Chapter 32 #2
My first practice back at the goalpost after getting the okays from the medic and Coach comes just in time for the start of the NCAA Division I men’s soccer tournament—six games against schools that have made five, ten, fifteen appearances, all ready to take down us, the first timers and first ranked.
And while everyone else is pumping me up, and I’m trying to find some pride in them calling me “Rookie of the Year” and “Player of the Year,” here comes Cap with a “Are you even fucking trying, Pi n a?!” Every time Barrera yells at me to get my head back in the game, I give him the meanest glare, trying to hold myself back from tackling him right here in front of the whole team.
“What the fuck is going on with you?” he asks, pulling me away as everyone’s walking off the pitch after practice.
“You know what’s going on!” I yell. Who cares if anyone sees at this point. “Stop acting like a dumbass about this.”
“Then start acting like a number one goalkeeper,” he says back, his face coming in close and his chest pressing to mine before he moves past me, shoving his shoulder into my formerly injured one. “It’s all on you now. So come back tomorrow ready to be serious.”
I don’t. Even though I try to find some drive for myself and remind myself that this has to be worth it. And even though I can tell it’s becoming a problem for everyone.
“Are you good, Pi n a?” Coach asks me, after having me stay behind, offering me a chair across from his desk.
“I … Yeah, Coach. I’m good, remember? Great, even.”
He lets a breath out through his nose, and I’m ready for him to call bullshit on me. Especially when he adds, “And Barrera? You two fine?”
I bite down on the inside of my mouth, try to keep the arms crossed over my chest relaxed, and turn to look at a wall for a second before nodding and making eye contact again. “Yeah. We’re … he’s just trying to keep me at my best. He wants us to succeed.”
I hate the taste of having to defend him.
Coach’s brows scrunch, but ultimately he nods back.
“Alright. But if he starts pushing too much, just give me a sign, okay? I need you in the best shape possible. Listen to him, though. I know that sometimes being teammates means acting like two goats fighting over a berry, but you’re right.
He’s got your back, and he’s trying to do his best with you.
With the whole team. I wouldn’t have made him captain if I didn’t believe that. ”
“I— I know, Coach.”
“But, like I told you before, at the end of the day, you both answer to me. This is the second time the two of us have had this conversation privately. Third time, I might need to talk to the both of y’all at the same time. Some couples counseling.”
“We can make it through the tournament, Coach. I promise.”
Our first game is all the way up in Portland, Oregon, and it’s a rough one.
For the first time all season, I let not just one, but two balls get past me that should’ve been pretty easy blocks.
After the first one I was able to hold it together, but punching the post after that second goal nearly gets me carded (and does get me yelled at by Coach).
A third attempt nearly goes in too. It would have if their forward wasn’t so eager on the kick that it turned sloppy, hitting the crossbar and flying sharp to the right, off-sides.
Luckily, all three of my squad’s attempts make it in, the third one going past Oregon’s keeper with only minutes left in the match.
I don’t think I’ve ever sighed a sigh of relief so hard, my hands going to my knees and my face looking straight down to the ground, everything else around me going blurry.
If it had come down to penalty kicks, I don’t think I would’ve been able to come through for my team today.
At least all the talk about my performance has also included my injury recovery.
If I get some side-eye from a teammate, Barrera—showing a base-level decency for a surprise—brings it back to that guy who kicked me, and how I have so much integrity and love for the game to be getting back out here and playing after that.
“He’ll get back to where he was. You go do your fucking job and make sure we get more points on the board than they do.”
It always ends with a glare from my captain. With a knowing look of what he’s got over me if I don’t, at some point, start playing this game like I mean it again.
Even articles online are showing compassion, calling me a Comeback Kid. Talking about how they’re already excited about my potential over the next few years.
The entire world is going to look at you and know that you are the greatest of all time. But when you look at yourself, what are you going to see?
I see the truth. I see, maybe for only the second time in my life, someone who’s harboring a little hate for this game.
I see someone who traded in a part of himself that he’s not ashamed of—that guys like Barrera would try to force me to feel shame about—for, what?
A couple trophies? So that one day, kids who look like me could dream of being the person they think I am?
After a rough-won second round, our third game is in Michigan.
And, as cold as it is, my performance is, at the very least, better.
For sure wouldn’t say great. Good is even pretty debatable, compared with what everyone else knows I can give and do.
Another two goals get past me, but at least they were observationally perfect kicks.
And, thankfully, in extra time, we go from a tie to 4–2, knocking out this team too.
That’s all I ever feel now. Thankful that my crap playing is just enough .
Not happy about how I’m playing. Not fulfilled.
Not like I’m doing something I love anymore.
Only, at the very least, grateful that we’re still going.
With each win, the entire team’s jumping on one another while I’m struggling to put on a smile.
Seeing the clock hit zero and realizing we’ve made it to the quarterfinals, same thing.
There’s so much cheering and excitement and all I want to do is go back to my hotel room.
“What’s going on?” Ahmed asks while the two of us stare at our phone screens, lying on our hotel beds after the game. I look over at him, watching as he turns on his side, facing me. “Feels like ever since your injury, something hasn’t come back for you. You just tired out now?”
I am tired. For sure, I am so tired. But not in the way he’s asking.
My passion is drained. Almost like a burnout except it’s not from too much football, it’s from this sport asking for so much of all the other parts of me.
It’s the juggling two lives and the pretending and the dishonesty and all the happiness I’ve had to keep secret and then get taken away from me.
I pull up the folder on Google Drive, like I have been every single day since Vale sent it to me, and look through the pictures of us.
Probably going to fall asleep staring at one of him, again, like I have been every single night.
Wishing that, in the morning, I’ll wake up with him next to me and we’ll have another day together.
So, “Yeah. I’m just tired.”
“You know you can tell Coach you need to sit out for a game. Franky’s got it. He’s not as good as you, for sure, but he can handle himself. He’s capable enough. He’ll make sure we get to the championship. It feels like that passion you’ve had all season got kicked out of you too, bro.”
“No. I can’t.”
“Why not?”
I stare at the photo of Vale and me lying on the grass; how, in both of our eyes, I can see it, the way we were really in love with each other. If Ahmed saw my eyes right now, he’d be able to see it still, the way that love hasn’t gone away. It just hurts.
“Because if I don’t see this through, then it wasn’t worth it,” I say through a sigh, rolling away from him.
“What wasn’t worth it?”
“Everything.”