“You said you wanted them to work on set pieces because Santa Barbara, Long Beach and a few of the teams at the upcoming tournaments are weak at defending their goal from corner kicks and penalty kicks. Piper said the girls were having some issues, though, and that the practices aren’t going so well.”
Mack chuckles slightly.
“You’re ready to go, RJ. Just don’t forget what you said to me right now, and you’ll do fine.”
He gives me a slight push on the shoulder, sending me back over to Coach J. I’ll be honest, I don’t feel a whole lot more confident now than I did when Mack pulled me aside. But at least I have a tiny idea of what I can do to coach the offense today.
Set pieces.
Things start off slow and definitely awkward. The team has already had a change in coaching structure and style with Mack coming in mid-season, so there’s some obvious resistance to my leadership at first, especially from Gina. Which doesn’t surprise me. I feel like my instructions are stilted, even when I’m directing them in a simple warm up drill to practice handling balls that have been kicked high.
Piper, Erin, Kristal and some of the girls I’ve played with for several years are quick to be supportive, though, and by the time I tap Piper to do corner kicks instead of Gina, who huffs as she stands observing with her water bottle, I feel a lot more confident in what I’m doing. It helps when I realize I’ve provided a piece of feedback to one of the girls and Coach J says, “Good eyes on that, Rachel.”
Maybe I’m not completely useless at this.
When Mack takes over from me about ninety minutes into our two hour practice, I feel an energy coursing through me that I don’t normally get when I play. Just the short period of time I spent ‘coaching’ made it feel like I was looking at the field and the players in a completely new way. Like they were chess pieces and if I had the right strategy they’d be fine.
“Great job, RJ!” Piper says as we change after practice.
“God, I was so fucking nervous,” I reply, taking a seat on the floor and leaning back against the lockers. “Was it really okay? Be honest.”
“It was a bullshit practice,” Gina spits from my left, “and Piper only liked it because you threw your minion a bone by letting her practice set pieces with the starters.”
“Why are you such a bitch all the time, Gina? It’s important for everyone to practice in case someone gets injured. That’s literally the reason teams have more than just starters,” Kristal snarks back.
“Fuck off, Kristal. Saying that your roll on this team matters over and over again doesn’t mean you’re gonna get to play any time soon. Your goalkeeping is as nasty as your face.”
“Uncalled for, Gina,” I say standing up. “Your toxic attitude is a waste of space on this team. You should focus more on teamwork and caring about the other women you play with. It might help with your resting bitch face.”
The rest of the girls make ‘ooooooooh’ noises, but I quickly snip at them to focus on changing and getting home, and leave the locker room still in my workout gear.
I need to talk to Coach J about Gina. Having a hateful, bitter player on the team that says nasty things to teammates, completely unprovoked, does nothing for team morale.
A change needs to be made, and after watching their practice today, I have just the suggestion to make that can hopefully move us in a more positive direction.
* * * * *
About a week later I find myself jogging on the treadmill at the athletic center reflecting on my most recent meeting with Regina.
I’ve gone to twice-weekly therapy appointments since I talked to Jeremy about returning. It’s going really well, and I love that I get to meet with Regina again. She never holds anything back. In our third session, she was quick to point out that I wasn’t being entirely honest about my reasons for going back to counseling.
When I finally admitted that I had fallen for a guy and was struggling to figure things out, she gave me that slow nod therapists give you, internalizing the information, and then moved on to discuss Jeremy and my dad. But I knew it wouldn’t be that easy. We revisited the conversation about Mack in the fourth session, which was this morning.
“We’ve talked a lot about your relationship with your dad and brother over the past few sessions, but today I want to talk about you and this young man you’ve been seeing. Mack. You’ve said repeatedly that you don’t know how to make it work. What does that mean?” she asked me.
I knew I couldn’t tell her that he was my coach. I could be honest with her about everything except for that.
“Well… I guess I just keep waiting for him to do or say something that my dad would. And I know that’s not fair to him, but it’s how I’m wired. Jeremy’s the only man in my life that I trust implicitly. His motivations are clear. With Mack, I’m just not so sure.”
“What about his motivations is a concern to you?”
I had to pause at that and really thing before I gave her an example.
“He has a really good heart, and he’s so handsome and kind,” I started, thinking about how Mack had refocused his life and tried to do right by Cherise. “But he has a really… dark past. Drugs and sex and drinking to really unsafe levels… anything to numb himself from some of the stuff he went through.”
“I’m assuming you know this because he’s talked to you about it?”
I nodded.
“Yeah, he sat me down and basically shared his whole history. He hurt someone in a car accident and tried to drown his pain and guilt. He… he got help though.” I stammered the last part, unsure if I should share the part about Mack attempting to take his life. That seemed so personal, something I shouldn’t share without permission.
