by Mia Fox
“You will.”
This time, she shook her head sadly. “You mean that you will. One day you’ll want marriage, children… and our age difference…”
The thought hangs in the air. Holding her heart now, only to break it later, wasn’t the right thing to do. Neither of us could afford to hope that the future would simply work itself out. As much as we love each other now, we need to think of that future… and walk away.
Chapter Ten
Kat
Two days go by and I search for any excuse to text Cole, or at least post something that I know will get his attention. I consider a photo of myself and Luci on the beach. In it, I’m doing my best to look carefree and sexy as if my only thought is whether to apply more suntan lotion over my cleavage, which is purposefully on display. The image doesn’t exactly get the response I want. My friends comment, but Cole is silent.
It’s time to pull out all the stops with something that he knows is meant for him. I remember back to our trip to the mall. He admired a lace teddy at Victoria’s Secret, saying the color would suit me well. I decide to buy it. While in the bubblegum pink dressing room that reminds me of a doll’s closet, I snap a quick pic of myself in the teddy and send it to him.
Is it only the color that looks good on me? I text along with the image.
Success. He texts back.
Jeez, you’re not going to make this easy on me.
Like everything with him, it’s a confusing message. I want to believe that he likes what he sees and misses me. But I’ve learned better with him. It could mean that he wants me to leave him the heck alone. I stare at my phone, trying to decipher an answer when my messages text again.
Damn Kat, you look good.
Short and to the point. It makes me both happy and sad. If he thinks so, then why doesn’t he ask me to come over? Why is he torturing both of us? So many questions and no answers. The biggest question strikes my mind repeatedly. Why do men and women approach love so differently?
I wasn’t going to beg. I opened the door. He had to walk through it. I wasn’t going to push any more. I waited, but there weren’t any more texts to follow. Feeling defeated, I got myself dressed, bought something more sensible that I actually needed, and drove home.
As I pull into my drive feeling utterly defeated and as if I just wasted time and gasoline, I tell myself that at least this ridiculous mission got me out of the house. I decide to make a pact to myself right then and there to spend more time outdoors. No more made up excuses to contact him. The sun is shining; it’s a perfect day for a hike. As I make that determination to heal myself, I pray that I can actually do it.
I lace up my sneakers on the front porch and gaze at the clear blue sky. Taking a deep breath, I make the choice to go for a jog rather than a hike. With my heart beginning to beat a bit faster and for the first time in ages, not just for Cole, I hope that my disposition will end up a little sunnier as well.
Chapter Eleven
Cole
There was no reason to take our last text any farther. She looked amazing, but it didn’t matter. It was just a photo that would tempt me to do the wrong thing. I had proven my stamina on the field countless times. I could do it in this circumstance too. I would be strong and leave her alone. She may think that I’m a total ass for doing it, but in time she would come to realize that I’m doing it because I care.
At the time, I had the resolve to stay out of her life. I couldn’t think of one reason why I would have to contact her. Until, a week later, I got another text from her. This one wasn’t a sexy pic, nor an invite to come over. It would have been hard, but in truth, I could ignore those texts. This message, however, I couldn’t.
Announcements for the next National team tour came out today.
Shit. She would know about the team. Either Jack made it and got the news and told her. Or, another teammate revealed the news. Either way, the fact that I hadn’t heard anything meant that I was dropped from the next tour.
The way the news travels is beyond humiliating. During one game you’re the coach’s golden boy and then a bad game leaves you on the sidelines. There isn’t a lot of room for mistakes or second chances when you get to this level. At least it’s not personal. It’s a matter of who is playing the best, and obviously recovering from my accident hasn’t left me as strong as the other contenders.
I brace myself for whether she knows the ‘why’ behind the decision as I text back to her: Do you know which defenders made it?
That’s not really important. You should just focus on getting yourself to practice and showing what you can do.
What the fuck was she not telling me? I started to get nervous with the unspoken words. It’s important to me. Who made it?
She texted back a single name although I know there were others. The point being that this was a player who was new, extremely cocky, and not particularly good. But the message from the team was clear. They would rather put time into him and take their chances, than with me.
I couldn’t bring myself to answer after that piece of news. It hurt. I felt robbed of all the time I had given the team. Most of all, I felt embarrassment.
You need to go to the training even though you weren’t picked.
Why? Actually, I wanted to text back no fucking way, but I resisted the urge.
It shows that you’re professional. It proves you still want it and are willing to work for it.
She was right. I hated to admit it. I couldn’t stand the idea of showing up for practice and not being on the traveling team, but I had to do it.
I’ll go.
Chapter Twelve
Kat
I knew he was on the verge of quitting the team. There were so many reasons for him to stay in spite of not making the recent cut. He had come so far. Years of commitment to training and practice got him noticed in the first place. Then, there was how it looked on his resume for future employers. Not just anyone makes it to a national team. And, not just anyone survives what he has gone through.
