Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
The Broken Arrow
Ineed a smoke.
Which is a surprise because I just smoked outside of Dr. Lola Bernstein’s building before going in for my appointment.
My second appointment, to be precise.
Yes, I’m back. Unfortunately.
I talked to my manager and he said that the big shots on the team management won’t change therapists. She’s supposed to be the best at what she does so I have to stick with her.
And so I’m sitting on her pink couch again, watching her adjust herself in her armchair – purple armchair – as her tinkling bracelet bangs in my head like a gavel.
Hence, the need for my second smoke.
It’s pretty rare, actually, for me to want to smoke again. I’m not a smoker, or at least not a regular one.
I only need it when I’m trying to relax before an important game or something.
I started back in high school, junior year. I had a big biology test and practice was brutal that week because we also had a big game coming up.
A few of the players were smoking outside of the school after practice and something about how they were standing, all relaxed and loose, smoke coming out of their mouths like they were expelling all their stress in the form of a gray cloud, made me want to try it too.
I was ready to dismiss it after one puff though.
Addiction of any kind is bad for the game. It had always been drilled into me, first by my mom and then by my coaches.
I would have too, dismissed it, I mean. If it hadn’t led to a series of coughs, alerting everyone who was watching that this was the team captain’s first drag. You can’t have your reputation questioned or the players won’t follow you.
So to shut up their derogatory laughter, I took another drag.
And another and another until it started to feel good.
Until the burn in my lungs turned into this high-speed rush that spread all throughout my body, making my shoulders relax and the base of my neck tingle. Making me feel like I was on top of the world.
Making me feel like I could do anything. Ace a fucking biology test and win the game against our rival school.
As I said though, I know my limits. I know the conventional wisdom. One smoke and that’s it.
Besides I promised my mother that I wouldn’t smoke. I’m breaking that promise so I can’t have more than one anyway.
I’m an asshole for lying but I don’t have to be a complete bastard too.
The days I smoke, I train harder. To punish myself for going back on my word.
But I would do anything, any-fucking-thing, for a smoke right now.
Because Dr. Bernstein has finished settling down and she’s smiling at me. I look away from her and my eyes land on her coffee table.
The object of my fixation the last session.
It’s not the same one though.
“You replaced your coffee table,” I say, focusing on her.
Nodding happily, she leans forward and raps on the table. “Wood. Less of a chance that it could get broken. Accidentally.”
She raises her eyebrows at me and I have to admit, my lips twitch a little. “Were you worried that it could get broken accidentally?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
I give in and chuckle. “It’s a little early to say. But we’ll see, Dr. Bernstein.”
She chuckles as well. “You can call me Lola.”
“I think I’ll call you Dr. Bernstein,” I reply. “Sounds more professional.”
Still smiling, she nods. “Okay, let’s be professional. So.” She folds her hands on top of her notebook and I brace myself for her irrelevant questions. “Soccer.”
I narrow my eyes, starting to feel my skin tighten up. “What about it?”
“Since you don’t want to talk about your breakup, let’s talk about soccer. How did you get into that? I mean, I know your father played for the New York club. So you were always interested in the sport?”
This I can handle.
I can handle questions about soccer. Although I still don’t know what it has to do with my anger issues and how we’re going to fix that so I can go back and play. But at least we’re off the subject of the breakup.
“I was born into it,” I reply. “My first memory is watching my dad play on TV.”
“Were you ever interested in some other sport?”
“I played some basketball. Ran track. But it was always soccer. I’m my father’s son.”
I am.
My father – who was born and brought up in England – played soccer for the New York City FC, before he suddenly died in a plane crash. He met my mom when she was studying abroad and decided to follow her back to the States and get married.
If he hadn’t died though, we would probably be living somewhere in Europe. It was my dad’s dream to play for the European Soccer League.
I don’t remember my father much. I don’t remember how he was before he passed away. I’ve only seen pictures of him and he’s always looked like such a distinguished man, my dad.
A great soccer player with a dream.
And now it’s my dream.
To do what my dad wasn’t able to. That’s what I’ve been working toward all my life: to rise to the top and be traded to the European League. Real Madrid, if I have to be specific.
“So it must be painful, to sit out the season,” my therapist comments.
“Very,” I clip.
It’s more than painful, it’s fucking excruciating. To be sitting out when I should be on the field, playing.
Everything depended on me this season. I was their star player. I led them to victory last season and that was what was expected of me this season too.
But I went ahead and got suspended and now my entire team has to suffer because of me. Rodriguez is good but he’s not me. He doesn’t have my speed and my precision. And he’s not going to win us the cup.
I know it. They know it. The whole media knows it.
So it’s my fault that we’re going to lose this season.
I’m sorry, A. I didn’t mean for it to happen…
When the bugs start to crawl on my skin and my neck starts to feel hot, I fist my hands. I press them on my thighs to stop the jitters in my legs.