Regina made a soft humming noise and looked back at her notes, jotting something down.
“And how was his family through that period?”
I shrugged.
“I’m pretty sure they were supportive. His parents got him into rehab and back on his feet. When he moved to California he moved in with his sister and they seem to have a great relationship. He’s gotten a really good thing going in his life, now.”
“Does that bother you?”
I squinted my eyes in confusion.
“What? Why would that bother me?”
“Well, without going into too much detail about it, you basically told me Mack went through a very dark period in his life, but he came out the other side almost entirely unscathed, with the help and support from his family. He has a job, a steady future, good relationships. And you didn’t have any of that.”
My head jerked back in shock.
“Excuse me?”
“You also had a dark period, where things were so bad you tried to kill yourself. And when you came out the other side you were alone. Jeremy didn’t know, and your relationship with your father was a big part of the reason you made the choice you did. You didn’t have the same support system, and you went off to college and tried to be independent and do everything on your own. You’ve placed all your value in getting a degree and a job so you can have the freedom you believe will solve all of your problems.”
I blinked.
I blinked again.
“No that’s not… I’m not jealous of…”
But I couldn’t finish the sentence. My mind was too busy scrambling, trying to rebuild the carefully crafted world I had built in my head. Regina was silent as I sorted through the shattered pieces that lay littered on the ground.
“But I can’t actually believe that I don’t trust Mack because I resent him for having a caring family,” I finally said.
“I don’t think that’s what has happened, Rachel. I think it’s that for the first time, you are seeing a demonstrated example of how things could be if you’d had support and care after your suicide attempt. And I think it highlights for you some of the insecurities and imbalances you feel based on current happenings in your life.”
When I did
n’t have anything to add, Regina continued.
“Rachel, you have very specific ideas about what will make you happy. And there is nothing wrong with setting goals for yourself and working hard to achieve them. But you also have to teach yourself how to adjust when things don’t go according to plan, and how to build and maintain important relationships in spite of any setbacks. That’s life. And it seems like that’s what is happening to you now. Your relationship with Jeremy is a bit unstable. You’re worried about completing your coursework to the specifications needed to retain your academic scholarship. You are entering a relationship with a man, and because you don’t recognize your own worth - your words, not mine - you question his motives. In your mind, everything of value in your life is sitting on the edge of a cliff and a slight breeze could send it tumbling down.”
I nodded.
“That’s exactly how I feel,” I whisper.
“But Rachel, nothing in the world is that finite. Think hard about these questions for me okay? Jeremy. Things feel raw and strange right now. But what do you think is going to be the outcome of it?”
After a moment, I responded the only way I knew how.
“We’ll get through it. We are all each other has.”
Regina nodded, sitting forward and looking at me closely.
“And if things were to continue to feel awkward and stilted, what would you do?”
A tear slipped from my eye.
“I’d force us to have a hard conversation so we could fix it.”
“Exactly,” she said with a smile. “You wouldn’t just allow the circumstances around you to happen to you. You would do something about it. And your coursework. What are you doing about it right now?”
“I’ve been studying with a friend and working on a project in a pair instead of alone. And I’ve been going to the tutoring center to have someone read over the paper I’m working on.”
“And lets say you end up getting a lower grade than you need for your scholarship. Think of worst-case-scenario stuff. How would you handle that?”
I turned my head to look out the window.
“I guess I’d… I don’t know. I’d speak to my scholarship advisor to see if I could take a different class or a winter term elective to make it up.”
“And if that didn’t work?”
“Well… maybe I could find a different scholarship, or continue part-time on just the athletic scholarship until I could figure out what to do next.”
I could see Regina beaming at me out of the corner of my eye.
“All wonderful ideas. And those are just things you came up with off the top of your head without help from people who will want to help you stay enrolled, people who know the ins and outs of that kind of stuff.”
I nodded, feeling a small brick of worry fall away from my shoulders.
“And Mack.”
My head snapped back in her direction.
“What about him?”
She smiled softly.
“You’re nervous about your relationship because of the relationship you had with your dad. You said you’re waiting for him to do or say something that hurts you significantly, or that shows you can’t put the same implicit trust in him that you place in Jeremy.”
“Well… I don’t know about that…”. But I trailed off when she gave me a knowing look. “Okay fine, yes. I guess that’s a realistic description of how my mind is working. Fine.”
“Has he done anything so far that would make you think he doesn’t deserve your trust.”
I pulled my legs up and crossed them on the couch, thinking through everything as quickly as I could. The knee-jerk reaction would be to bring up Ronnie and the night at Smoggy Tavern. But we talked about that, and if I was completely honest, even though it devastated me at the time, I didn’t think he would ever do something like that if he was in a relationship.
