Page 15 of Five Things I See in You

I guess I’m not very used to people owning their mistakes and staying so calm about it. It’s how it should be, but I grew up watching my father correct everyone without ever correcting himself.

The little bell on the bike shop downstairs rings every time a customer comes in, and you can hear it from up here. I didn’t notice it during the previous session, but this afternoon it’s already rung four times.

“What’s one important thing you didn’t do this week?”

It’s a strange question. The other psychologists always want to know what I did, or what I should have done better, not what I didn’t do.

It takes me a while to answer. Out on the street, a bus stops almost right below the window and a group of students gets off singing a song I don’t know.

“This week I didn’t call my dad.”

Saying it out loud changes things quite a bit, because it sounds like what it really is: a decision, not an oversight.

“Interesting. And how did that go for you?”

“I couldn’t tell you,” I say, shrugging.

She doesn’t push. She doesn’t keep probing the way other sports psychologists did. We talk about how little I sleep and how the panic attacks usually happen at night. I tell her the ones I’ve had since coming to Seattle are stronger than the ones from before, and she listens calmly, taking notes.

***

At Tuesday’s practice I receive a ball with my back to goal, a center back practically glued to my hip and another one closing me off on the inside. The ball comes in bouncing, one of those awkward ones to control, the kind that makes you want to play it back first time just to get rid of it.

I take a touch to set myself, look up, spot the gap, and send the ball in hard at waist height.

Iris meets it on the run and volleys it straight into the net without taking a touch first.

“Man, Brit, now that’s a pass!” she yells. “Did you see that assist? She’s mine, Brit is mine!” she says as she comes running over with her arms open, like we were playing the playoff final instead of a scrimmage at practice.

She hangs off my neck and I laugh, and that’s something, because I haven’t laughed at anything in weeks.

When I come out of the shower, the locker room is almost empty. Only Zoe is left, sitting on the bench with one shoe on and the other in her hand, staring at it like she doesn’t know what to do with it.

“Can I tell you something?” she asks. “But I don’t want you to give me advice, I just need you to listen.”

I nod as she sets the shoe down on the floor, between her feet.

All of a sudden, she opens up to me. She tells me her contract is up this year. That she’s struggling to be a mother and keep up with training and the constant traveling, and that once Wesley starts school it’ll get more complicated. She says that, for the first time, she’s realized her last game isn’t that far off anymore, and that hit her really hard.

“It took me a year to admit I needed help,” she confesses, “and I already knew everyone and had the whole team encouraging me.”

I don’t tell her that, in my opinion, she still has plenty of seasons left in her, or that she’s the best captain I’ve ever had, even though both things are true. I listen to her, which at the end of the day is what she asked of me.

As I listen, I realize I’ve never done this before. I’ve always shared just enough, keeping people at a distance so I wouldn’t form real friendships in the locker room and nobody would ask about my life.

“Thanks, Brit,” she says on her way out.

The parking lot is practically empty when I leave the club’s facilities, but I wish it had been full so I wouldn’t see something that stops me cold.

Jordan crosses toward her car carrying a cardboard box with a couple of plants sticking out: a cactus and something with long leaves that bend in the wind. She opens the trunk with her elbow and sets it inside carefully.

She’s left the program and the club. Iris once told me that she took care of people without anyone noticing, and I start remembering the little details: the napkin with the coffee shop’s address, the chair in a discreet spot during our first session with the team so she wouldn’t put me in the spotlight. And now she’s leaving because of me.

She closes the trunk, gets in the car, and drives off in the rain. As she leaves, I feel an emptiness inside me that I can’t understand.

For an instant I almost call out for her to wait, but my phone rings. I assume it’s Callum, or maybe Iris inviting me once again to a dinner I’m not going to.

It’s my father.