I’m not sure if my therapist is oblivious to my discomfort or if she’s aware but simply choosing to ignore it, because her next question makes it even worse.
“So how you’re feeling about your new job?”
“It’s a joke of a job,” I snap out before I can stop myself.
I didn’t mean to say that.
I honestly didn’t. I’m not one to complain when it comes to paying for my mistakes and I know the purpose of this job.
It’s a punishment.
My mom’s punishment.
But I guess my therapist caught me at a bad time.
Because I’ve had a shitty fucking day.
Four girls, on separate occasions, stopped me in the hallway to tell me about their love of soccer. To tell me how they’ve seen every one of my games and how I’m their favorite player.
It’s fucking high school again.
At least back in high school, I had Sarah. Not that that stopped the overeager girls but still. There was some relief.
“Why do you say that?” Dr. Bernstein asks, breaking my thoughts.
I sigh and run my fingers through my hair. “Because it’s not about the sport. It’s just an activity to reform them. Teach them team building. That’s why my mom put me up to this.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Because she knew it would bug me. It would remind me of my mistake over and over. So I never make it again.”
That’s what my mother does.
She highlights my mistakes – which are very rare and far between – so I never make them again.
She knew I would hate coaching schoolgirls and that was the reason she gave me this job. To remind me of what I could be doing right this second as compared to what I have to do.
I remember one year my math score wasn’t perfect. It was a shock to her and to me both. Because I’m good at math. I could do math in my sleep.
My mother went to the school with me to have a chat with the teacher and to find out if there was a mistake in my scores. Turns out there wasn’t. I’d misread a number and hence, solved the equation wrong. She brought home my test, underlined that equation and stuck it up on the fridge.
So I’d see it every day. So I’d be reminded of my stupid mistake every time I went to get a glass of milk or juice.
Needless to say, I never misread a number again.
“Just because your dad is gone doesn’t mean you can slack off. In fact, you have to work harder, Arrow. You have to work harder than everyone else. You have to do what he didn’t have the time to do. You have to truly become your father’s son.”
So in order to do that, in order to become my father’s son, she made me perfect.
She punished every single mistake of mine to the extent that I never made it again.
If I ate too many cookies before dinner and ruined my appetite, she forced me to eat every bite on the plate. It took me throwing up a couple of times from the stomachache before I learned not to do that.
If I ever fucked up a game or a test at school, she would make me stand in the dark until I learned to never ever screw up my passes or misspell a word on a test.
I think I was twelve or something by the time I was fully trained, by the time I became my father’s true son.
Well, I truly became his son the day they drafted me to LA Galaxy and named me The Blond Arrow. But still.
“Well, that’s a little intense.”
My therapist’s voice brings me back to the moment. “My mother’s intense.”
She is.
She’s always been that way.
Sometimes I wonder though. If she was like this when Dad was alive. Or if his sudden death has made her even more stern.
Because it can get exhausting at times. It can get tiring, trying to meet her approval, trying to be perfect 24/7.
But it is what it is.
I have to pay the price if I want to be The Blond Arrow, don’t I? Plus, she’s my mother. She has brought me up herself, made sacrifices for me.
I owe her everything.
“I think we should talk about it, about your mother,” Dr. Bernstein says.
“I think we shouldn’t.”
She stares at me a beat. “Can’t you just quit? Your job, I mean.”
“No, I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I made a mistake and I have to pay for it.”
“You know, it’s okay to not beat yourself up like this.”
As soon as Dr. Lola fucking Bernstein says this, I’m reminded of her.
The girl with thirteen freckles and a penchant for dangerous and desolate places.
My secret keeper friend.
My secret keeper friend who tried to kiss me.
She tried to put her mouth on me like some kind of a lovesick schoolgirl.
How na?ve does she have to be to do that? How fucking reckless and careless to try to kiss someone as angry and as agitated as me.
How fucking stupid?
And so, my next words to my therapist come out clipped.
“Maybe it’s okay for you and for other people to not beat themselves up.
But it’s not okay for me. If I don’t beat myself up, then I make mistakes.
If I make mistakes, then I’m not perfect.
If I’m not perfect, then I can’t be who I am.
I can’t be The Blond Arrow. So maybe it’s okay for other people to cut themselves some slack.
But I don’t get that luxury because I have to be my father’s son. I have to make his dream come true.”
Thirty minutes later when I leave my therapist’s office, I get a text.
It’s my mom.
I’ve been trying to avoid this, avoid having an actual conversation with my mother about everything. I’ve been making excuses, staying away from the house and living in a motel, but I guess I can’t anymore.
Because she wants to have dinner Friday. And if I don’t go to her, she’ll come to me, and even though Friday is a couple of days away, my skin has already started to crawl.
My anger has already started to burn.
Because something that wasn’t supposed to happen, happened and almost destroyed everything that I’ve worked for.
My father’s dream.
I’m sorry, A. I didn’t mean for it to happen…