The Keeper

by Jillian Liota

  She growls at me, her hands clenching into fists.

  “This is all your fucking fault, you stupid fucking cow,” she screams, causing other athlete’s heads to turn our way.

  “Gina, I made the recommendation that Piper should be moved to starter for multiple reasons, which I am sure Coach J reviewed with you. Mack said they wanted to give you another two games to demonstrate that you were the better player and that you were capable of working effectively in the team. You failed on both, which is why Piper has replaced you.”

  Gina’s face is bright red and her body practically vibrating with rage.

  “You are going to pay for this,” she hisses, before storming away from me and out the door.

  I breathe in deeply and exhale, trying to remain calm. That girl has a way of getting under my skin like no one else can.

  But I have to admit to myself, as a slow smile creeps onto my face, seeing her skin turn that particular shade of red was incredibly satisfying.

  Chapter Seventeen

  At the crack of dawn the following morning, a Friday at the beginning of November, our team packs up into a bus and shuttles down to San Diego again, this time for the Southern California Small College Tournament, affectionately called the SC2.

  Being a smaller school means women’s teams get the shaft on funding to cover team-related events, so it’s a big deal that the athletic department is supporting our trip down to San Diego. The women’s team has made it to this very important tournament for the first time ever, though, so they were kind of obligated to pretend they cared.

  The games we play this weekend will determine if we get to play in the College Cup in December. The men’s team has made it before, so it’s pretty much a given that they will attend this year. Our chances are still a bit more uncertain, and the pressure we all feel to perform this weekend is high.

  The joint bus ride with the men’s team and requirement to play in multiple games over several days also means we need to stay overnight in San Diego, so the athletic department also splurges on hotel rooms for us. Shitty hotel rooms, with cigarette burns in the horribly stiff bed spread. But still, it’s a trip out of town for a bunch of healthy, energetic college students to meet and interact with other healthy, energetic college students.

  It’s disgustingly exciting and I’ve heard it’s like a mini-Olympic village. Lots of sex and drinking and debauchery once each team is done playing. To say all of it makes me terribly uncomfortable would be an understatement.

  “Think we should get out that blacklight before we crawl under any covers?”

  I snort out a laugh and throw a shin guard at Piper.

  “God, no. I’ll sleep in filthy, ignorant bliss over finding out the sheets are diseased.”

  Piper giggles too.

  “Blurg. So gross.”

  And yet she still crawls onto her double bed and splays her body out, face down into that same bed spread.

  “Don’t get too comfy, missy. Coach said we needed to go on a 4 mile run in our own time since our first game isn’t until tomorrow morning. Some of the girls are meeting downstairs in about an hour.”

  When all I hear is a groan muffled by the bed, I lean over and smack Piper’s butt.

  She yelps.

  “Alright! I’ll be ready in an hour. Leave me be until then, por favor.”

  And she plops back down on the mattress.

  While Piper rests face down in who knows what, I plunk in my headphones and crank up my tunes. Unpacking is unnecessary for just a two-night stay, but it’s something to do with my hands that doesn’t require a lot of brain power. My hope is to focus on this meaningless task instead of the other million things I want or need to think about.

  After about 10 minutes, there are no items left to unpack and I glance around the room, trying to find something to keep me busy. I roll my eyes and smile when I realize I can hear Piper snoring softly, her face still buried in the bed spread

  When I walk to the window and pull back the curtain to look out, I bark out a small laugh when I see we’re facing a brick wall. Classic. But when I press my forehead against the glass, I can see a sliver of life beyond and the ocean in the background.

  Such a perfect metaphor for my life.

  When I finally get brave enough to look out the window and into my future, I can’t actually see anything. But if I press a little harder, I can see hints of things to come, and I can try to prepare for them.

  As my mind flips over and over the conversation I had with Regina yesterday, I realize that if I’m going to begin looking forward, I need to focus on building foundations for the important relationships in my life.

  And I know exactly where to start.

  * * * * *

  “I’m just gonna get a few more laps around the block to cool down,” I say to Piper as we finish up our required run two hours later. “I’ll catch up with you in a bit, okay?”

  Piper strikes a pose, her hands on her hips.

  “Girl, come on! Don’t push yourself too hard the day before a game.”

  I giggle at her wrinkled nose.

  “I promise, cool down laps. You know I’m intense about cool downs.”

  Piper huffs but gives me a small smile and waves as she heads into the hotel.

  I start into a slow jog around the block, and when I’m a decent ways away from the hotel I pull my phone from the band on my arm. My heart pounds loudly in my chest as I scroll to Mack’s number and press the green button.

  I spent the entire jog with the girls thinking about what I will say to him. Do I have the ability to really express how I feel? Am I brave enough to be honest? Will he be open enough to meeting me half way?

  “Hey.”

  His voice is a low rumble through the phone, and it sounds like he’s trying to be quiet.

  “Hey, it’s RJ.”

  He chuckles, understated and warm.

  “Yes, I know who it is. What can I do for you?”

  I lean up against the back of a bench on the side of the road.

