follow her back to the States and get married.
If he hadn’t died though, we would probably be living somewhere in Europe. It was my dad’s dream to play for the European Soccer League.
I don’t remember my father much. I don’t remember how he was before he passed away. I’ve only seen pictures of him and he’s always looked like such a distinguished man, my dad.
A great soccer player with a dream.
And now it’s my dream.
To do what my dad wasn’t able to. That’s what I’ve been working toward all my life: to rise to the top and be traded to the European League. Real Madrid, if I have to be specific.
“So it must be painful, to sit out the season,” my therapist comments.
“Very,” I clip.
It’s more than painful, it’s fucking excruciating. To be sitting out when I should be on the field, playing.
Everything depended on me this season. I was their star player. I led them to victory last season and that was what was expected of me this season too.
But I went ahead and got suspended and now my entire team has to suffer because of me. Rodriguez is good but he’s not me. He doesn’t have my speed and my precision. And he’s not going to win us the cup.
I know it. They know it. The whole media knows it.
So it’s my fault that we’re going to lose this season.
I’m sorry, A. I didn’t mean for it to happen…
When the bugs start to crawl on my skin and my neck starts to feel hot, I fist my hands. I press them on my thighs to stop the jitters in my legs.
I’m not sure if my therapist is oblivious to my discomfort or if she’s aware but simply choosing to ignore it, because her next question makes it even worse.
“So how you’re feeling about your new job?”
“It’s a joke of a job,” I snap out before I can stop myself.
I didn’t mean to say that.
I honestly didn’t. I’m not one to complain when it comes to paying for my mistakes and I know the purpose of this job.
It’s a punishment.
My mom’s punishment.
But I guess my therapist caught me at a bad time.
Because I’ve had a shitty fucking day.
Four girls, on separate occasions, stopped me in the hallway to tell me about their love of soccer. To tell me how they’ve seen every one of my games and how I’m their favorite player.
It’s fucking high school again.
At least back in high school, I had Sarah. Not that that stopped the overeager girls but still. There was some relief.
“Why do you say that?” Dr. Bernstein asks, breaking my thoughts.
I sigh and run my fingers through my hair. “Because it’s not about the sport. It’s just an activity to reform them. Teach them team building. That’s why my mom put me up to this.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Because she knew it would bug me. It would remind me of my mistake over and over. So I never make it again.”
That’s what my mother does.
She highlights my mistakes – which are very rare and far between – so I never make them again.
She knew I would hate coaching schoolgirls and that was the reason she gave me this job. To remind me of what I could be doing right this second as compared to what I have to do.
I remember one year my math score wasn’t perfect. It was a shock to her and to me both. Because I’m good at math. I could do math in my sleep.
My mother went to the school with me to have a chat with the teacher and to find out if there was a mistake in my scores. Turns out there wasn’t. I’d misread a number and hence, solved the equation wrong. She brought home my test, underlined that equation and stuck it up on the fridge.
So I’d see it every day. So I’d be reminded of my stupid mistake every time I went to get a glass of milk or juice.
Needless to say, I never misread a number again.
“Just because your dad is gone doesn’t mean you can slack off. In fact, you have to work harder, Arrow. You have to work harder than everyone else. You have to do what he didn’t have the time to do. You have to truly become your father’s son.”
So in order to do that, in order to become my father’s son, she made me perfect.
She punished every single mistake of mine to the extent that I never made