away when I was seven.
And how do you become the best? How do you achieve greatness and perfection?
You do it by working hard, harder than the others. You do it by being focused. You do it by making sacrifices that others won’t.
You do it by following the rules.
Which is, again, something I grew up with because my mother is the principal of a reform school.
So I’ve always done my homework, eaten my vegetables. I’ve gone to bed at an appropriate time. I’ve gotten straight As. I’ve aced every practice.
In short, rules are how I’ve lived my life.
It doesn’t make sense though that I’m here, back in my hometown of St. Mary’s, for doing the exact opposite of that.
I’m not only back in my hometown but I’m also sitting on a pink couch with printed blue flowers on it. Because I broke the very first rule of soccer. The rule my dad taught me when I was only six or so.
“You never lose your temper, Arrow. That’s the first rule. Soccer isn’t about butting heads. It’s about precision and accuracy. It comes from patience. You gauge the play of the other player before making yours.”
I have to admit that I didn’t understand it at the time but over the years, it became second nature.
Not losing my calm. Not losing my patience. Not losing my fucking temper.
But I did.
I lost my temper and beat up the assistant coach. It doesn’t matter that he had it coming. It doesn’t matter that I would’ve killed that motherfucker if they hadn’t pulled me off. It doesn’t matter that I fucking enjoyed it.
What matters is that I broke a rule – as impossible and otherworldly as it may seem right now – and got kicked off the team.
I got kicked out before I could win the cup and that’s why I’m here.
In the pink and from what I can tell also purple office of the therapist that the team chose for me, Dr. Lola Bernstein.
She’s a woman in her fifties, I think. She also wears glasses and a fuck-ton of jewelry. And she smiles. A lot.
I’ve probably been here five minutes and she’s smiled at me at least ten times. So she smiles twice every minute. Once every thirty seconds, and I already want to punch her glass coffee table.
But I won’t.
Because I don’t lose my temper. I never lose it.
Besides, she’s a Harvard graduate. She has about thirty years of experience and good credentials. I’ve been told that she’s also worked at a very prestigious facility called Heartstone Psychiatric Hospital, before starting her own practice. If anyone can help me get rid of this anger inside of me, it’s her.
So I’m going to follow the rules and not punch things around me like I strangely want to do these days.
“So, Arrow.” She cocks her head to the side and her necklace tinkles. “Can I call you Arrow?”
I clench my teeth at her noisy jewelry. “People call me A but sure, yeah. Whatever.”
“I can call you A. No worries.”
She smiles. Again.
I don’t know how to respond to it. Am I supposed to smile back? Am I supposed to ask her what she wants to be called? What, exactly.
Also, how does a Harvard graduate not know what the basic professional attire is? Why is she wearing a hobo-like skirt? How is that going to inspire confidence in her clients that she can fix their problems?
But again, I’m not going to get riled up. Because I never get riled up.
Besides, it’s not like I’ve been to a therapist before. So I don’t know what these people do.
“So,” she begins when I simply keep looking at her. “This is the first time that you’ve had an anger problem, at least to this degree. Is that correct?”
I jerk out a nod. “This is the first time I’ve had an anger problem to any degree.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Are you saying that you’ve never been angry?”
“Yes.”
“But that’s impossible.”
“It’s not. I don’t lose my temper. It’s detrimental to the game.”
“Ah, soccer.” She nods. “So you’re very dedicated to soccer.”
Something about that makes me tighten up my body. “Yes. Soccer is everything.”
She hums and I don’t like that. I don’t know what that hum means. I’m about to say something to her when she asks me another question. “So what happened to make you this angry?”
“Excuse me?”
She shrugs. “You say that you never get angry because it’s detrimental to the game. But something must have happened to make you so angry that you