“Weird. Good. Okay. I don’t know.” I let out a small laugh. “I danced with my dad, fought with my sister, and overindulged in champagne.”
“They didn’t have any gin?”
I hate how my chest warms with the realization that he remembered that tiny detail about me. “No, they did. I had some. And then I decided to try something new, I guess.”
“New can be good.”
I don’t respond. There’s no sound besides the whisper of his exhales being transported across the ocean by technology.
Eventually, “You called me.”
For once, the obvious deserves a response. “Yeah, I did,” I confirm. “I—I don’t know. I just wanted to hear your voice.”
“You could have watched an interview.” I thought his words in person were inscrutable. Those six might have as well have been read by a robot.
I huff out a laugh anyway, too buzzed to dwell on nuances. “Yeah, I guess I could have.” If I’d wanted to hear the soccer star Beck instead of the guy who knows I ordinarily drink nothing besides gin.
I’m surprised to realize I can detect a difference. The softer tone. The emotion underneath.
I’m not sure what I might have said next, what he might have, because Hallie chooses this exact moment to burst out onto the patio. “We need you for another round of photos.”
If I wasn’t suddenly desperate for an exit ramp, I would cover the speaker and point out how we’ve already taken what seemed like hundreds of photos.
Instead, I veer off the road of regret I’m rapidly speeding along. “I have to go. Sorry for waking you up.” I tap the end button before Beck can say anything, shoving my feet back into the stilettos and wincing as my feet protest the uncomfortable footwear.
“Who were you talking to?” Hallie asks as I approach her.
“No one.”
Despite the literal impossibility of my answer, Hallie doesn’t press. Instead, she apologizes. “I’m sorry about before. I know today is tough for you.”
“It’s fine,” I mutter as we head back inside the country club. I probably owe her an apology too, but right now my emotions are all over the place.
It’s strange, being in my hometown surrounded by family mere seconds after talking to Adler Beck on the phone.
It’s a collision of two worlds: the Saylor Scott who grew up in a tiny town with a broken family and the one who took control of her identity and turned down the man who melts panties with a single smirk.
The girl who grew up convinced love was a legend and the woman worried she might have found and flung it.
We take more photos, there’s another round of dancing, and then my dad and Sandra disappear in a shower of grains of rice and a deluge of well wishes.
The drive back to Hallie’s from the reception is silent. Either she’s still annoyed with me or simply too tired to talk. I’d guess it’s a combination of the two.
The porch light is on when we arrive back at the bungalow, and I know it’s because Matt left it on when he brought Matthew Jr. home. For some reason it makes me wonder if Beck would do the same. Especially when my phone keeps buzzing with incoming calls I can’t bring myself to answer. Every time it vibrates, it sounds a little louder.
“Night,” Hallie tells me when we walk through the front door. She heads straight upstairs.
I was exhausted earlier, but suddenly I’m not. I head to the couch and grab sweatpants and a sweatshirt from the suitcase resting against it. I quickly change and then walk into the kitchen, swinging the fridge door open and hauling myself up on the edge of the marble countertop to survey the contents.
Wasteful? Yes.
Convenient? Also yes.
I’m not hungry. I’m scavenging for liquid contents. I’ve had enough alcohol to know more is a bad idea, but also enough where I’m not exactly thinking logically. I compromise by grabbing a bottle of beer and a can of seltzer. I stroll out the door off the kitchen, onto the deck, and down into the grass.
The lawn feels like home. I’ve spent more hours on turf than I could ever count, but mostly with the barrier of cleats. Crushing blades of grass is much more satisfying when it’s with your bare skin.
There’s a hammock strung up between two broad beech trees, and I flop down atop it, beverages in hand. I can’t see anything through the canopy of leaves, and I prefer it that way. Stars have a way of suggesting too much. The vastness of the universe makes me feel too small, too inconsequential. Like maybe the decisions I have to make aren’t quite as massive as I’ve made them out to be.