Quitting just shouldn’t be in his future. Maybe it was my maternal side coming out that wanted to see him succeed. Or, the inescapable fact that soccer placed me in contact with him. Both reasons played on my mind, but my biggest concern was how he would deal with the news that he was cut from the upcoming tour.
I may have convinced him to show up to training, but his curt answer of “I’ll go” sounded as if he was only doing it because he knew he should, not because he wanted it. I feared that a tiny bit of his fire had burned out and losing that zest could fade into other aspects of his life as well. I had seen it in him before. The tendency to retreat within himself was too prevalent to ignore.
I’ll go. I stared at my phone, willing Cole to reach out to me and let me take his mind off things. Texting with Cole is never a whirlwind of words and phrases, but even for him, the short answer indicated his unhappiness.
He was too prideful to reach out, I reasoned. Do you want to come over and talk? I texted.
No. His response was quick. Definitely not the one I wanted.
But then, my phone dinged again. I’m not in the mood to talk.
It was typical for me to misconstrue his responses. I crossed my fingers that this wasn’t one of those times and decided to be cheeky. Cool. Come over and we won’t talk. And then, I sent the kissy face emoji.
I can’t. Not now.
Definitely not the response I wanted. Even worse, I knew not to push him. I signed off for the day and simply texted that he should call if he needed me.
The week continued without any contact from Cole. The silence was driving me crazy, both out of worry for him and a desperate need within myself for our relationship to continue. Drama within the team dynamics continued as well with two additional team members not making the cut to their usual spot and responding by not accepting the invitation to continue training. At least Cole hadn’t been that narrow sighted.
I truly felt that if he emailed the coach for some extra face ti
me, he could prove how much recovery and improvement had occurred within him, but Cole refused. That damn pride again.
Come over and we’ll strategize. I texted.
The coach has decided. Nothing to figure out.
Okay, come over and we’ll have amazing sex.
No.
For Pete’s sake. He’s a guy. Wouldn’t most guys feel better after a shag?
I didn’t understand. Why not? It’s fun.
It’s not a good idea.
It is.
It’s not.
I was so frustrated and I hated my desperation. This wasn’t just a matter of him being angry about the team dynamics. It was trickling into our relationship. Forget the stupid back and forth texting. I had to hear his voice and know what was going on once and for all.
He answered and I started in right away. “You like me. You like sex with me. You’re depressed. So why not?”
“I don’t like you the way you want me to.”
And we were back to that. The same lines he gave me before the accident. But this time, I didn’t believe him. Fuck it. I was stronger this time around and I was going to tell him.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Kat, you have to believe me. Don’t make this difficult. It’s like last time. It’s best that we’re not together.”
“Even last time, you cared about me… you told me so. It hasn’t changed.”
“I didn’t think I could give you what you deserve then, and things certainly haven’t changed now. I was just dumped from the team. I don’t know about my prospects.”
“Do you think I care about that? I want you. And, I know you feel the same.”
There was a pause on his end of the line as if he was gaining composure. I could hear his intake of breath. “Kat, I cared about you,” he said and took another pause, “But it scared the shit out of me.” Another pause and suddenly, his voice grew stronger, more definitive. “That’s why we’re not doing anything any more.”
Anything. Such a nondescript word and yet in this context, it carried so many meanings. Anything meant talking, texting, kissing, sex. Anything was basically everything.
“What could possibly scare you so much? I would never hurt you.”
“It’s not that. I think back to the time… before…”
It was an unspoken reality that “before” meant before the gunman, before the accident, but before in my mind was also when we were happy… before everything got messed up.
“What about it?” I pressed.
“I haven’t forgotten how I felt when you were late.”
It took me a moment to process his words. I kept thinking back and wondering if I kept him waiting someplace, and then it occurred to me what he meant. My period was late. More than a day or two. It was over a week. I was tired. I thought I might be pregnant, and I told him.
“Oh.” No other words came to mind.
“I would have done the right thing. I hope you know that. But, it wouldn’t have been ideal, Kat. You know that. All of the looks and stares we already get. Can you even imagine how those would be compounded?”
“Okay, it wasn’t a great moment. But, we’ll just be more careful.”
“No, Kat. We were right to move on the first time. I appreciate that you took care of me in my recovery. I need to stand on my own now. I need to process what’s going on with the team and my life. Goodbye. I need to go.”
And with that, he left and my tears arrived.
A week passed without hearing anything more from Cole. I tried to remain busy, but writing about romance felt forced. My boss, Rachel, in her typical style void of emotion, rolled her eyes at me and uttered the simple suggestion, “Man up.”
She was right. I knew from the past that wallowing wasn’t going to help me. Only time heals. I didn’t want to move forward without Cole in my life, but I couldn’t remain in this present state of limbo. Fortunately, I didn’t have to think of a new blog angle. Just the week prior, I landed a series of interviews with the owner of an exclusive sports conditioning facility where my son and his team trained. It wasn’t the best assignment since it made me think of Cole and could quite possibly place us in the same place at the same time. I tried to tell myself that if such a situation occurred, it was merely coincidence. But I knew better.
