To All the Footballers I Loved Before

TWO

TWO

August

Jesse Windmeier is pulling his kicks and basically doing the athletic equivalent of studying just hard enough to pass the exam by the skin of his teeth. But man, the guy can play. Even though he’s not going full throttle, drilling just hard enough to be showing off, I feel my jaw unhinge as I watch him dance around his teammates, the ball practically grafted to his feet.

No one can get the ball off him, or maybe they’re not really trying to, but there’s a part of me that can practically see the golden aura surrounding him now that I’ve fallen into fangirl-like with this footballer.

I’m sitting on the bench now, leg stretched out to accommodate the brace that’s helping the stability of my knee, aching to play, when a crazy, sheer dumb idea sparks in my brain, and because I am who I am, I know I’m going to follow through with it.

I’m thinking about asking him to help me train, to help me get back on my feet when the ball comes sailing towards me like a small torpedo, hard enough that if my face stayed at the current height, my nose would have been crushed and maybe even pushed up into my brain and my dreams of having my name in lights scoring goals for Southgate FC would be over before it even really started.

Instead, I hit the deck, tumbling back on my a*s, half-forgetting I’m not supposed to make any sudden movements with my bad leg, and twinging something in the meat of my strained upper thigh for my trouble.

“Oi! Pass us the ball!”

I look up, back to the field, only to find the Wind (yeah, actually they call him that) beckoning for me to kick him back the ball from my current position on the ground, the damp turf soaking its way through my shorts and underwear, making my a*s damp like I’m a toddler still in a diaper.

I guess he missed the fallen crutches that I flailed so beautifully as I went down like the Titanic, and he definitely missed the giant brace encasing my right leg.

I narrow my eyes at him as he walks towards me, practically glowing in the bright, bright lights, looking like a dream, but gesturing to the ball in annoyance, once again, not noticing that my a*s is on the ground and I’m surrounded by my crutches.

So, Jesse Windmeier is an asshole. Duly noted. Most professional athletes are. Like they make themselves forget that there’s a serious countdown on their careers, no matter what sport they play. Injury is just the first strike.

Still, I’m a little aghast at having him speak to me, like the very words he bestows upon me will grace me with one-hundredth of his talent and I’ll magically be recuperated and kicking a*s in time for the season opener next week.

Yeah, right. What dream world am I living in? The very kind that got me here in the first place, eh?

“Yeah, I’ll just pass it to you with my bum leg!” I call out, waving around my shiny crutch from the ground, hoping the light catches on it enough to make him feel like s**t. Footballers, even though I’m making sweeping generalizations here, are assholes, and Jesse Windmeier might be the very best one. “What a d**k,” I mutter to myself, trying to figure out the best way to get vertical without putting too much strain on my bad leg.

I end up having to roll onto my left side and push myself up enough that I can get my left leg underneath me and get me upright while hopping around on that foot and looking down at how very far away my discarded crutches are. Yeah, standing up was a bad idea.

I somehow participated in a chain of events that’s currently left me with a damp a*s, a throbbing leg that I’m not supposed to even think about, and an asshole footballer yelling at me to kick the ball back to him. Right.

Well, it’s my fault for being stubborn, and there’s always a consequence to me being stubborn. My a*s being damp, for one. For two, I think I screwed my recovery over by ducking and flailing down like a flopping, dying fish instead of just blocking the ball with my hands. I bet I also made the greatest first impression.

Right. Like I care? Maybe. That’s Jesse Windmeier, standing right over there, one of the greats, still in his early twenties, and that just sucks balls.

Maybe if I go and touch him I’ll get some of his footballer superpower?

I’ve got my hands on my hips, glaring down at my crutches like they’re going to magically appear in my hands and under my armpits if I glare long enough, but I don’t live in that kind of universe, so I struggle to bend over at the waist without bending my right leg at all, and nab them with as much awkwardness as possible.

Once I’m the right way up, I see someone’s kicked the ball back to Jesse, maybe one of the kit teams or whatever, but I’m still here, and I can’t believe Jesse didn’t come see if I was breathing and all right.

Maybe I should have taken the ball to the nose? Might have fixed my deviated septum once and for all.

I clear my throat and look around back to the training center proper, where my clean clothes are and a fresh pair of panties that aren’t cold and clammy. But it seems so far away.

I glance back at the field (they call it a ‘pitch’ here), every cell vibrating at the frequency to emit the longing I possess at the green, green field under the bright glare of those stadium lights, the field identical to what we practice on, but more beaten up, where the mighty Southgate FC have just finished winning the league championship.

Maybe I’ll just go over to the field, put my foot inside the white line, pretend like I’ve been training on that field along with the rest of them, pretend I’m that good, just like them.

