Chapter 37 Claire
CLAIRE
“What are you watch—oh. Reliving your greatest hits?” Cassidy plops on the couch beside me and pulls a pillow to her chest, staring at the television.
I tap a pen against the notepad in my lap, studying my ten-year-old self on-screen. “Searching for inspiration.”
“What does that mean?”
“I have to give a speech on Saturday at this fancy gala to announce a new scholarship focused on female athletes.”
Cassidy yawns. “What are you wearing?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will Otto be there?”
I doodle in the margins. Endless loops that lead nowhere. “Possibly.”
Probably. As far as I know, the Siege’s entire coaching staff will be attending the event.
“How’s that going?”
The loops continue. “Fine.”
“Really?”
I glance up. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Well, it must be a little weird, being around an ex. Especially, like, working with him.” Cassidy reaches for the remote, tapping it against her thigh. “We should watch Bend It Like Beckham, if you’re searching for inspiration. Remember how much you used to love that movie?”
I nod, chewing my lower lip. Ironically, a film with a player-coach storyline. At the time, I just loved that it was a sports movie with a female athlete.
“I kissed him,” I admit.
My sister whips her head in my direction, eyes searching my face for signs of seriousness. “You did?”
“Mmhmm.” It’s entertaining, watching the shock play across Cassidy’s face.
Growing up, she was always the one with scandalous stories to share. Now, her life is stable. Job, soon-to-be fiancé, kid.
My career is uncertain. I’m in love with a guy I can’t have. It feels like our former roles have flipped.
“Traffic was bad, huh?” she teases.
I roll my eyes. That’s what I told Cassidy when she commented on how late I’d come home that night.
“And?”
“It was…illuminating.” I roll the pen between my fingers. “I’m worried… I’m worried I’m still in love with him.”
“Would that be so bad?” Her tone is soft. Maternal.
“Yes! Because it took me years to get over it, and then he showed up here, and I have to start all over again.” I mutter a German swear.
I’ve been practicing more since he found out I’ve been learning, even though I know it’s pointless. Probably the same reason I kept texting him in Paris, knowing I was sinking deeper and deeper.
“Why do you have to get over it?”
“Because nothing has changed. We tried, and it didn’t work, and trying again would…would hurt.”
“Well, it seems like you have three options,” Cassidy tells me.
“I do?”
“Yep.” She lifts a finger. “One, you keep acting like a coward.”
“That’s—”
Cassidy continues, ignoring me and lifting another finger, “Two, you stop stressing about what could go wrong and go after what you want. At least get some good sex out of it.”
I huff.
She flashes me three fingers. “Or, option three, you could be honest. You could tell him how you feel and why you’re scared to try again. Figure out a solution to be together, together.”
I’m silent.
Cassidy is, too, letting me think.
“There’s no solution,” I finally say. “That’s why—how—things went wrong the first time. He lives thousands of miles away. That’s not a distance that works.”
“They have these things called planes, Claire.”
“What sort of relationship would that be? Especially when we’re already traveling for work?”
“Ask him to move here then.”
“I-I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because he couldn’t. Because he wouldn’t. He’s a huge deal there. And his whole life outside of football is there too. Asking him to give all that up… It’d be pointless. Not to mention embarrassing. And selfish. He’s here on a forced hiatus—that’s all.”
“Did he know you were in Boston?”
“I’m not sure.”
When Otto apologized for not giving me a heads-up about his arrival, I assumed he’d found out I was on the Siege recently. Once he was already in the city possibly.
“Then how do you know he didn’t come here for you?”
I snort. “Because I know he didn’t stage an injury that could end his career just to spend some time with me. He wouldn’t even—”
“Wouldn’t even what?”
I sigh. “He suggested I move to Germany when we tried to figure things out…before. He laughed, talking about playing here. He’s…
Kluvberg set up this whole arrangement for him.
They’re one of the top clubs in Europe, and he’s one of their top players.
He can’t just decide to play somewhere else, even if he wanted to. Which he doesn’t.”
“You could still ask,” Cassidy says quietly.
I nod.
I’m not sure I can though. I think it would hurt Otto to tell me no. No matter what he’s said about wanting me, he’s never once implied, much less said, he could or would consider leaving Germany.
And I can’t picture moving overseas. Starting over in a new league, on a new team, with a new coach.
And that’s assuming a German club is interested, which isn’t a guarantee.
