Bashed Face

I wrote this back in November when it occurred. Just thought I would post it now.

“Ok. Let’s run through it one more time, then I have to go,” Jeanna, our dance advisor, called out.

We all rose to our feet and got in our beginning formation for our kick routine, the one we would be performing at the Semi-Finals for football on Saturday. The music started and I tightened every muscle in my body, focusing mostly on my core. We started doing our kicks. My legs were sore when I kicked that high, higher than my head, but it wasn’t unbearable. We were all trying our hardest to be sharp and smile. Smiling wasn’t that difficult. When you love what you’re doing it doesn’t take much concentration to smile.

We neared the end of our dance and got into “the worm” position. Alisha was going to start it, Robin was right in front of me with her feet on my shoulder blades, my feet were on Heather’s shoulder blades, and Jeannie would finish the ripple. The counts came and we rippled. My upper half came up as Robin’s was going down, though her feet were still up. I started to go down when I realized Robin’s feet weren’t on me anymore. Within a split second, I heard a sickening thud and a sharp pain cracked up through my nose as I felt Robin’s feet hit the back of my head and my face hit the gym floor. The dance was almost over, only one more eight-count, so I finished it.

But as I hit my ending pose, traitor tears raced down my cheeks and my head was pounding. I then noticed my upper lip throbbing, too. Jeanna was staring at me in concern.

“Are you ok?” She asked, “What happened?”

I didn’t answer right away. I couldn’t talk. The pain surged through me as I fought to hold back the already obvious tears. I finally explained to her what happened as I raised my hand to cover my nose, as though to protect it. It was already swelling. I felt something wet trickle into my hands and I pulled them away to look. Blood. I knew it wasn’t from my nose. My nose never bleeds. It was from my lip. It had split open and the blood was coming fast. With no need to verbally excuse myself, I stood up and ran to the bathroom.

I grabbed a tissue and held it there to stop the bleeding. When it finally stopped, I took a deep breath before looking in the mirror. Ugh. It was bad. My nose was swelling, shadowed from starting to bruise, and my lip was swollen with a huge split in it. Even with my high tolerance for pain, I cried.

I went and got it x-rayed. Not broken. Good. But it didn’t stop it from hurting. It was then I had to make one of the hardest choices. I couldn’t dance with my nose like this. I knew that. I felt it. There was no possible way without feeling like it was being smacked into the floor a hundred times over. And so, I gave it up: my once in a lifetime chance to go to All-State Dance. Yeah. I feel horrible I didn’t get to go, but I don’t regret my decision. My face is still throbbing. Oh well, it’s not everyday you get your face smashed into the floor. I’ll admit, it’s one thing I haven’t done yet, and now I get to say I have.

I looked horrible for several days. The split in my lip was really deep and didn't heal for about two weeks. The bruising on my nose spread to under my eyes. I looked really ridiculous.