Walsh Family Universe V2

Chapter 48
Sliding Home

It happened in the third inning of a Saturday afternoon game in late October.

Ash was on second base, Marcus on first. Tyler was up to bat—reliable, consistent Tyler who almost always made contact. The count was 2-1.

"Be ready!" Coach Williams called from the dugout. "Watch the ball!"

Tyler connected. A clean line drive to right field. Ash took off running the moment the bat made contact, his cleats digging into the dirt as he rounded third.

"Go! Go! Go!" Coach Williams was waving him home.

The right fielder had the ball. Was winding up to throw. Ash put his head down and ran harder.

The catcher was blocking the plate. Big kid, probably ten years old, with full catcher's gear. Ash had two choices: try to slide around him or barrel into him.

He chose slide.

It happened fast. Ash dropped, his body hitting the dirt at speed, his right leg extending toward the plate. He felt his foot catch the base—

And then pain exploded through his ankle.

Not the dull ache of a bruise or the sharp sting of a scrape. This was different. Immediate. Wrong.

"SAFE!" the umpire called.

Ash lay in the dirt, clutching his ankle, trying not to cry. Around him, voices—his teammates cheering the run, then going quiet. Coach Williams running over. The umpire calling time.

"Noam? Buddy, where does it hurt?" Coach Williams was beside him, his hand on Ash's shoulder.

"My ankle," Ash managed. The pain was intense, throbbing in waves. "I twisted it or—something—"

"Don't move it. Just stay still." Coach Williams looked up. "Can someone get his parents?"

Ash could see Mom and Dad in the stands, already making their way down. Mom's face was tight with worry. Dad was moving fast.

"What happened?" Mom knelt in the dirt beside him, not caring about her jeans.

"He slid into home. Looks like he twisted his ankle pretty bad." Coach Williams carefully pulled off Ash's cleat. Even that gentle movement made Ash hiss in pain.

The ankle was already swelling. Puffy and red, starting to look wrong.

"We need to get him to urgent care," Dad said, his voice calm but firm. "Can you carry him to the car?"

"I can walk—" Ash started.

"No, you can't," Mom said. "Don't put any weight on it."

Coach Williams lifted Ash easily—the advantage of being nine and small enough to be carried. The walk to the parking lot was humiliating. All the other parents watching. His teammates clustered at the dugout entrance, looking worried.

"Is he okay?" Tyler called out.

"He'll be fine," Coach Williams called back. "Just needs to get checked out."

In the car, Mom sat in the back with Ash, his foot elevated on her lap with an ice pack from the first aid kit they kept in the trunk.

"Does it hurt a lot?" she asked quietly.

"Yeah." No point lying. His ankle throbbed with every heartbeat. The ice helped a little, but not much.

"You're being very brave," Mom said, stroking his hair.

Brave. He was thirty-one years old. He'd been through worse than a twisted ankle. But this body was nine, and pain was pain regardless of the consciousness experiencing it.

The urgent care doctor was a man in his fifties, efficient and kind. He examined Ash's ankle carefully, manipulating it in ways that made Ash bite his lip to keep from crying out.

"Good news is, I don't think it's broken," Dr. Chen said. "But it's a pretty bad sprain. We'll do an X-ray to be sure, but based on the mechanism of injury and the swelling pattern, I'm confident it's a Grade 2 sprain."

"What does that mean?" Ash asked.

"It means you partially tore some ligaments in your ankle. Not completely—that would be Grade 3—but enough that it's going to hurt and you'll need to stay off it for a while."

"How long?"

"Probably two to three weeks before you can put full weight on it. Four to six weeks before you can return to sports." Dr. Chen made notes on his tablet. "We'll get you a boot and some crutches. Ice it regularly, keep it elevated, take ibuprofen for pain and swelling."

Four to six weeks. That was the rest of the baseball season and it would interfere with swim practice.

"Can he swim with a sprained ankle?" Mom asked, clearly thinking the same thing.

"Not for at least two weeks, and even then only if it's not causing pain. Swimming requires ankle flexibility and strength. If he tries too soon, he could re-injure it." Dr. Chen looked at Ash. "I know it's frustrating, but your body needs time to heal. If you don't let it heal properly, you could end up with chronic ankle instability."

The X-ray confirmed no fracture. They fitted Ash with a walking boot—a bulky black thing with Velcro straps—and a pair of crutches adjusted to his height.

"Keep the boot on at all times except when sleeping or bathing," the nurse instructed. "Use the crutches to keep weight off the ankle. Ice for twenty minutes every few hours. Elevation is important—keep it above heart level when possible."

Learning to use crutches was harder than Ash expected. His nine-year-old arms didn't have much upper body strength yet, and coordinating the movement without putting weight on his bad ankle took concentration.

"You'll get the hang of it," Dad said encouragingly as Ash hobbled toward the car.

At home, Dad carried him inside while Mom got pillows arranged on the couch. They set him up with his foot elevated, ice pack wrapped around the boot, TV remote within reach.

"Comfortable?" Mom asked.

"Yeah." As comfortable as he could be with his ankle throbbing despite the pain medication.

"I'll make dinner. You just rest." Mom kissed his forehead. "I'm glad it wasn't worse."

After she left, Dad sat in the armchair nearby. "That was a good slide. Aggressive. Heads-up baserunning."

"Didn't feel good."

"No, I imagine not." Dad smiled slightly. "But you scored the run. And you didn't hesitate—you saw an opportunity and you took it. That's good baseball instinct."

"Even though I got hurt?"

"Injuries happen in sports. It's part of it. The important thing is you heal properly and learn from it." Dad leaned back. "Maybe next time you'll slide a little earlier, give yourself more room to slow down."