I had been given free reign into the 80,000-square-foot facility. Just walking around the place was a workout, no need to take a class or schedule a private training, which I learned was their speciality, along with a plethora of services geared toward elite athletes. In addition to state-of-the-art equipment, the place had an entire wing devoted to sports medicine with doctors, physical therapists and all of the bells and whistles that were needed to heal injuries, even high tech cryotherapy chambers.
I learned that cryotherapy is a method to provide faster recovery after injury. The director of the medical wing, a woman who introduced herself simply as Sandi, noticed that I was massaging the back of my shoulder; she asked if I were having any issues. Issues. I was finding that my relationship trouble was affecting more than my mental health. Trouble sleeping led to tossing and turning throughout the night. I woke regularly now with an overall feeling of tiredness and stiff muscles. She offered me a chance to go into the chamber. “Just for two minutes,” she assured me. “Three if you’re handling the cold temperature well.”
“Just how cold?”
She shook her head and made a slight tisk sound. "We use a gas form of nitrogen to lower the skin’s top layer to approximately 40°F.”
“But aren’t we normally 98.6°F?” I asked.
“You will be amazed at how well the body responds to this treatment,” she said with a satisfied and well practiced nod. “The chamber temperature drops to a range of minus -200°F to -260°F.”
She smiled and clapped her hands excitedly. “It’s amazing. I promise. The brain gets stimulated, your organ regulatory functions are put to work and the result is increased energy, cell rejuvenation, a boost to your immune system, and naturally, overall healing.”
“Overall healing,” I repeated. I could certainly use overall healing, but the idea of being frozen just didn’t appeal. Maybe if I were a native New Yorker, but I grew up here in California. I even had trouble getting through our winters. “It does sound fascinating, but maybe next time when I have more time.”
I was just finishing taking notes and prepared to leave when a few of Cole’s teammates came into the room. I glanced at the clock and recognized that it was their training time. I had planned to be long gone by now, but the tour lasted longer than I expected. Wanting to remain and see if he showed up, but also wondering if that would be overstaying my welcome, I looked toward the team and then back at Sandi.
“One of our elite teams,” she nodded in their direction.
I didn’t let on that I was very familiar with them.
“Their training will focus on agility today. It’s quite interesting. I need to get back to my office, but you’re welcome to stay and watch. There’s an observation room above,” she motioned to the upstairs level where a modern scaffolding opened up to plush leather couches, a coffee bar, and conference rooms.
“Thank you. I think I will.”
It wasn’t just the facility that was high-end; the trainings were equally professional. This wasn’t your run of the mill bootcamp. Experienced trainers created designer workouts that focused on movements and skills that athletes need during a match. It was fascinating to watch them pushed to the limit with everyone on the team rising to meet the demands. Except today, Cole wasn’t among them.
I wish I could say I was surprised, but I wasn’t. I knew that the let down of not being picked for the traveling team had gotten to him. The coach told members of the team who weren’t picked that if they stopped training, it would signal that he had made the right decision.
Cole trained harder than most of the guys. Not being picked was more political than anything. To keep the team members pushing, the coach had to s
hare the wealth with who was selected. It might have been disheartening to keep training when there wasn’t a carrot dangling in front of you, but most of the team knew that this was a long-term commitment. Basically, you win some and you lose some. You get selected for one tour and dropped for the next. It was part of what they sign up for. But, somehow I wondered if for Cole not showing up today was a way to avoid me since he knew about my interview. It felt arrogant to even contemplate that thought, maybe paranoid too, but I couldn’t shake that I might be right. Somehow, I just felt as if I knew why he wasn’t here today.
I had always felt a connection to him… some sort of psychic phenomena that kept me in his thoughts when I was thinking of him. I had experienced it so many times. I would remember our time together, relish in those thoughts and ding… my phone would tell me that he was thinking of me at the same time. But lately, I felt him working just as hard on his mental fitness as what he put his body through. I could feel him trying desperately to forget me, to put the intense feelings into the recesses of his mind where they wouldn’t have to burden him every day, or in my case, every moment of every day.
I used to be able to conjure up the smell of him in my mind. I could remember what it felt like to wake up and feel his hand cupping the cheek of my bottom. But the memories were fading and that meant that Cole was slowly getting over me.
I felt unable to concentrate on the blog I was supposed to write. I took a break from my observations of the team and played on my phone. I needed a break… from everything. Maybe a little road trip would do me good. I started to research a casual day out, maybe a drive up the coast.
I found the website of a restaurant just an hour away. It was perfect. It featured outdoor seating in an environment that looked like a tropical jungle with palm trees and colorful flowers. Beyond the gardens was a train track and just on the other side of the tracks was the beach and the blue Pacific Ocean. You just couldn’t be sad if you were sitting there. But, I wanted to go with Cole.
