The Road to Canada

by Kate Christie

  “By the way, thanks,” Jamie added, her voice softening. “I appreciate everything you and Ellie are trying to do for me.”

  “You deserve all the things, Jamie.” She shifted closer on the bench, sipping her coffee. Decaf wasn’t the same as regular, but it would have to do. She didn’t want to be too hyped up when they played the U-17 boys.

  “You deserve all the things, too,” Jamie said, smiling into her eyes with a look that clearly and unabashedly communicated her feelings.

  “Well,” Emma drawled, invoking her Great Aunt Olga’s Minnesota accent, “we do.”

  “Dork,” Jamie said, laughing.

  “Nerd.” She sipped her coffee and rose reluctantly. “Come on. Time to make the donuts.”

  Jamie sighed and followed her toward the street. “If only donuts were on the approved diet!”

  One day they would be able to eat whatever they wanted, but Emma doubted they would appreciate their newfound freedom. They would only miss the days when they had to sneak away in order to enjoy a rare breakfast alone together.

  Humans, she thought as they walked back to the team van they’d signed out that morning. Apparently the grass really was always greener.

  #

  In hindsight, Emma should have known not to push it. Holding hands on a nearly empty sidewalk was one thing, but snuggling together on a popular pier for all the world to see? That hadn’t been wise, as became evident when her notifications went off just before they left for the scrimmage. Jamie glanced at her, but Emma only tilted her screen away and silenced her notifications. Not before she’d seen the alert, though: a new #Blakewell post on Tumblr from a college student, her self-proclaimed biggest fan. Someone had apparently noticed them on the pier because there was a photo of them exchanging a sideways smile, bodies pressed too close together to be considered strictly friendly.

  She racked her memory on the way to the practice fields, trying to figure out who might have taken the photo. She hadn’t noticed anyone tailing them at the beach this morning. Whoever it was, he or she must have been sneaky. That, or Emma had been too caught up in Jamie’s giddiness over the Nike call to notice much of anything else. Still, just because the teens on Tumblr had seen the photo didn’t mean the Twittersphere had taken note, she reminded herself as she tucked her phone into her kit bag and dropped it by their designated bench. Fingers crossed her other “biggest fan” wouldn’t notice.

  During warm-up, she sized up the teenage boys running through drills on the opposite end of the field. Except for a couple of smaller players, the entire team stood head and shoulders above the women’s side—except Ellie and Phoebe. And even the team captains were shorter than at least a handful of their youthful opponents. The boys were bigger, which basically guaranteed that the women would struggle against them not because male players were better or smarter but because they were faster and stronger. Even at this age, the boys physically outmatched adult female players in almost every way.

  Why had Jo even scheduled this scrimmage? Ellie had expressed support, as had a few other players, but Emma was worried about morale. If the press got wind of the story—“Top-Ranked Women’s Team Falls to Boys’ Team” (because Emma could almost guarantee the outcome)—the usual narrative would be spun, and then Reddit and 4chan and every other shitty male site on the Internet would add their own misogynistic spin. It wasn’t even the misogyny Emma minded. It was the glee of the fat, out-of-shape, unathletic men who laughed at stories of women losing to boys, as if the score somehow reflected women being put in their place when really all it did was highlight the biological reality of men’s superior strength and speed—even when said men were skinny teenagers who didn’t even need to shave yet.

  To say that Emma wasn’t feeling positively predisposed toward the male of the species that afternoon was an understatement she could acknowledge. The faceless, nameless minions on the Internet who harassed her at every turn and threatened to do more than simply harass women like Jamie—those men she could do little about. But one pimply little son-of-a-bitch who dared to take a potshot at her girlfriend on the fields where Emma had been playing while he was still in diapers? Oh, she could definitely do something about him.

  Although if she had it to do over again, Emma could admit, she probably would have handled the situation differently. But when the teenaged dickweed slide-tackled Jamie at midfield, pushed off her, and turned away, a smug smirk on his lips, Emma didn’t think. She didn’t have time to fully process the fact that Jamie was on the ground clutching her leg, or that the boys’ youth national team coach serving as referee was blowing his whistle long and shrilly before something compelled her forward. She definitely wasn’t thinking as she covered the small space between her and the boy, except to debate how to punish—no, hurt—him.

  In the end, her brain couldn’t choose between slide-tackling him from behind (even though play was dead and he didn’t have the ball) and punching him in the head, so her body did the easiest thing it could come up with during her moment of indecision: She shoved him from behind, both hands flat against his back as he walked away from Jamie’s prone figure.

  He didn’t fall, but he definitely came close. As he whirled around, shock and something else (was that fear?) contorting his face, she heard herself snarl, “I’m going to kick your ass, you little fucker! Come on!”