  “Can we talk?”

  And I’m met with silence.

  “I mean in person. I just have a few things…” I let my voice trail off, feeling a little unsure now that it seems like I will have to convince him to see me.

  “Sure, just… give me 10 minutes and I can head out. Where do you want to meet?”

  I exhale a relieved breath and look around quickly for points of interest or ways I can tell Mack where I am.

  “There’s a park about 3 blocks away from the hotel on G Street. Wanna meet there?”

  “Yeah, I’ll look it up and head out in a few.”

  We hang up and I walk across the street to the park, finding shelter from the sun under a huge oak tree. Or maybe it’s maple. I can’t really tell the difference, but it is an absolutely massive tree. The roots are growing up out of the ground in thick ropes. The trunk is thick, the foliage full and green.

  One of the things I love about living in Southern California is that it’s perpetually spring and summer, with tiny little hints of rain and cold. But the leaves always stay full and beautiful. Nothing ever dies.

  Unless there’s a fire. But that’s a different thing, right?

  About 15 minutes later, I see Mack round the corner and start towards my spot sitting on one of the tree roots. I rub my sweaty palms against my black running shorts as I repeat things over again in my head, reminding myself of what I want to say.

  I know you said you’d wait and be patient. Can you do that for another six months? Because I am in love with you and will do anything not to lose you.

  Short and sweet. Simple and straightforward.

  Hopefully Mack thinks so too.

  When he finally sits down next to me, I take a moment to breathe him in. That familiar warmth, that slight touch of sweat and soap. It elicits memories of joking around after a practice, of him kissing me against my front door, of his home the night he explaine
d his past to me.

  God, I’m so hopeful and so terrified at the same time.

  “Hey,” he says, his tone slightly guarded, his eyes trained on whatever is in front of him, and not on me.

  But my eyes are glued to him. To his jaw and his stubble and that slight curl at the nape of his neck where his hair grows unruly.

  When I continue to stare and fail to respond, he finally turns to look me in the eyes.

  “You wanted to talk?”

  I clear my throat and give an embarrassed smile.

  “Yeah… yes. Thanks for coming.”

  I rub my hands on my shorts again.

  Stupid nerves.

  “I… I know you said you’d wait… and, be patient,” I start, my eyes fixed on my hands that grip just slightly to the hem of my shorts. “Can you do that for another six months?”

  I chance a glance at him and see him staring at me with a slight frown, his eyebrows furrowed in the middle. Not exactly the response I was hoping for. But instead of letting the silence linger, my traitorous honest tongue takes over.

  “Because I’m in love with you and I don’t want to lose you just because I’ve got all this bullshit going on in my head.”

  I brace my elbows on my knees and drop my head in my hands.

  “And I’m working on it. I promise. I’m meeting with my therapist again and she’s amazing and she helped me see in just a few sessions that I’m living my life braced for men to treat me like shit and for everything I’ve planned to fall apart. But I don’t want to live that way.”

  I look over at him again, hoping he can see the plea in my eyes, and that the absolutely ridiculous stream-of-conscious thoughts tumbling out of my mouth are making sense.

  “I want so much to be with you and explore whatever this is in real life, and not just in secret. To see if you really are the man I think you are. A kind, good man who makes me laugh and smile more than anyone. But I also want to make sure I’m staying focused on my future and a life I worked really hard for, a life I had to fight for. And if Regina can help me work through a handful of things in just a few weeks, imagine how much more normal and not broken I can be if we date after I graduate. The season’s almost over and I won’t be back next year and I’m not trying to go pro so I won’t be at spring trainings. So we could just, I don’t know, email and text and talk occasionally or something. Which I know might not be enough for you right now, and I’ll totally respect that if that’s the case, but I’d rather have you in my life in some way, even just in small doses, than not have you at all. Because in like, six weeks, you have become this life force that keeps the blood pumping in my veins and I can’t imagine what it would be like to not have you. I mean, not that I have you, have you. Like, I’m not your boss or girlfriend or anything, but you’re so important and I can’t imagine…”

  And my words get cut off when Mack stands abruptly, walking away from me.

  My heart plummets and my eyes prickle at the corners.

  I knew I was rambling but I didn’t think that he would just get up and…

  But then he turns around and looks at me, and whatever reaction my heart just had is now in reverse.

  Because the look he is giving me…

  It’s not angry, or upset, or disappointed.

  No.

  It is full of hope, and longing. And love.

  He’s standing 10 feet away, hands braced at his hips.

  I stand slowly and rub my hands on my shorts again.

  “You are…” he stops and shakes his head, letting out a humorless chuckle. “RJ, you are not broken.”

  I squint my eyes in confusion. Out of everything I said to him about loving him and waiting until I graduate to date, he focused on that?

  “If you end up taking only one thing away from knowing me, I want it to be that. You are not broken. In any way. You’ve been banged up a bit by things I might not really understand, and you’ve been worn weary by burdens that you’ve carried for years on your own with no one to help you lighten that load. But RJ, shit.” He shakes his head again, taking a few steps towards me. “You are anything but broken. You’re beautiful and resilient and…”

  He stops and rubs his hands up and down his face.

