Chapter 38 Joanie
Joanie
“How are you feeling?”
Skylar threw an arm around my shoulder, and it was the only warmth I’d felt since coming home. It was supposed to be summer, but the sun was so sparse you’d miss it if you blinked. I longed for the ever-present Menorcan sun and the feeling of heat on the back of my neck.
The team warmed up on the pitch before practice. My heart hammered an erratic rhythm. Physically, there was no reason I shouldn’t be here. The physios had signed me off as fit to rejoin practice. Mentally, I felt a million miles away from ready.
Skylar waved a hand up and down in front of my face and chuckled. “Earth to Joanie. Are you OK?”
I wanted to be positive. I wanted to be ready. But all I could feel was this tight resistance inside. “Yeah, I’m OK. This is a bit . . . tough.”
The words hung between us thickly.
She flashed me a sympathetic smile. “Which parts are you worried about?”
That I’m not ready. That I’ll never be ready. That my heart is too broken to focus on any of this. “All of it.”
Her eyes filled with concern. My captain was always kind and patient. It was why it was so much easier to tell her this than Claire.
Skylar took me by the arm and led me to sit on the bench. “Listen, if you’re not ready then you’re not ready. The physios can reassess you.”
“It’s not that. My knee is ready. It’s the rest of me that’s the problem.”
She chewed her lip. I could barely look her in the eye. I dropped my gaze to my boots.
Skylar’s voice was infinitely gentle. “You’re doing great. We are all so glad to have you back. It will take time. You go at your own pace—”
“No. You don’t understand. I can’t do it. I don’t know if I’ll be back to the old me. Maybe I’m just . . . done.”
I wanted to snatch the words back, but now they hung between us in the air.
After everything these past nine months.
Every day that I’d pushed myself had been for this moment to get stuck back in again.
What the heck was holding me back? Why couldn’t I just get on the pitch and get on with it?
Maybe the whispering I heard sometimes was right.
Maybe I was just a spoiled nepo-baby. I’d had everything handed to me, and now I had to face a challenge and I couldn’t.
I’d always been determined to stand on my own two feet, but what if I didn’t have the backbone?
Skylar studied my face. “Is there anything I can do to make this easier for you? That any of us can do?”
I pasted on a smile. “You’ve done so much. I just need to stay . . . positive.”
She returned my smile, but she didn’t look convinced.
Nothing could make this easier. My heart was broken and my head was a mess.
Ironically, my healed knee was the only part of me in good shape.
I’d seen Kieran on the front page of the newspaper.
It had thrown me for a loop again just when I’d stopped crying.
I couldn’t read the whole story, but I caught the gist. He’d spent the night in a prison cell after a fight with Sean.
That explained why his face had looked like such a mess.
I’d had call after call from him until I blocked his number.
Life would be easier if I had nothing more to do with Kieran Earnshaw.
It could never have worked between us. He’d treated me like an idiot, and then he’d got dragged away by police.
He couldn’t be bothered to get to my dad’s fake funeral on time because he’d been too busy beating up his team captain.
I couldn’t eat or sleep. My whole body ached with the loss of him, but it was for the best. Now it was time to move on.
Lana got a quick touch on the ball and passed it to me. I rolled it gently under my foot before I passed it back.
Skylar beamed. “You’ve got this, Joanie. I know you have.”
I didn’t have it. I was so far from having it, it made me ache.
Lana weaved in and out of a line of cones.
It was a simple drill, but these were the actions I dreaded.
Pivots and sudden changes in direction put pressure on my knee.
I had to get stuck in and try not to think about it.
Claire had let me sit out the 5v5 games, but I had to get off this damn sideline and join in.
Ramirez’s words drifted to mind. You will still be afraid.
Claire blew her whistle to end the training session.
Relief washed through me. I was only half concentrating on the wrap-up talk.
Claire dismissed the team and I jogged to the sideline.
A black-clad figure caught my attention.
Dad stood watching me, keeping his distance.
I’d been doing my best to avoid him. We hadn’t really spoken since I’d got upset him with at his fake funeral.
I jogged to him. “Hi, Dad.”
He spoke in a calm, considered tone. “Hi. Can we talk?”
I was in no mood to talk to my dad. We’d left things on a weird note. But this awkward feeling between us wouldn’t do. “OK.”
Dad pulled up outside a dilapidated row of terraced houses.
“Where are we? I thought we were going back to yours.”
He craned his neck to look at a narrow, crooked house with soot-stained walls. A smashed TV sat on the front step alongside a filthy, sodden mattress. Beer cans and rubbish scattered the rough lawn.
“This is the house I grew up in.”
“This place?” I tried to keep the surprise from my voice. I knew Dad had grown up with humble origins, but I hadn’t imagined a house so small. He’d had to share this with five brothers and sisters.
A smile lifted his lips. “I sat in that bedroom up there and wrote most of the songs on my first album when I was fourteen.”
I glanced at my watch. I shouldn’t have expected any different. Dad didn’t want to talk to me about what had gone on between us. He wanted to talk about himself, as usual.
His voice had a wistful edge. “It was tough, growing up. I always dreamed of getting out of here. Your Grandma Dora didn’t like music. She wanted me to get a proper job. I didn’t feel . . . appreciated.”
Tomorrow was my first match of the season. I should have been preparing for that, not going on a trip down memory lane with Dad. Was he even going to apologize for what had happened?
“That’s great, Dad.” My voice sounded as lifeless as I felt.
He glanced in the rearview mirror, licked his thumb, and rubbed a smudge of mascara on his cheek. “All I ever wanted was to be famous. Maybe it’s because I wanted people to see me and appreciate me.”
“We all appreciate you, Dad.”
