My Goalkeeping System

The goalkeeper stared at the ceiling for a while, and because there was nothing for him to do while he was partially immobile, he slowly closed his eyes and dozed off.

By the time he opened his eyes again, it was almost dark and he didn't need to look outside to know that as he had his eyes on the wall clock which was displaying the time as 7:08 PM at the moment.

"Emma should be home by now." He said before turning his gaze to the door.

<I don't think she's home>

'I know.'

He tried to get up from the couch but doing the seemed to have stirred up the intense pain in his wounded ankle forcing him to fall back on the couch as he began to groan slowly.

He tried hard to prevent himself from screaming or making any loud noise but the pain was starting to get too much.

"What is taking her so long?" He gritted his teeth as he turned to the table beside the couch and picked up his phone.

<You should have just called her from the start, let me do that for you>

With Catherine now making the call through the phone, he dropped the phone back on the table and quickly reached for his right ankle which was covered with the ankle support brace.

The door was suddenly pushed open by Emma who had a white plastic bag in her hand.

Her voice was ringing as she shot the door and quickly made her way to her husband.

"Hey." She said before kneeling on the floor beside him.

The goalkeeper was still groaning and now his groans were getting louder as he was starting to sweat.

"Emma." He muttered with a fading voice.

"Hey, it's going to be okay." She said before slowly placing her hand on his head.

After that, she brought out what was in the plastic bag and dropped it beside his legs on the couch.

"What's that, it's cold?" The goalkeeper asked.

"Mateo called me and told me everything, that ankle of yours needs to have ice on it to stop the pain but we don't have any ice here at the moment so I stopped by to get some.".

After explaining all that to him, she slowly removed the ankle support brace around his ankle and placed the ice bag on the injured spot.

With the ice bag placed on the spot, the pain began to reduce until it was down to the minimum.

"Thank you." He said before letting out a sigh of relief.

"You don't have to." Emma smiled before getting up on her feet. "I'll leave that there for twenty minutes, I'll be back."

"You're leaving already." He said before stretching his hand toward her.

"Of course not, I just need to go upstairs and change." She said before wrapping her arms around his. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

"Okay." He muttered.

After that, he pulled his hand back and allowed Emma to go upstairs.

<That was close wasn't it?>

'Yeah.'

Thanks to the ice on his leg which had done well in reducing the pain, his breathing was back to normal now.

Just like Emma said, it took her only eight minutes to change out of her working outfit, and now that she was making her way downstairs, she was putting on her brown sleeping gown and had her hair tied back.

"I see you're starting to breathe fine now." She said as she made her way to the goalkeeper.

"Yeah, and it's all thanks to you." He said.

She didn't say anything and just smiled warmly at him before kneeling beside him on the floor.

She placed her hand on the ice for a while before pulling her hand back.

"The ice should do its job in twenty minutes so we have ten minutes left, if it stays longer than that, it can cause tissue damage." She said before turning her gaze to Dave to meet his gaze.

"How do you know all these? I don't recall you telling me anything about you taking a health course in school."

"No, I didn't do that, but I have tackled a similar situation." She said,

"Similar situation?"

"Yeah, back when Mateo was just fifteen years old and I was just sixteen years old, my parents left on a one-month trip together and I was the one left with the responsibility of taking care of things at home.

"Mateo was still at the academy then so he was rarely at home, but the next day after my parents left, I got the news in the evening that my little brother was injured and crying at their training pitch and I had to quickly."

"I think I wasn't around when that happened but I heard a few of my mates talking about it the next day when I came to the academy, I didn't see Mateo until three weeks later." He said.

"Exactly, when I got there, his ankle had already been bandaged and he was still sobbing, I had to carry him home although he was quite heavy, and as soon as we got home, it became my responsibility to take care of him and made sure he recovered quickly, I didn't want my parents to find out about him, I didn't want them to get worried and start rushing home, so I had to deal with it.

"I learned a lot about treating bone injuries because of that and that knowledge is still stuck with me, you don't need to be an expert to know what to do in critical situations, we have the internet now after all."

"I see, so Mateo started feeling pain like that from a young age." The goalkeeper said.

"That's what you get when you're a forward and knowing how to dribble makes it even more dangerous as the other team will desperately be looking for a way to take you down even if it costs them a red card." Emma expressed. "You were always standing in between the sticks so it's normal that this is your first ever serious injury, I guess it had to come from a training session."

"You and Mateo were pretty close when you were kids, right?"

"What are you talking about? We're still very close."

"Yeah, but not like back then."

Emma wanted to say something but couldn't find the right words so she put her head down.

"Yeah, you're right, but that's because we're adults now and we have our lives to live, we're still as close as most siblings would be at this age if not, I wouldn't have nagged him all day yesterday about where you were and he wouldn't have done everything I told him to do."

"Yeah," Dave said with a smile on his face.

Emma waited for a while so that the room would be silent for a little bit before she decided to ask the question she wanted to ask as soon as she got home.

"So, what's up between you and Jonas Blue?" She asked.

"I see Mateo told you about that too." The goalkeeper said.

"Yeah, I heard he's always trying to pick a fight with you and now he intentionally injured you." She said,

Her voice had gone from sweet and warm to her voice of boiling anger.

"Well, it isn't exactly like that."

"Then how is it?" She asked.

"Jonas has always had a problem with me right from the time my goalkeeping skills were poor and even after I improved his attitude toward me didn't change as I expected it to but I don't think he's an entirely bad person, I know he wants the best for the club just like all of us."

"Then why did he injure you, the best goalkeeper in the squad and arguably the best goalkeeper in the Bilbeth Premier League this season? Someone who wants the best for his club wouldn't do that."

"I am aware that he did what he did on purpose, but I don't think it was his intention to injure me." The goalkeeper said.

"What's the difference? When you go for a tackle like that, you should always bear in mind that the person could get injured but he didn't even think about that because that was his intention."

"Calm down, Emma, there's no need to get all worked up." He said, trying to calm her down. "You know I haven't eaten anything for quite a while now, do you mind getting me something to eat?"

"Yeah, sure." She pouted before she quickly got up from the floor and began to make her way to the kitchen.

<Don't be naive, Dave>

'And why are you telling me that?'

<Be wary of Jonas>

Mass release goals.

A magic castle= one extra chapter.

Two magic castles= two extra chapters.