  “And I’m in love with you,” he finishes, his eyes connecting with mine again. “So in love with you that I have been barely seeing straight for the past few weeks wondering if that was the end.”

  I stand suddenly and practically rush him, my body colliding with his in a hug so tight and warm, I wonder how I will ever let go. His arms wrap around my middle and mine are squeezing tight around his neck and shoulders, our cheeks pressed together.

  “I don’t want that to be the end,” he whispers into my ear, kissing me softly just beneath it. “Six months is nothing when considering the potential of forever without you.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  I groan internally when I see the caller ID display on my phone. Frank. I’ve never programmed him in as Dad - it’s just Frank.

  “Don’t answer it,” Mack whispers from his spot next to me on the bus. When I look at him in question, he continues, “It’s either something you don’t want to hear, or it’s something that will make you upset. You don’t need that today.”

  My first instinct is to brush him off, tell him it isn’t a big deal. But then I remember what I promised to myself. That I would open up those protected parts of myself to Mack, and trust him with those pieces of vulnerability that I think make me weak.

  I nod slightly, clicking the ignore button.

  “You’re right. I don’t need his particular brand of crazy today.”

  Mack gives my knee two taps, then turns back to focus on the paperwork in front of him.

  Sitting next to each other on the short bus ride from the hotel to the arena is weird. Normally I sit with Piper, and she sent me a why are you sitting with coach? text when I stopped at the front of the bus and slid in past him to get to the empty seat by the window.

  I didn’t respond, figuring the excuse I had crafted this morning didn’t even make sense, and that the time on the bus would provide me with extra time to come up with something.

  But of course, my mind is blank.

  He didn’t act surprised when I sat next to him. It’s not even just that he wasn’t surprised. He barely responded. He didn’t move out of the way or rearrange his stuff. He didn’t even look at me at first. The only reason I know he was aware I was sitting next to him was the ghost of a smile that sat on his face when I turned to look at him after a few minutes.

  Telling me to ignore Frank’s call was literally the first thing he said to me.

  But he has been sitting for the entire 10 minute bus ride with his knee pressed to mine, and I cannot for the life of me calm the butterflies that are soaring around in my stomach and around my heart.

  From touching knees.

  So pathetic.

  When the bus comes to a halt, I glance outside and see the stadium.

  Shitshitshit.

  “What’s wrong?” Mack asks.

  “Did I say that out loud?”

  He laughs.

  “Yeah, now what’s wrong?”

  “I don’t have a reason why I sat next to you,” I whisper to him.

  Mack shrugs.

  “Don’t worry,” he says, his volume a bit higher. “I used to get nerves before tournaments too. Glad to hear they passed so quickly.” He pats my shoulder and turns to walk out of the bus.

  I shuffle after him, feeling slightly relieved that I don’t have to come up with a fake excuse, while simultaneously pissed that he made me sound like a nervous Nellie in front of the rest of the team.

  “So glad to hear I’m not the only one who feels like they’re gonna upchuck before a game,” Piper says as she bounces down the steps. “I thought I was the only freak on the team.” She gives me a cheesy grin before scooting past me to grab her duffle from underneath the bus.


  I grab my duffle as well, following the team through the parking lot and towards the stadium tunnels. I am dressed and ready to go by the time I glance at my phone again. Two missed calls and a text from Jeremy.

  Jeremy: He’s coming to the game. I’m on my way.

  My stomach drops. Why would he come to another game? There is legitimately no reason for him to come. I can feel my blood pumping faster as it throbs through my body, anger and frustration rippling across the surface of my skin.

  Me: Don’t come. I’ll be fine.

  I almost send it.

  I type it completely, and then stare at it as my teammates mill around me. Laughing and joking and excited about the game.

  I stare at a text I want to send to my brother, in an attempt to save him the frustration while everyone around me enjoys themselves.

  But then I delete it.

  It’s not my job to protect Jeremy. By doing that, I’ve created a barrier between us that is now one of the causes of a rift that I can’t stand. If he wants to come and be supportive, so I can be like every other normal person on this team, I should let him.

  But I also have to tell my coach that there is a potential distraction.

  I hop up from the bench next to the lockers and go to the hallway just outside the locker room, where Mack and Coach J are talking quietly. They stop immediately when I approach.

  “What’s up, Rachel?” Coach J asks.

  It throws me for just a moment, since my focus had been on sharing with Mack. But Coach J’s question reminds me that I’m here to tell my coaches, plural, about a distraction. I’m not here to cry to my future boyfriend about my asshole dad.

  “The game against USD a few weeks ago, there was a heckler in the crowd that caused some problems.”

  I provide the information as a statement, not a question, because I know they remember. Everyone remembers Rachel Jameson’s dad calling her a dyke loud and clear.

  “He’s coming today, and his presence will cause problems for me. You need to put Erin in as starter. I’d like permission to not go on the field.”