In the grand scheme of the world, they’re definitely not.
In the context of my life, they’re trajectory. They’ll send me careening down one path with no chance of ever returning to another. There will be other choices farther down the trail, but no chance to return to where I am right now. That’s what has me paralyzed in place. Because I decided a long time ago that I wouldn’t let anything detract from my soccer goals.
Adler Beck has already made his mark in the sport.
I’ve barely scratched the surface.
I toss the drinks on the ground, belatedly realizing they’ll probably explode whenever they’re opened. Too tired to care, I push off from the ground so the fabric I’m lying on starts rocking back and forth.
I’m asleep before it stills.
“If only I had a camera on me.”
I squint upward and find Hallie’s smirking face. “Why have a hammock if you’re not going to use it?”
“We use it plenty. We just don’t sleep in it.”
I stretch, relieved to discover a bird didn’t decide to crap on me overnight. My muscles are stiff, but I’ve definitely woken up feeling worse. “You should. Switch things up a bit.”
Hallie rolls her eyes, and I know she’s taken my words as a personal affront, an assertion that she plays it safe while I dance with danger.
Might as well rip off the Band-Aid. “Look, Hallie. I’m sor—” I don’t even get the full apology out.
“It’s fine, Saylor. We’re good.” Hallie loves to sweep anything uncomfortable under the rug. It’s why she’s on a joking basis with our father whereas I can barely exchange a dance’s worth of words with him. Ignorance versus grudges. I’m not sure either approach is healthy, but I know Hallie’s means me pressing things won’t end well. “Do you want breakfast?”
“No, I’ll get something at the airport.”
“Okay. Your flight’s at eleven, right?”
“Yeah.”
Hallie heads back inside, and I flop back down on the hammock to review the past couple of days. So far, my trip home has consisted of: tense conversation with my father, pushing Hallie further away, and a drunken phone call with the guy I’m supposed to be forgetting exists. Throw in too much champagne and excessive flirting, and I’ve got a promising sitcom plot.
Too bad it’s my actual life.
I pick up the beer and seltzer I never opened and walk up the steps and inside. The kitchen is chaos. Matthew Jr. is screaming. Hallie and Matt are rushing around, trying to placate him. Matt’s family is eating breakfast. No one but Jackson acknowledges my arrival on the scene, and I definitely don’t acknowledge his. I stick the drinks back in the fridge and help myself to a banana. I contemplate changing my outfit as I peel the fruit and then decide against it.
“You ready, Saylor?” Hallie asks, handing Matt a bowl of the cereal that seems to have halted the shrieking.
“Yeah,” I respond, heading to the couch to zip up my suitcase. I haul the bag vertical and offer Matt and his family a small wave. “Nice to see you all.”
They each reply with the same pleasantry, and then Hallie and I are off, zipping out of the cul-de-sac her house sits on.
“Shit,” I realize. “Can you stop at the farmer’s market thing?”
“What? Why?” Hallie inquires.
“I never picked up my painting,” I reply. After last night’s drunken dial, it’s probably an idiotic idea, but the thought of
never retrieving it bothers me.
Hallie doesn’t reply, but she pulls over at the warehouse when we reach it. The parking lot is empty this time, but every booth I pass by has an occupant. Finally, I reach the one that caught my attention last time.
The same old woman is there, perched on a rickety stool as she sketches something on a notepad. She looks up when I enter the small stall and smiles. A hand spotted with age reaches behind the desk and procures the painting with the additions I requested.
It’s eerie how much it resembles the scene seared into my brain. It’s perfect. Mesmerizing.
“Thank you,” I tell the woman.
“You’re welcome, dear. Have a good day.” She passes me a paper sleeve I slide the painting into.
“You, too.”
I retrace my steps through the warehouse and back outside, climbing back into the passenger seat. Hallie studies the package in my hands with unveiled interest but says nothing as she pulls out of the parking lot.
“Can we stop at the post office?” I request.
