43. Eden
EDEN
THE NEXT DAY
This is it, Eden. Everything you’ve worked for these past four years.
There’s no doubt, a win today would serve as vindication of my choice to stay in school. Sure, the College Cup wasn’t an aim of many of my peers at the elite level. But bringing Tolliver to the top will prove that staying for all four years was worth it.
I’d received a little boost already, yesterday. The national U23 coach, Felicity Mueller, had emailed Coach Brenner and me, wishing us luck—and confirming my selection to the next training camp in late February.
My sixth in a row. Unbelievable.
Everyone I care about is plugged in for the game too.
After arranging with the Waves to have today off, Dad’s going to be here.
It’s a Monday, so a little easier for him to miss a day than later in the week.
Mom and the entire California family are gathering at her house for a massive viewing party.
“You’ll hear us cheering all the way from the West Coast,” she promised.
Then there’s Connor. I’m going to be at the match, he vowed.
He’s driving, a six-hour trip each way, but the game is at seven so he didn’t miss that much Waves practice.
Having no scrimmages on Mondays helped, and I don’t want to know how he got out of whatever meetings were happening this afternoon.
His plan, like we joked, is to hide in the shadows. Literally. In a hallway across the stadium from where my dad has seats.
“You’re quiet,” Bree says from her bed. Roommates at the hotel, just like at home.
“I’m getting locked in. We need to leave, don’t we?”
“Yeah, bus heads to the stadium in fifteen.”
“Let’s go.”
She smiles. “Let’s fucking go, Larsson.”
Clank.
I miss the shot, too high, and it hits the crossbar.
The crowd collectively gives an “oooooooh,” the sound repeated when the play is shown again on the jumbotron. The stadium in Atlanta hosting the championship seats around 10,000.
“No worries, nice try,” Bree shouts.
Crap. This game has been a grind. We’ve had plenty of opportunities but haven’t converted.
It’s 0–0, in the seventy-ninth minute. If we can’t find a way to win in regulation, we’ll go to extra time, and I don’t want to risk that.
The action restarts as the Stanford goalie kicks it to their right back. She quickly dumps it to their center mid, but it’s a slight miss-hit, giving me the perfect angle to cut it off. I sprint to intercept it and gain possession.
I hold up the play and wait for my teammates to shift forward into attack position. April is the speediest on the wing, and as soon as I see her on the move, I dribble a few feet until it’s the perfect time to hit her a through ball.
She makes a great first touch, controlling the ball, and I truck it down the middle while she cuts toward the goal. Like a flash, she shoots on her inside foot, aiming for the top left corner. Only the goalie gets a hand out, blocking it, the ball dropping to the ground.
Loose.
The goalie searches for it, twisting around.
Fucking run, Eden.
The feet between me and the ball close as quickly as the thought comes.
I sweep the ball to the right side, a perfect angle given the goalie’s orientation after blocking April.
It goes in. It goes in.
“GOALLLL,” Bree screams as she comes and hugs me, my teammates following suit.
“1–0, Tolliver, goal by Eden Larsson,” says the announcer across the stadium.
“Hell, yes,” April says. She didn’t do anything wrong—her aggression got the goalie out of position in the first place.
“Let’s manage the clock,” shouts Bree to the group as we break up.
Once action restarts, we trade possession in the midfield for the next few minutes. Finally, our right winger, Chloe, gets the ball to me, but we’re not in risk-taking mode with the clock counting down. So I dribble twice and pass the ball back to April, who in turn passes it to Bree.
Soon, there are only five minutes left on the clock. Stop Stanford from scoring for just five minutes, and the College Cup is ours.
We keep passing, passing, passing, slowing down any momentum they have, until—shit—Alondra bobbles it and the Stanford winger takes possession with seventy seconds left.
Sprinting down to the other side, the Stanford striker, Kelly Laplante, is in perfect position when the winger slides a pass to her.
I’m stuck at midfield while she rotates her hips and kicks the ball. Time slows down. It’s headed to the top right corner, Kelly’s favorite spot.
Mo, our goalie, must remember that intel too, because she immediately heads in that direction. Fingertips extended, body stretched straight…
She blocks the goal, thank fucking God.
Mo just saved the game for us.
I quickly look over to where Connor is standing. I can’t see him, it’s too far, but I know he’s somewhere in that exact corridor. I hear his voice in my head: “You’re going to do this.”
When the refs’ whistles blow to signal the end of the game a few passes later, the screams across my teammates reverberate across the field.
We won the College Cup, 1–0.
“OH MY GODDDDD,” Bree shouts when she spots me. Her bear hug is so powerful it knocks me on my back, though her arms brace my fall so I don’t hit the ground too hard.
I laugh. “Girl, don’t injure me now.”
She snickers back. “Worst roommate ever.”
The rest of the team joins us, jumping, hugging, screaming.
April offers me a hand and I stand up. The field is starting to flood with students who traveled to the game, coaches, and families. Dad appears, striding in my direction.
“Ahhhhh Dad!” I jump into his arms, and he swings me around like he did when I was four.
“I’m so proud of you.” He kisses the top of my head as he sets me down.
“Can you believe it?”
“I can. You worked your ass off for it.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
The chaos around us continues to grow. “I’m going to head out to catch my flight back, but we’ll have dinner in Orlando to celebrate this week?”
“Sounds great.” One last hug, and he wades through the crowd to get to the main exit.