Ash thought about that. The replay in his mind of the moment—dropping into the slide, his ankle catching wrong, the immediate wrongness of it.

"Yeah. Maybe."

His phone buzzed. A text from Marcus: dude are you ok? that looked really bad

Then Tyler: coach said you sprained your ankle. that sucks. get better soon!

Then a group chat from the team, everyone sending get-well messages and hoping he'd be back soon.

Ash responded to a few, told them he'd be out for a while but would be at games cheering them on.

Eden called that evening. "Mom texted me. How are you doing?"

"Ankle hurts. I'm stuck on the couch."

"That's rough. But hey, at least you have an excuse to watch TV all day tomorrow." Eden's voice was warm. "You need anything? Want me to come over and keep you company?"

"I'm okay. Thanks though."

"Alright. But seriously, if you get bored or need someone to bring you snacks or whatever, call me. I'm just twenty minutes away."

After dinner—which Dad brought to him on the couch—Ash tried to get comfortable for the night. Mom had made up the couch so he could sleep downstairs, avoiding the stairs with crutches.

"Do you need anything else?" she asked, tucking a blanket around him. "More ice? Another pillow?"

"I'm good, Mom."

"Okay. Call if you need us. We'll be right upstairs." She hesitated. "I'm sorry this happened, honey. I know how much you love baseball."

"It's okay. It'll heal."

But after she left, lying in the dark living room with his ankle throbbing despite the medication, Ash felt something unexpected.

Fragility.

His body—this body he'd finally gotten, this male body that felt right and good and his—was vulnerable. Could be hurt. Could be broken.

He'd known that intellectually. But experiencing it was different.

In his previous life, he'd avoided sports partly because he'd been small and weak, but also because his body had felt wrong enough that risking injury to it hadn't seemed worth it.

Now he had the right body. Had thrown himself into sports with enthusiasm. Had loved the physicality of it, the strength of it, the capability.

And today he'd learned that bodies—even the right ones—could betray you. Could twist wrong. Could hurt.

"My name is Ash," he whispered to the dark room. "I'm thirty-one years old. Today I sprained my ankle sliding into home plate and I'm nine years old and it hurts."

The pain was real. The injury was real. The vulnerability was real.

This wasn't an adult consciousness in a child's body going through the motions. This was his body—his actual, physical body—injured and in pain and needing time to heal.

He was genuinely hurt in a way that mattered.

Four thousand, nine hundred and seventy-eight days to go.

But tonight, he couldn't think that far ahead. Tonight was just about getting through the pain. About letting his body heal. About being a nine-year-old with a sprained ankle who'd have to sit out the rest of the season.

Tomorrow would be harder. Watching his team play without him. Using crutches at school. Explaining what happened over and over.

But tonight, Ash fell asleep on the couch with his ankle elevated, his body reminding him that no matter how much his mind might be thirty-one, he was definitely, undeniably, nine years old.

And nine-year-olds got hurt playing sports.

It was just part of growing up.

Again.

Monday morning was an exercise in frustration.

Getting dressed took twice as long. The boot didn't fit in his regular pants, so Mom had to find sweatpants that could accommodate it. The crutches made everything awkward—carrying his backpack, going to the bathroom, navigating the narrow spaces of the house.

"You'll get better at it," Dad said, watching Ash struggle to get his jacket on while balancing on crutches. "It takes practice."

At school, Mrs. Anderson met them at the door. "Noam! I heard about your ankle. How are you feeling?"

"It's okay. Just have to use these for a while." Ash gestured with the crutches.

"Well, we'll make accommodations. You can leave class a few minutes early to avoid the hallway rush. And let me know if you need help with anything."

His classmates crowded around at the start of the day, all asking what happened, wanting to see the boot, offering to carry his backpack or help with things.

"It's not that bad," Ash said, but he appreciated the attention in a weird way. Being fussed over. Being cared about.

At recess, he had to sit on the bench while everyone else played basketball. Marcus stayed with him for a bit.

"That sucks, man. Missing the rest of the season."

"Yeah." Ash watched Tyler making shots at the hoop. "But Coach said I can still come to games. Be there for the team."

"Not the same though."

"No. But it's something."

By the end of the day, Ash's arms ached from the crutches and his good leg was tired from compensating. He was exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with actual exertion and everything to do with the constant low-level difficulty of moving through the world injured.

Mom picked him up—no more walking home for a while.

"How was it?" she asked as he awkwardly climbed into the car.

"Tiring. Everything takes longer."

"It'll get easier. Your body will adjust." Mom pulled out of the parking lot. "And in a few weeks, you'll be healed and back to normal."

Normal. Playing baseball and swimming. Running without thinking about it. His body doing what he told it to do without pain or limitation.

He hadn't realized how much he'd taken that for granted until it was gone.

That night, after homework and dinner and the nightly routine of ice and elevation, Ash lay on the couch thinking about bodies.

About having the wrong one for twenty-four years. About finally getting the right one. About learning to use it, to trust it, to love it even.

About how quickly that trust could be shaken by a single bad slide.

His ankle throbbed, a constant reminder that this body—as right as it was—was still just a body. Vulnerable. Breakable. Mortal.

But also capable of healing. Of getting stronger. Of coming back from injury and playing again.

In six weeks, he'd be back on the field. Back in the pool. Back to using his body the way he wanted to.

He just had to be patient.

And for someone who was thirty-one mentally but nine physically, with over thirteen more years of this ahead of him, patience was something he was getting uncomfortably good at.

Four thousand, nine hundred and seventy-seven days to go.

But first: four to six weeks of healing.

One day at a time.

One crutch step at a time.

One ice pack at a time.

Until his body was his again.