Bigger dreams have been dreamed, but wanting to play pro football for one of the greatest teams in the league’s history?

Pretty crazy, if I do say so myself.

I think about the recovering Jesse Windmeier almost every single day, I can admit that to myself.

I visit the men’s pitch every evening after watching my teammates drill after consulting with our sports therapist and talking with Coach about my progress, offering helpful yet charming banter. I’m the talker of the team, and sometimes I can’t keep my mouth shut, even if it could save my life.

So it’s really not the biggest surprise when I call Jesse Windmeier a spineless coward when he intentionally doesn’t go after the ball after I’ve overheard the men’s medical team has given him the A-OK to start training full-blast.

It’s been one whole week since I nearly got brained by an uncontrollable football aiming straight for my beautiful face, and I’ve been watching Jesse never actually get his wind back. I snicker at the self-made pun and sober up when my mouth ends up doing the talking for me with zero amount of input from my brain.

Shit, did I just call arguably the best player in the world, a coward?

Who the hell am I?

Oh, God, he’s coming over here!

Sweet baby Jesus, don’t let me pass out or fangirl over his football skills. That would ruin the moment.

What would also ruin the moment? Me being a complete asshole to a peer, and potential trainer when I can start using my bum leg again. I just have to convince him that I’m the best candidate for him to take under his wing, that it could be mutually beneficial. I’ve got another couple of weeks on my ‘light’ (read: non-existent) training, and I can’t wait for it to be over.

I never said I was smart, and my mouth runs off as he’s walking towards me, all footballer’s grace, lanky from all the cardio we do, sweat stains around his collar and armpits, breath coming out in gasps from all the hard running. Maybe he isn’t fully recovered and I just put my foot in it?

Yeah, well, no one ever said I was smart.

“What are you going on about?” Jesse freaking Windmeier asks, hands on hips, trying to tower over me but I guess he didn’t gauge my height just right because I’m lanky as hell and close to six foot tall myself. My mom’s so proud that I didn’t take her five-foot-tall frame.

“What are you going on about?” Ah, yes, the old preschool tactics. Kill him with your devious mind, Maddie, he won’t be able to resist your charms that way.

Christ, did my brain have to check out of this conversation right now? Why not later?

I know for a fact that I’m going to be replaying this giant moment of embarrassment for the next eight years of my life, even when I think I’m over it. Nope, it’ll just creep up on me, blindsiding me with another wave of embarrassment in a none-too-distant future if I don’t get my act together.

Namely, trying to get Jesse Windmeier to like me enough to give me some pointers, to help me train, because the way he’s practicing right now, and the way his coach is yelling, I’m guessing he’s gonna get benched real soon.

And you’re doing such a good job of asking him for his help, Maddie. The very best. The gold medal goes to you!

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks, and I’m frozen for a second because I definitely didn’t know that I was looking at him while having a mental conversation with myself, facial gestures and all.

“How was I looking at you?”

Jesse—can I even call him Jesse if we haven’t been formally introduced?—looks up at the inky sky, perhaps praying to the football gods that had once graced this earth for guidance to deal with someone like me. I have a weird urge to let go of one crutch, lean in and pat his shoulder, and tell him that such guidance does not exist. My parents tried and failed, too.

“I don’t know who you are,” Jesse says, looking me up and down like he has a right to do that, and his mouth twists into something ugly, something that makes my stomach clench and has my jaw locking down hard enough that my teeth snap together. It’s like he visually just swiped left on me, like he has the right to do that and I’m just going to disappear like a profile would.

No, no, no. How can someone this good in a sport I love be such a total d**k? It shouldn’t be allowed! He cheated!

I want an explanation! A ten-page essay on the effects of the best upbringing and training a person can have in their grasp and turn out this bad as a person! I need a TED Talk explaining all of this to me! Where is it?!

I raise a hand up, palm out, all whoa your horses, laddie.

“Let me stop you right there,” I say. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have cat-called you out like that, but you’re pulling every kick you make, and I’m hearing that you’re basically at a hundred percent. What gives?”

“I’m sorry?” he asks, squinting at me the same way I bet a scientist in a lab would look at an interesting specimen underneath a microscope, see what it looks like when it’s all undone.

“You heard me. I don’t like to repeat myself. Did you re-injure yourself again?” I’m asking these questions like I know the guy. I point helpfully down at the leg I think he’s injured.

“Who are you?” he asks again, this time with a different kind of emphasis.