It would be the end of my career, and I’m not sure I’m ready for that.
I’m still in a position on the Siege, where I could win a league championship.
There’s a slim possibility that Saylor was right, and I could be selected for the national team again.
Soccer aside, moving would mean leaving Mom.
Losing out on the time we have left. Missing Tommy getting older, missing planning Cassidy’s wedding, missing any opportunity to improve my relationship with my dad.
No matter how many times I turn it over in my head, nothing shifts. Nothing changes.
Cassidy unmutes the TV, seeming to sense I’m finished discussing the subject.
“There you go, Claire! Great job, honey!”
I keep my gaze on the screen, watching and listening to Dad cheer for me, but I feel Cassidy’s eyes on me.
“Dad asked about coming to your last home game with us. I told him I’d ask you.”
“Dad can do whatever he wants.”
“He wants to know if you want him there, Claire.”
On-screen, my dad cheers as I score another goal. I jump around, celebrating, my pigtails bouncing everywhere, as Cassidy swings in the background.
I reach for the remote, shutting off the television. This isn’t doing anything to inspire my speech, just depressing me. I can feel the outline of the oval coin pressed against my hip from its spot in my pocket. Since Otto recovered it for me, I haven’t let it out of my sight.
My dad has spent years—over a decade—attempting to make amends.
When Cassidy was gone and Mom was here, it was easier to brush those attempts away.
Mom and I were an unshakable unit, even when I lived in Denver part-time.
Brief replies to birthday texts or the occasional check-in were much simpler then.
I’m tired. So tired of the energy that hating and avoiding my father requires. I just don’t know how to let go of the resentment. I’m so accustomed to carrying it around.
I glance at my sister. “How did you forgive him?”
I’ve asked her, “How could you forgive him?” before. There’s an important distinction between the two questions, one I hope Cassidy hears.
She exhales. “I didn’t forgive him. I haven’t.
But…you and Mom were always so in sync. When I got busted for skipping class or scratched the car or took a pregnancy test, I knew what Mom’s reaction would be when she found out.
She’d ask me why I couldn’t be more like you.
I resented her for it. And I resented you for it.
Dad always listened, especially after the divorce.
Out of guilt maybe because he was stuck on the outside of our family too.
I…took advantage. And then I had Tommy, and Marcus took off, and things got really hard.
Mom would have told me to move home, back here with her.
Dad sent me money and flew down to Florida to help me set up the nursery.
I know that he’s been a shitty dad. But he’s been an awesome one, too, to me, and I know he wants to be one to you. You’ve just…never let him.”
“He visited you in Florida?”
“Yeah. Once a year. Sometimes twice.”
“You—I didn’t know that.”
“We barely talked as it was. I wasn’t going to bring up Dad.”
I tug at a stray thread on the seam of my sweatpants.
Cassidy’s not wrong. Starting with her decision to attend his second wedding, our different relationships with Dad post-divorce have always been a point of contention between us.
I feel guilty all over again, realizing new ways my distance from Dad impacted my relationship with my sister.
“You remember him leaving,” Cassidy continues. “Do you remember how much he and Mom fought? Because I used to sit at the top of the stairs and listen. They weren’t happy together, Claire. He fell in love with someone else. It was messy, but it wasn’t malicious.”
I nod slowly. The thread tugs free, falling to the fluffy rug.
“You’re a lot like him. Steady and responsible. Smart and driven.”
“So are—”
“I’m more like Mom, Claire. Organized chaos. She always said she loved writing because it allowed her to try on different lives, and I’m like that too. But I kept trying new things, not writing books about them. You’ve stuck with soccer since you were five. You commit. Same with Dad, except when…”
Neither of us finishes her trailing thought.
“You never needed him, Claire. You never needed help. You took care of yourself. And you took care of Mom. I don’t think Dad knows how to be part of your life.
He doesn’t want to get in the way or cause problems or embarrass you…
Whenever he hasn’t shown up, it wasn’t because he didn’t want to be there. ”
I’m silent.
“Good luck with your speech.” Cassidy stands and stretches. Yawns. “I’m headed to bed.”
Right before she reaches the stairs, I call out her name.
“Yeah?” she replies, pausing.
“Tell Dad he’s welcome to come to the game.”
I catch her nod before I drop my eyes back to the pad of paper, pick up the pen, and start to write.