Chapter Twenty-six Summer
Chapter Twenty-six
Summer
Dad looks up from the kitchen table as I enter the room. He eyes my outfit and bag. He’s probably also noting the dark circles under my eyes and red, puffy skin from crying.
“Practice?” he asks.
“Yeah. I figure I should show up even if they don’t want me on the team anymore.” I glance at the biscuits on the table. They look and smell delicious, but my stomach is too upset to consider food.
“Pretty rough day yesterday,” he comments.
I snort. “That’s putting it mildly.”
I don’t know how much Silas has told him or what he and Mom have pieced together. Everyone gave me a wide berth after the conversation with Silas, and then I left to find Rowan.
Another wave of nausea hits me as I picture Rowan’s face last night. He looked as upset as I feel, but I don’t know if that was about me or if he just realized he wants Amanda back and didn’t want to hurt me.
I think back to all the times I thought he was telling me he cared about me, but he never actually said that.
He never said much of anything, and his actions can’t exactly be trusted, considering we were putting on a show for everyone else a good portion of the time.
It would have been so easy to sweep everything under the rug and fall back into the ease of whatever it is we were doing.
I like him. I like him so much, and being with him is fun and feels right.
But I don’t want to be another person in his life dragging him along into something that he doesn’t want to do. I want him to choose me on his own.
“They think I threw the game on purpose for my friends at Oakley,” I tell my dad, focusing on soccer and not the destruction of my fake relationship.
“Did you?”
I shoot him a look of surprise. “Of course not.”
He shrugs. “I didn’t think so.”
My temper levels out as I realize he’s not accusing me, just trying to understand what happened. “I would never do that. Even if the FLU coach hadn’t been there. I wanted to win as badly as they did.”
I hate that I let it all get to me. That I cracked under the pressure. I want to blame Silas for all of it, but he isn’t the one who couldn’t keep it together on the field.
“Keep your chin up. They’ll get over it,” he assures me.
“I don’t know if they will.”
“And if they don’t, then what?”
I consider that. “I’m still going to do everything I can to play my best, and if I don’t get a college scholarship, I’ll try to walk onto the team at whatever school I end up.”
I can work to pay for school and take out loans. None of its ideal, but I can do it.
“That’s what you’ll do then,” he says as if it were just that simple. Maybe it is. “Sometimes it takes a rough patch to figure out what it is you really want. If there were only easy days, we’d all be a lot less grateful and a lot more prone to living in the moment.”
God, all this feeling sorry for myself and I know he’s had to deal with so much more. I walk over to him and wrap my arms around his shoulders. He chuckles at my unexpected display of affection.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Being so selfish when your problems are a lot bigger than mine.”
“You’re seventeen. Your problems are supposed to be small but feel big.” He rests his hand on top of mine and pats me gently. “Besides, I’ve been feeling pretty good for an old man.”
“You aren’t old, but I’m glad.” I breathe in the smell of him. His cologne and the hint of flour from baking this morning. “I love you.”
“I love you too, shortcake,” he says as I pull back. He looks me in the eye, smiling but serious. “Now go show those girls you aren’t going to run away just because things are tough.”
* * *
When I walk out onto the field for practice, everyone stops talking and glares at me.
No one says anything to me, but I feel their stares.
Suddenly it’s the first day all over again, and I’m the enemy.
Except back then all I wanted was to be at Oakley with my friends and my teammates.
I could never have imagined wanting to be here as much as I do now.
I swallow back my nerves and start warming up like it’s any other day. I stretch, then grab a ball and dribble down the field. I take a shot from the right wing, pouring all my frustration into the kick. The ball slams into the back of the goal with a whoosh of the net.
“Surprised you showed your face after that stunt yesterday.” Amanda stops next to me.
“I didn’t pull a stunt. I had a shitty day and a bad game.”
“Convenient,” she says under her breath.
“Seriously? You think I would throw away my chance at playing at FLU so my old teammates could win? Do you even hear yourself?”
The irritation on her face flickers but she squares her jaw and lifts her chin.
“I want to be here, and I want to win just as badly as you do. We can either spend the rest of the season fighting about it or we can play together. But I’m not going anywhere.” My voice is more confident than I feel.
“Play together?” She scoffs. “After you tricked me into thinking you and Rowan were a couple and tried to manipulate my feelings?”
“That isn’t… I didn’t…” Maybe it wasn’t my intent, but I did lie to her and everyone else.
“I’m sorry about Rowan. He wanted you back, and I wanted you to accept me.
It wasn’t supposed to turn out like it did.
” I swallow the lump in my throat. “This is my senior year. You think I wanted to switch schools and come to Frost Lake when you made it so abundantly clear you didn’t want me here? You didn’t leave me a lot of options.”
“It still doesn’t make what you did right.”
“No, it doesn’t. I can’t take that back.” Would I if I could? The thought of not having spent those nights with Rowan, fake or not, is hard to imagine. I’d feel a lot less heartbroken right now, that’s for sure.
“I should have known Rowan would never be into you,” she says, teeth gritted.
The insult slices like a knife, exactly like she intended.
“All right, ladies. Time to warm up,” Coach Bradley calls from the sideline. “Five laps around the field.”
There’s a collective groan. Amanda and I continue to face off even as the rest of our teammates start running.
“You’re right. He only wanted you back. He still does,” I say to her, throat thick with emotion.
Her gaze narrows like she’s trying to decide what else to yell at me.
“Lindsey! Jones!” Coach calls us out. “You too.”
Amanda takes off first, jogging to the back of the group. I leave several feet between us as I start, but she’s on a mission today and quickly gets to the front. I don’t have it in me to race her or anyone else today.
My legs feel like lead, and my chest is tight. I have spent a lot of hours on the soccer field. It’s seen me through fights with friends, bad grades, tough games, and other heartbreaks. I’ve always been able to shake it away when I was out here. But none of them felt quite like this.
MJ falls back on the final lap. “You look like crap.”
A surprised chuckle slips from my lips. She cocks a smile at me.
“Oh, it feels good to laugh,” I say, surprised at the warmth that fights to spread through me. I keep thinking of my dad and how he always pushes through. I want to be as brave as him.
MJ and I continue jogging, side by side, around the field. As we pass two freshmen, they glower at me.
“Are you sure you should be seen with me?” I ask MJ.
The last thing I want is for her to get iced out.
“Don’t mind the rest of the team. They’ll get over it.”
“Does that mean you already have?”
“You had a shitty game, and you did a shitty thing.” She shrugs one shoulder. “We all have.”
“Even you?”
“Are you kidding? Every single time a team beats us, it’s my fault. That kind of pressure can eat away at you if you let it.”
Which is exactly what I let happen yesterday. The idea of going through that with every loss makes my entire body ache. “Oh god. Being a goalie must suck.”
She laughs. “Nah, I love it. And you do too. Don’t let one bad game get you down. We’re having a great season, in large part thanks to you. Brush it off. We’ve got this.”
She holds out her fist to me and I bump mine against it.
“We’ve got this,” I say, and I hope by the end of the day I feel the words more than I do now.