“Sure,” Hallie replies casually, but I don’t miss the extra glance she gives the paper-covered painting on my lap.
The tiny post office is just as quiet and empty as one would expect. I don’t realize until I’m outside the doors it’s because it’s closed.
It’s Sunday.
I’m not shipping life-saving medication. There’s no real urgency. But I am worried I won’t send it if I don’t do it now, before I’ve really thought it through.
There’s a jangling sound to my left, and I glance over to see a man unlocking the side door tucked around the corner. I’d guess he’s in his late twenties, and he does a double take when he glances up and sees my face.
“Hi! Could you do me a massive favor?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer right away, looking a bit stunned. I don’t recognize him, so I don’t think he recognizes me. I put absolutely no effort into my appearance this morning, so I suppose it should flatter me he’s at a loss for words. But I just feel impatient.
“Well?”
“Uh—um, I’m not supposed to—I mean—sure.”
Euphoria overtakes any annoyance with his stuttering. I follow him inside through the door he was unlocking.
I still have Beck’s apartment address memorized, and I pay the exorbitant fee required to ship the package to Germany after relaying it to the postal worker.
“Thank you,” I tell him, flashing him a genuine smile after he’s completed the shipping slip.
I leave the post office with a skip in my step. For the first time since Beck strode away from me in Canada, I feel a little lighter. The painting is not a response to his admission, and it’s not an apology.
It’s an acknowledgment that the moments we spent together meant something to me.
That he means something to me.
If my departure from Germany damaged us, we’re in tatters post-Canada. But the dysfunction doesn’t diminish what we shared.
Maybe that’s what my mother meant about broken beauty.
Or maybe she was referring to herself.
If she hadn’t left, I’d probably ask her.
Chapter Twenty
The next two weeks follow the same pattern every fall has for as long as I can remember. The official season starts, and everything but soccer fades. I barely attend class, I stop attending parties, and I definitely don’t answer any phone calls from a German number.
But I do answer calls from my father. Ever since the wedding, he’s rung once a week. We muddle through few mundane topics: the weather (different in Connecticut than Georgia, shockingly), hometown news (nothing’s changed), and how I am (busy). Despite the less than scintillating conversation, he keeps calling. And I keep answering.
Which, repetitive as it might be, is more than I can say has ever happened before. Our most recent conversation, however, ended a bit differently. I tried not to think about my dad’s mention of attending one of my games, mostly because I didn’t want to get my hopes up. But he ended our last phone call with a tentative mention that he and Sandra were planning to come to our next home game this coming weekend. I didn’t miss that it meant he actually took the time to look up my soccer schedule.
They made the puzzling decision to make the fifteen-hour drive rather than fly and were supposed to arrive an hour ago. I sit in the locker room, listening to the chatter of my teammates around me. Anne is not-so-subtly looking at me out of the corner of her eye.
“You really need to work on your surreptitious looks,” I inform her, spinning around on the bench to face my locker and lace up my cleats.
“I wasn’t looking!”
“Anne.”
“I was just making sure you’re okay. Normally you’re more hyper before games.”
“My dad is here,” I admit.
Anne fumbles for words. “Your—your dad? I didn’t, I mean… you’ve never…”
“Yeah, I know. We’re not close.”
“Wow. If you need to talk…”
“Nope, I’m good. I need to play.” I stand, stretch, and yank my jersey on over my sports bra.
Most of the team has already huddled around Coach Taylor. There’s no pep talk. We had a three-hour strategy session yesterday afternoon, and everyone knows what is expected of them. This is just another game. Old hat by now. It’s not a championship, or even a playoff game.
No one wants to risk our perfect record, but even playing at the highest level of collegiate athletics feels mundane after a certain point. I couldn’t have even told you what day we were playing Northampton back when our season’s schedule was announced. Now, I’m focused on nothing but dominating them.
Coach Taylor finishes explaining our warm-up drills, and players file out onto the field one by one.