It’s the exact opposite direction from the dark hallway I know Connor stood in while watching the game. My instincts tell me he’s probably still there, waiting for me to come see him.
I lean toward Bree, who’s three feet away. “Cover for me.”
Once she nods, I weave through the sea of people. My purposeful energy hopefully masks my odd destination: the stands across the field.
Sneaking into the area where the seats begin, I hustle to the hallway, but it’s empty.
Huh. Maybe he took off?
I keep going through the pathway, where it opens up into the larger walkway of the stadium. People are milling through, and then I hear—
“Eden.”
It’s Connor’s voice, and when I swing my body around, there he is.
“Congrats, Rosy, that was awesome.” He takes two steps toward me to close the gap. “But what are you doing here? You’re still wearing your cleats…” A chuckle comes out as he glances down at my sweaty, dirty gear.
“I have like three seconds, but I needed to do this…”
I plant a kiss on his lips, hard and swift. His arms wrap around me, and he lifts me off the ground as he returns for another firm kiss.
I really need to get back to the field, so I break the embrace. “I gotta go.”
“Call me when you’re home.” He talks quickly, getting the picture. “Your dad?”
“He left. You should be safe to head out without being seen.”
“Cool. Go, have fun with your team.”
When I’m back in the mix on the field sixty seconds later, it’s still chaotic enough that no one has noticed me missing for three minutes.
We did it. Connor was able to see me win without blowing our secret.
A second victory of the day.
Three hours into the bus ride back from Atlanta, my adrenaline finally starts to taper. The loud chatter that marked the early part of our six-hour trip has also faded, as we’re all engrossed in our phones, many listening to music with earbuds in.
“You ready to party tomorrow night?” Bree asks. It’ll be the early hours of Tuesday morning when we’re back, so the celebration will be delayed to the next night. “We should figure out a place for the team to go.”
“Definitely, how about—”
“Hey Cap,” Chloe says, leaning over the back of our seats. “What’s going on here?”
Her voice is light and teasing, and I’m confused until she shoves her phone in our faces.
It’s an Instagram post, with—SHIT—a picture of Connor and me kissing in the hallway. I look at who posted it, and it’s SoccerQueens.
“Oh no,” I gasp, grabbing her phone. I scroll quickly and see it’s the fifth photo of a multi-picture dump captioned, “Tolliver celebrates! Congrats Queens! ”
Bree’s already pulling it up on her phone. “She has a bunch of photos in the post. It’ll hopefully get lost in the shuffle.”
“But wait, who’s that guy you’re kissing?” Chloe asks.
“Not now,” Bree says to her dismissively, as I hand back her phone.
Bringing up the post on my own, I take a second to see if any of the comments mention the kiss. Luckily, no, though now I notice I’m tagged in the photo. I quickly undo that.
Checking again, Connor isn’t tagged.
“This is so weird,” I whisper to Bree, Chloe having gotten the memo and plopped back down in her seat. “There were a few people around when I saw him, but I would’ve recognized her.”
“She probably saw the photo somewhere else and reposted it. She’s notorious for that.”
That thought sends me into a new panic, but I double-check my nine million notifications since the win, and I’m not tagged in that photo anywhere else on Instagram. So maybe it’s a random account no one will see?
Twenty minutes of acute anxiety later, staring at my Instagram notifications that keep rolling in from all the celebration posts, there are no new callouts of that picture.
Maybe we’re safe. I know I need to alert Connor anyway, so I switch over to my texts. Opening up my chat with him, I start to type out a message.
EDEN: Hi, don’t worry, I
BUZZ.
A notification interrupts my message, and—it’s Tina? What?
I go over to read her text.
TINA: So proud of you, Eden! Also, I just saw this on Facebook? You and Connor Battle???
I look at the screenshot she sent, and yes, damn, it’s the kissing picture from SoccerQueen’s post, only the Facebook version. She must have cross-posted it.
I hadn’t even thought of Facebook. Tags there push posts in your “Friends” feeds. No wonder Tina saw it.
And…I’m spiraling again.
EDEN: OMG. This was not supposed to be for public consumption.
EDEN: Have you told Dad?
TINA: No, he’s on his flight home right now. So he doesn’t know??
God, this sucks.
EDEN: He doesn’t. I’m sorry to ask, but can you not tell him now? Let me do it?
It takes her almost a minute to respond.
TINA: Okay. Why don’t you come over tomorrow for breakfast and talk to him then? I don’t want to keep it from him longer than that.
I can’t think of any way to protest—it’s probably the best thing to do anyway. So I agree, and then turn to Bree.
“My stepmom saw the post on Facebook.” I frantically untag myself there, the first time I’ve opened up Facebook in forever.
“Shit. So your Dad…”
“Gonna have to tell him. I hope it doesn’t screw up Connor’s situation on the team.”
Bree considers the question. “I don’t see how it would. He might be annoyed, but Connor earned his spot.”
“Yeah.” Of course it’s the other situation—his old internship and future job, at SLP—that’s more dicey. Where a hard line had been crossed. “Let me text Connor now.”
I resume my initial message to him, but have to edit the beginning.
EDEN: Hi, a post went up that includes a picture of us kissing. I’ve limited the damage, but long story short, Tina saw it, and I’m going to have to tell Dad. We can talk more as soon as I’m off the bus?
A few seconds later, I see three dots, and then his message comes in.
CONNOR: I was just texting you. Milo called me. He saw and wants to talk in the office tomorrow morning.
Noooo, that’s even worse than the chat with my dad.