“I messed up, Joanie. I know it. I keep getting it wrong. I didn’t give you enough attention when you were growing up, and I suppose now you think I’ve swung the other way. I’m overprotective. I overstepped with Kieran. The truth is, I regret how much time I spent on tour.”
He drew an unsteady breath. “I know what matters. You matter, darling. My family. I owe you an apology.” He peered up at the house.
“One of the reasons I kept going for so long was that I wanted my kids to have all the things I never had. By the time I realized that what you really needed was a father, it was too late. I’d already missed everything. ”
My throat closed up. Yes. He’d missed out on a lot of things. We both had. Loud music and drunken arguing from a party somewhere echoed down the street.
Dad peered up at his house, thoughtfully. “It was tough growing up here. We didn’t have much. All my clothes were hand-me-downs. The house was always cold because we could either eat or put the radiators on. It makes you feel a kind of shame. That maybe it’s your fault you’ve got so little.”
“That’s not true. I’m so sorry that things were so hard for you.”
He gave a rueful smile. “Now, I have everything, but that boy who had nothing still lives inside of me. Music saved my life. I had all of this . . . feeling inside, and it was the only way I could get it out. Kids from this street don’t usually grow up to be rich and famous.
Talent gets you so far in this life, but you need luck too, and there isn’t much luck round these parts.
When you’ve had to fight so hard, sometimes you don’t feel worthy. ”
I glanced up at the small bedroom window, thinking about Dad as a teenager writing his songs.
Good that he’d had a way to express himself.
I couldn’t help but think of Kieran, too.
He’d had a difficult time growing up. Maybe he felt like Dad.
Like there was still a boy inside who didn’t have the right to everything he’d achieved.
It wasn’t true. He had more right than anyone, because he’d worked so hard despite the challenges.
I pushed the thoughts aside. I missed Kieran so much.
If I thought about him too much, I’d start crying again.
Football had been my music. It had been the way I coped and processed things. That’s why I’d been so lost and overwhelmed this year without it. I’d been going through the biggest challenge of my life with the injury, and I’d lost the means to deal with it.
“Football was like music to me,” I said.
Dad glanced at me. “Oh?”
“It helped me express myself, I guess. I’m not good with my feelings. Sometimes, I don’t even know what they are. I’ve got so used to not speaking up about things.”
I took a breath. Strange to be so open with Dad, but I couldn’t shake this sinking feeling since I’d blocked Kieran on my phone.
Dad would tell me to be more positive. If I ever tried to say anything vaguely uncomfortable, that’s how it always ended.
But now everything felt so raw, like I didn’t have much left to lose by being honest. What did it matter now?
“When you said I’m percussion, it hurt me. I don’t like that you see me as this boring kid ticking along in the background. If I am percussion, it’s because I’ve spent so much time trying to blend in.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Why would anyone want to blend in?”
Despite the heaviness in my chest, I had to smother my smile at his look of confusion.
“Because it’s easier. Because everybody has their assumptions about Mortimer Fox’s kids. Ollie owns it. It doesn’t bother him. But I don’t want to come off as spoiled, or entitled, or difficult. It means I’m always second-guessing myself.”
Dad softened his voice. “I see.”
Silence echoed around the car.
“I didn’t mean that you’re percussion in a bad way, love.
I meant that you’re a drum. You’re determined and steady.
I’ve watched you come back from the injury and I couldn’t be more proud.
The drummer is the most important person in the band.
There is no music without a rhythm. You’re the heartbeat of the family.
It all hinges on you. Everything, darling. Nothing works without you.”
Tears pressed behind my eyes. “I don’t feel determined and steady.
I miss Kieran, but he hurt me. It made me feel like an idiot that he lied to me.
He should have just told me that you’d spoken to him.
If Kieran wasn’t telling me the truth about that, how can I trust any of what went on between us? ”
“I got it wrong with Kieran. This was my fault, love. It wasn’t some big conspiracy between us. I put pressure on him that I shouldn’t have done. This was me.”
I gulped hard to hold the urge to cry at bay. “I wish there was a way for things to go back to how they were. I don’t know how to fix any of it.”
He studied my face for a long time. “I’m not an authority on relationships. I’ve been married six times, I can’t give you any advice about how to fix things with Kieran. But I know a thing or two about dealing with people’s assumptions.”
I sighed. “I know what you’re going to say. I need to stay positive. That’s what you always say.”
“No.” He frowned. “I focus on the positive because it was a way of coping when I was young. The only way to move forward was to think of better things to come. But I didn’t mean to make you feel like there’s no room for anything else.
“You know all those things you don’t want to be?
You’re allowed to be them sometimes. If you need to speak up for yourself, it doesn’t mean you’re demanding, or entitled, or a problem.
You get to take up space in this world.” He bowed his head and his shoulders slumped.
“I’m sorry if I’ve taken up so much of it, it made you feel like you couldn’t. ”
“You don’t have to apologize. You’re a star. People want to be in your orbit. I don’t want anyone in mine. I don’t want people to judge me or talk about me.”
“You can’t control how others view you. Focus on the people in your life who have your best interests at heart. Those are the only opinions worth listening to.”
A knot pulled tight in my stomach. It had felt like Kieran had my best interests at heart.
He’d taken me seriously, cared about me, and protected me.
Now it was tainted by lies. I missed him so much.
We’d had so much fun together and, with him, I didn’t feel like percussion. I felt like I was OK exactly as I was.
Dad patted my knee. “Get through this match tomorrow, then talk to him. Give him a chance to explain himself, and when it’s your time to talk, be brave. Be honest about how you feel. But just let me know if he steps out of line.”
So you can interfere again? I flashed him a severe look.
His eyes widened in alarm, and he held up his hands in mock surrender. “And I won’t interfere in any way other than to offer copious amounts of ice cream.”
I snorted. “Perfect. Thanks, Dad.”