“Oh, Maddie Chase. I play for the Prime League, for Southgate. I’m number thirteen.” I watch his eyebrows pole-vault the length of his forehead and try to high-five his hairline. Okay, then. Surprise, surprise. “What, did you think I was wearing this giant brace for shits and giggles, and I came to watch you play all these nights?” I sputter, then blow a raspberry at him, waving off any such notion that I would debase myself in that way, because I think we both know I so so would. I might kill a man to get Jesse’s personalized autograph, but I’m not going to tell him that. Well, not right away, anyway.

Maybe never. Yeah, probably never sounds like a great idea.

Jesse’s still squinting at me, his head bent a little bit down because he still has some height on me, and he looks like he likes to keep eye contact. I snap to attention and stand up even taller to match him. If anyone’s going to win a staring contest, it’s going to be me. Now I have *NSYNC stuck in my head, and May just passed.

“You’re making that face again,” he says, twirling a finger around my features, pointing them out in a swirl of motion. “Why are you making that face again?”

I notice that he doesn’t introduce himself. Jesus, he probably expects me to grovel because I know his name without him having to say anything. But then again, maybe his name doesn’t just belong to him anymore.

“Yeah, I do that when I have internal monologues. You should try it some time, it’ll make you seem like less of an asshole.” I gasp, cough and cover my mouth. I can’t even abort the mission at this point because we’re talking face-to-face and I need plan whatever-letter-comes-next so I can convince him to train me. I mean, if he keeps playing the way he is, Coach Garcia (who won the World Cup for Spain under his guidance, in consecutive tournaments) is going to actually bench him and for good reason. Sometimes the physical stuff gets healed all right, but your mental health just doesn’t seem to follow right away and your game suffers.

So really, I think Jesse Windmeier has all the time in the world to train me now that I’m breaking out of my cast tomorrow and I can get back to light training, light jogging, balance work and the like. I’m so ready, my whole body’s itching to get back on the field.

Oh, how I’ve missed you. Wait, what kind of face are you pulling right now in front of Jesse? Do you have a longing look on your face? Stop it! Stop it right now! Nobody wants to see that!

Well, I’d kill to have Jesse Windmeier look at me like that, like he’s been waiting for so long to get back to something he loves.

Heh. Who am I kidding? The Lord of the Wind (gosh, I’m hilarious) looking at me like that?

Nope, never gonna happen.

“So what do you say?” I ask, only realizing after the words are out of my mouth that I have not asked the question that needed asking. “I mean, you’re getting benched, right? No playing games for you for the next little while, huh?” I try to sound sympathetic, filled to the brim with sympathy, but I can’t feel anything like it, and besides, I’m grinning wide enough to hurt my cheeks.

“You’re very confusing. And I don’t know what you’re on about. I’m not getting benched.”

“Good to know. Look,” I say, pulling in a deep breath, then get the whole-body shivers like I do right before the whistle blows and the game starts and that ball becomes mine. “We both know your coach is looking daggers at you right now, and it’s not because you’re talking to me. Okay, maybe it’s because you’re talking to me, but he’s also making your teammie over there, De Seugne, maybe, wish he had never been born and thought of touching a football. You’re getting benched. It’s inevitable. I’ve been listening to your coach yelling at you for the better part of an hour, and my Spanish isn’t that good. His clipboard is in shambles and he looks like he wants to throttle you. Don’t worry about it, I’m sure there’s a first time for everything.” Jesse doesn’t look to be appreciating my words of wisdom. “You should be one with the bench; the bench is your friend.”

Somehow my right hand gets onto his shoulder and I’m giving him awkward pats. Jesus, I can pet a dog better than I can touch Jesse Windmeier without any awkwardness.

“So, you’ll have time. Lots of time…to train me, that is.” I flash him my mega-watt smile, the smile seen on newspaper clippings all over my dad’s house whenever I wasn’t in action shots. It’s my Hollywood smile with real-person-chic. There is no Photoshop, just my naturally straight teeth, dimples, and every ounce of charm I possess. It usually works.

Jesse laughs. He laughs. Laughs right in my face like that’s a not-rude thing to do to someone you just met.

God, this guy is such an asshole. Who allowed him to be this way?

And what am I gonna do about it?

His face is partly in shadow by the glaring lights behind him, and I can’t really make out his features this close; I don’t want to make out his features this close. His talent has already made him ridiculously attractive in my eyes. I don’t need a confirmation in the way his face has been shaped and molded by genetics and his life. No, thank you.

That is not a question I need answered.

“See, what I don’t understand is, why do you think I would do a thing like that for you?” he says, starting to walk backwards in slow, measured steps, keeping me in his line of sight until I’m not worth looking at anymore and he turns around to start jogging back to his screaming coach.

What an asshole.

I hope he gets grafted to that bench.