After attending my first football game at Lancaster, I convinced the guy who announces the football players as they run out of the tunnel to do the same for us. And not just the starters—the entire team.
It was a genius move, if I do say so myself. Not only because it excites the crowd, but because it’s fantastic for team morale. I mean, who doesn’t want to run out on the field as their name is announced on a loudspeaker?
No athlete I’ve met.
Coach tugs at my sleeve as I pass her. “You good, Scott? You look a bit like you’re headed into a cage match.”
“To win it, right?”
Coach gives me a rare smile. “Give ’em hell.”
“That’s the plan.” I head down the tunnel after Emma.
“Did you get laid last night? You’re in a weirdly good mood,” she asks as I stop beside her.
“I’m always in a good mood.”
Emma snorts loudly. “Uh-huh, sure.”
“Number twelve, Emmmaaa Waattkkkiinnnssss!”
“That’s my cue.” She grins and jogs out of the tunnel.
“And last, but certainly not least, we have our captain. Lancaster’s leading scorer. Number twenty-two, Saayyyllloooorrr Scccccoooottttttt!”
I sprint out into a wall of noise. The stands are full, and I don’t bother to scan them. It’s a perfect fall day, warm with a crisp edge. The game is supposed to start at three, and the sun is bright but not blinding.
The sound of voices and the smell of concession stand snacks mingle, but I don’t stop to take in the atmosphere. I’m laser-focused: on lunges, toe touches, and scoring sprees. Warm-ups end, and I call heads. We win the coin toss, opting to take the kickoff.
I’m addicted to this moment. Some players love the euphoria of scoring a goal or the thrill of being ahead when extra minutes end.
For me, it’s the start of the game, when anticipation’s built to a breaking point.
I love scoring and I love winning. But in those moments, I already know what I’ve accomplished.
I know the ending.
Right now, I have a chance to determine it.
I’m in motion as soon as the ball leaves Emma’s foot, sprinting upward with the o
ther forwards. I challenge the Northampton player who has possession, a sharp jab of her elbow letting me know she doesn’t appreciate the crowding. The motion also provides me an opening. I spin, taking the ball with me, and start running in the opposite direction from where she was headed, back toward Northampton’s goal.
Cassidy Jones is waiting for me. She may have been a confidant at CFOC, but she’s nothing but a barrier now. I pass to Natalie, and she passes to Emma. After years of playing together, we’re in perfect sync. Emma sends the ball back to me before I enter the penalty arc just before I send it flying, taking advantage of the split second of confusion Emma’s pass bought me. It also buys me the first goal and a whole lot of appreciation from the crowd.
Northampton doubles down after that, barely letting us past the center line. The only upside is they’re so focused on keeping us from scoring they’re unable to press themselves.
The scoreboard is still displaying 0-1 when we leave the field for halftime. I take a seat on the bench and take slow sips of water. Coach Taylor’s got her whiteboard out, going through suggestions of plays. I watch her marker slash, circle, and squiggle across the snowy surface until it’s time to resume play.
We obviously weren’t the only team discussing strategy, because Northampton opts for a very different approach in the second half. They’re more aggressive, pushing toward the end of the field they were formerly protecting.
Anne and our other three defenders have their first real tests of the game as I try to slow Northampton’s offense along with the rest of the midfielders. The girl I’m marking passes to a teammate, and Emma is too far away to stop the ball. The Northampton player sends it flying toward the net, but Cressida is ready. She snags the ball midair, and I let out a long sigh of relief.
I turn to head back to the center line. It takes a while for everyone else to follow, and I frown as Emma falls into position beside me for the kickoff. We’ve still got a half hour of play left, but the close call seems to have sent fresh vigor through my teammates.
Suddenly, it feels like we are playing in a championship. That extra gear I find as I near the end of a game, like a shark moving in for the kill? I’m not the only one shifting, and Northampton is entirely unprepared for us to all start sprinting faster and pressing harder. It’s an onslaught that earns us two more goals: a header from Natalie and a half-field kick from Anne.
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