“You better. Here.” He thrust an envelope into my hands. “You know what that is?”
I looked at the printed envelope with my name on it and a return address that said Real Messini.
Holy shit.
“Did you read it?” I asked.
“Of course I read it.”
Figures.
I opened it up and glanced down at the letter. Wayne and Andrew Messini were coming here to scout me personally. Real Messini was one of the best freaking teams in the world, up there with Bayern Munich, Manchester United, and Barcelona. And they were interested in me—saw my video, checked out my stats. Their goalie turned thirty-five earlier this year, which was practically ancient for soccer, but Manuel Mario was still one of the best keepers ever to live.
“I’m counting on you,” Dad said. He put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze.
Reflexively, I flinched and held my breath. Even though I knew I was too built up now for him to really do any major damage to me, such habits die hard. Dad continued on as if there wasn’t blood running down around my eye.
“You know the plan. Now you just have to focus, Thomas. Don’t lose your focus. Classes okay so far? I don’t want anything distracting you.”
“They’re okay,” I told him. I shrugged a little, hoping it would get his hand off me. It worked, and I took a deep breath. “It’s only the first week of school, but they’re all okay so far.”
“I never should have let you sign up for those AP classes,” he grumbled.
I really, really didn’t want to have this fight again.
“It’s only two of them, Dad,” I reminded him. “Just Biology and English. It’ll be fine.”
“Well, if one of those teachers gives you a B on anything, you let me know.”
“I will,” I promised.
“And no girls,” Dad added. “If you want pussy, I’ll fucking buy you some pussy.”
“Geez, Dad,” I turned my head away, cringing. “Not a problem, okay? Seriously, I need to get to sleep soon.”
“Running tomorrow? Six AM?”
“Yep.”
“Good.”
He turned and walked into the kitchen, depositing his empty mineral water bottle in the recycling bin. I took the opportunity to get to my room as quickly as possible. Once the door was shut and locked, I could breathe properly again. I stripped down and grabbed some lounge pants before I went to brush my teeth in the hall bathroom. I checked out the cut on my forehead in the mirror. It wasn’t bad and certainly didn’t need stitches or anything like that. I washed it off and put a dab of antiseptic cream on it before I returned to my room and sat on the edge of my bed.
I reached down and pulled out a sketchbook from the bottom shelf of my nightstand and turned it to the last page, a black and white drawing of the US national team’s goalie making a save in the last World Cup qualifying game.
I’d been working on this one for a while, even before classes started. When Ms. Mesut, the art teacher, said there was going to be an art show next month…well…fuck. I thought it might be a good one to give to her and to see if it could get into the show. They were only picking ten pieces, and I didn’t have a lot of hope that mine would be picked. It wasn’t really very artsy or anything—it was a fucking soccer drawing—but I wanted to show it to her. I didn’t know why. I never showed anyone anything I drew.
I pulled out my charcoal pencil and started adding a little bit of shading off to the side, giving the ball a little more depth. The goal turned out pretty well, I thought, though it took freaking forever to get all the netting. I knew the angle on the right side wasn’t perfect, and I had ended up placing the keeper about half a foot away from where he had really been in the goal.
I close
d my eyes for a second, picturing the game in my head as the striker approached and kicked. I could see Tim Howard as he moved to his left, bending at the knee at just the right angle before he jumped to get his hands on the ball. The imaged paused in my head, the ball just barely touching his fingertips, and I carefully looked over the placement of each of his gloved fingers before I began to draw.
I drew, and I drew, and I drew.
When I glanced up again, it was nearly four in the morning. Shit. I had to run in two hours. I placed the sketchbook and the charcoal pencil in their hiding spot under a few copies of Goal magazine. I rolled over, switched off my overhead lamp, and dropped onto the pillow.
In my head, the day replayed—every single moment from the time I woke up, through my classes, to warm-ups, to game time—in extreme fast-forward. Every single motion, every image, every sound. I remembered my morning piss had taken twelve seconds longer than the day before and realized I had drunk one extra glass of water with dinner’s spicy salsa. There was the book in my locker with the crushed edge that wouldn’t line up correctly with the others. I remembered the forward player—clearly offside—as his leg swung. I could have stopped it if I had tried. I remembered the angle of the ref’s eyebrow as he wrote me into the book. I remembered the feeling of terry cloth as I slammed into a girl in a hoodie and the slight indentation of her teeth in her lower lip as she stared up at me.