to get his shoe onto the ball. The short kid’s elbows were digging at his ribs. Their shins whipped close together. Sam could hear the kid’s grunting as he sucked at the air. The kid was tiring. He was slowing.
Suddenly, something was tugging on Sam’s neck. Pulling. It was his collar. The kid had grabbed his shirt, twisting it in his fist, yanking it downward. And just as Sam felt himself pitching forward, aware he was still running but feeling everything tipping over in slow motion, the short kid with the flat nose hooked his foot in front of Sam’s, and took his legs out from underneath him.
Sam tripped, tumbling forward into the dirt, his arms collapsing limply underneath him, his legs twisting. On the way down someone’s knee had clipped his back. As he tried to curl into the fall, he managed to twist his ankle against his other calf. Stunned and winded, he lay for a moment with his ear pressed into the ground, hearing the clump of feet passing by, clearer through the earth. A whistle blew.
Katie was shouting in the distance. There was laughter. The short kid had run on, tried for a goal and missed.
Sam couldn’t feel the sting of anything yet. His body was numb, but there was an ache creeping slowly into his bones. Sitting up, he checked himself over. His face had dug into the grass, collecting a mouthful of soil. His chin was scraped and his elbows were bleeding and stained green. The collar of his shirt was torn. His vent, miraculously, was still in place—even if his neck burned with pain. Players from both teams milled around, keeping their distance, but peering down at him. Somewhere, Sam’s coach was yelling for a penalty.
The referee jogged over, holding his hat in one hand as he wiped his forehead. He parted the players, taking the ball from one of them, and knelt down by Sam’s side.
‘How are you doing, mate? You all right?’
Sam nodded, wheezing. His head throbbed behind his eyes, but beneath the grimace he was smiling.
The kid had just smashed him down. He’d fouled Sam like he would have anyone else. Dirty and unfair. He wasn’t afraid he’d break him or knock his windpipe out. He’d just grabbed and thrown him over. Sam ached, but the thrill of it coursed through his whole body. He felt great. Finally he was just like everyone else again. They didn’t have to be so timid around him anymore.
The referee nodded, slipping his hand under his arm to help him up. ‘Did you trip?’ he said. ‘Did you slip over?’
Sam shook his head. He pointed down at his legs, and tugged on his collar to show the rip.
‘Fair enough. Just be careful where you’re going, mate. Don’t overdo it. We don’t have an ambulance here.’
Gesturing at the upturned dirt, Sam tried miming the fall, but the referee just smiled at him sympathetically, petting his shoulder, then jogged away, tossing the ball to the opposing team’s captain.
The other players broke apart too and ran back to their positions. No one was arguing. Nobody had seen what happened. Even the kids on his team were either shaking their heads at him or shooting awkward, reassuring looks as if to say they didn’t blame him. Sam’s arms were heavy and tired. His chin was starting to hurt. The excitement of being fouled faded away. He spat dirt from between his teeth.
Sam looked over at his mother on the sideline. She was wiping tears from her eyes while Roger stood beside her, still pumping his thumbs in the air. A strange sensation crept over him. It was probably the numbness slowly fading from his body, or the slick feeling of sweat cooling his skin, but suddenly it felt as if his body wasn’t his, like it was some kind of shell. Beneath layers of grime and already crusting mud, in a uniform that hung baggier on his body than it ever had before, he felt, he realised, as if he were wearing a mask. Or that he was trapped behind one. There was the Sam that everyone around him apparently saw: the one in the hospital gown, meek and tender, still attached to tubes and hobbling silently in place. The Sam who belonged on that soccer field—the goal attack who used to fit into his loose guernsey; who could scamper around the opposition with the ball—that Sam seemed to be gone. Either hidden under the layers of whoever he was now, gone from the field entirely.
The only things that seemed to be his now were the ache in his lungs and the burning at the base of his neck. Those, he knew, were his alone.
Somewhere, a whistle blew.