There was the fact he was worried about losing his job and didn’t talk to me about it. But would I have done the same thing? I mean, I kind of did, but in a backwards way. He was willing to potentially lose his job to save us. I was willing to lose us to save him. Both of our reactions were about sacrifice and putting each other first.
And maybe he got a bit overzealous when it came to his reaction about Thomas. But it was practically a mirror image of my reactions about Ronnie. His was just more fueled by testosterone.
So if I was honest about it - really, really honest - I knew how to answer Regina.
“No. He hasn’t done anything to make me think he doesn’t deserve it.”
“Good. And if, in the future, he breaks your trust, or he hurts you, what will you do?”
I laugh.
“I don’t know. I mean, it will depend on how he does it. Mack would never actually hurt me, like, physically. But if he broke my trust or hurt me emotionally, I guess… well we would need to talk about it before I made a decision about what to do.”
“Yes. And that’s a great answer, want to know why? Because it demonstrates that you value communication and working to solve problems.”
“But I haven’t been doing that. I’ve been jumping to conclusions and making assumptions. I’ve been hurting him when I was so worried about him hurting me.”
“And that’s based on the fact you were worried about trusting his intentions. Now that you’ve realized you don’t necessarily have anything to worry about, might that change how you respond next time?”
I shrugged, feeling horrible. All this time, I was thinking he was the problem. But in reality it was me.
“I hope so. I want to be better for him. I mean, that’s why I’m here.”
Regina removed her glasses and sat forward, pinning me with a stare that was a cross between motherly concern and that look a teacher gives you when they think you can do better.
“Rachel, be careful with a statement like that. You’re placing too much value on you in relation to him. But the whole reason you’re here to begin with is because you struggle to place value in you just on your own.”
“So you’re saying I have to be better for me. Regardless of how the relationship turns out.”
She nodded and gave me a sweet smile again.
“That’s right. Because if you learn to develop your sense of self-worth, but it’s entwined with his presence in your life, and things don’t work out, that value will disappear and you’ll be back at square one again.”
“Hope for the best, expect the worst.”
She shook her head.
“No. Not at all. Hope for the best, accept the rest. You can only control yourself and your actions and reactions. You can’t control someone else, and living a life braced for all worst-case-scenarios isn’t healthy either. That’s why I said earlier that it’s important to learn to adjust when things go off course from what you’ve hoped for. So, like I said, hope for the best, and accept the rest.”
God, she made so much sense. What I loved so much about Regina is that her conversations with me were just that - conversations. She didn’t just ask me how I was feeling and then ask for clarification. She didn’t make mmmhhhmmm noises like you see on movies. She gave me advice and suggestions on how to solve my problems.
She closed her notebook.
“Lets review quickly okay?”
I nodded and she held up one finger.
“First of all, it’s important that you remind yourself what your true motivations are for returning to therapy. It’s not about Mack, even if that is what initially prompted the visit. It’s about focusing on finding value in yourself, and being able to trust those around you. Because if your value in yourself is strong, then the actions of those around you won’t have a life-altering impact on you if they let you down. And that’s because your intrinsic worth is not based in what others do that you can’t control. Right?”
I nodded again.
“Right. And if I create value in myself based on a relationship, I’ll have to start over again if
the relationship fails.”
She touched her nose then pointed at me.
“Exactly.”
She held up a second finger.
“Second, you are feeling a little off-kilter with certain important areas of your life. Jeremy. Academics. Mack. But you yourself listed how you will approach each of these very important facets if things don’t go according to plan. This week I want you to spend time thinking about those, because forward thinking is really important when setting yourself up to be strong in the face of difficult situations. Begin preparations now so you aren’t blindsided later. For example, visiting your advisor now to discuss options for what will happen if you continue to struggle academically could help you feel more in control of what will happen next. But also remember, you want to be prepared for difficult situations, but not always assuming that something bad is going to happen.”
“Okay, and talking to Jeremy and Mack now can begin the process of repairing some of the issues.”
“Bingo.”
I smiled, feeling a lot more in control of things and a little more sure-footed than I felt when I arrived.
The slamming of the gym door snaps me out of my memory of the morning and the fantastic conversation I had with Regina. I look over to my right and see Gina storming across the room towards me, anger rolling off of her in waves.
“You fucking bitch,” she seethes as she gets closer.
I quickly stop my treadmill and hop off. Looks like she was bumped from starter today. I stand without a defensive posture, trying to remember the prep conversation I had with Coach J about how to handle the inevitable fallout.
“What can I do for you Gina?” I ask, keeping any malice from my tone.
“Don’t act like you don’t know what just happened,” she spits. “I got bumped from starter and your little minion is taking my place!”
“I’m aware that decision had been made,” I respond. “Did you have any questions or concerns about it that Coach J was unable to answer?”
The Keeper Page 24