  He barely hesitated before surging toward her, clearly about to take her up on the fairly explicit challenge to his masculinity in front of dozens of their teammates. Instead of backing down like her rational mind was quietly suggesting might be the better option, Emma moved forward to meet him.

  Fortunately, calmer minds prevailed. Not hers or the boy’s, but one of his teammates held him back while Ellie stepped between them and Maddie grabbed Emma from behind.

  “Stop it!” Maddie hissed. “Chill out, Em!”

  As she struggled against Maddie’s grasp, one part of Emma’s brain noted that Maddie was sounding more and more like Angie every day. The rest of her conscious mind was busy trying to manage the fury still coursing through her.

  “Blake! Sideline! Now!”

  The commanding voice cut through the fog of rage clouding Emma’s sight. She finally understood that cliché—it really was as if a thin layer of red overlay everything in her field of vision. At least, until she realized that the person shouting at her from the sideline was none other than Jo Nichols, the coach with the power to leave her off the World Cup squad.

  Jesus, what was wrong with her? The little bastard who had taken Jamie down wasn’t a child, but he wasn’t an adult, either. She stilled immediately and glanced at Maddie. “I’m okay. I’m good. You can let go.”

  “You swear?” Maddie asked, eyes narrowed.

  She nodded. “I swear. I’m good, Mads.”

  Maddie released a breath and eased her grip. “Okay, then.”

  Emma glared one last time at the boy—too bad looks couldn’t kill, really—and turned to stalk toward the sideline, anger punctuating every step. As she passed Jamie, she made the mistake of looking at her girlfriend, who by now was back on her feet. Emma started to ask if she was all right, but the look in Jamie’s eyes stopped her. Doh. Jamie was pissed—at her, apparently. Perfect.

  “Sit,” Jo said as she reached the sideline, pointing to the opposite end of the bench.

  Emma bit back the words threatening to spill out—But he deserved it! Did you see what he did to her?—and headed for the end of the bench. Now was not the time to speak, not when she couldn’t control what might come out.

  “Damn, Rocky,” Angie commented as Emma passed. “Didn’t know you had it in you, bruh.”

  “Yeah, well, remember that the next time you think about pissing me off,” she snapped.

  Angie’s eyes widened, but she didn’t reply. No one else on the bench said a word, either, as Emma claimed her spot and slouched down, hands hanging between her knees. Fucking little shit. What the hell had that boy been playing at? Except Emma knew exactly wh
y he’d fouled Jamie. She’d noticed him before the scrimmage watching the women warm up, elbowing his buddies and making comments that had a couple of the other boys snickering right along with him. An older boy, the team captain possibly, had told the trio off, but they’d only shrugged, not looking the least bit contrite. Some teenage boys didn’t do well with being made to compete against female players, even if the women’s team was ranked number one (okay, two) in the world. Maybe especially if they were one of the top teams on the planet. Jamie, a relative newcomer and one of the few women in the national pool with short hair and an androgynous build, made an easy target. Throughout the first forty minutes of the game, Emma had watched the boy jostle Jamie roughly, elbow her, and chop at her ankles before finally pulling out the dangerous—and illegal—tackle.

  Emma knew, too, that her anger was outsized, that her reaction didn’t completely match the offense. But she couldn’t help it. The threat constantly hanging over Jamie as an out lesbian in the public eye was exacerbated by their relationship. Worse, it always had been. Emma had never forgotten how Justin, her ex-boyfriend, had shoved Jamie against a concrete pillar hard enough to bruise her ribs. Emma had tried to intervene but she was slighter then, built more for speed than power. Now, though, she could bench press her high school self’s weight, and the kick-boxing classes she attended with Dani had taught her to be comfortable with the kind of physical contact that most girls and women were culturally programmed to shrink from. In fact, muscle memory from months of kick-boxing had probably taken over back there. He was lucky she hadn’t laid him out with a well-placed roundhouse kick.

  Then again, she was lucky, too, because there probably wouldn’t be any coming back from that in the eyes of the federation.

  Melanie knelt before Emma, blocking her view of the field, and touched her on the shoulder. “Walk with me, Blake.”

  Emma rose and followed the assistant coach down the sideline until she stopped well out of earshot of the rest of the team.

  “You okay?” Melanie asked, her eyes more sympathetic than Emma would have expected.

  She shrugged and glared toward the opposite bench, where the boy she’d shoved was currently being lectured by one of his coaches, too. “Not really.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “These are people’s careers, you know?” Emma burst out. She took a breath and folded her arms over her chest as she glanced back at the assistant. “This isn’t some game.”

  “Well, technically, it is a game…” As Emma’s scowl deepened, Melanie held up a hand. “Sorry, too soon. But you know, I saw it too.”

  Emma blinked. “You did?”

  “Pretty hard to miss. And while I don’t exactly condone your methods, I do think it was important that someone out there stand up for Jamie. Someone other than Ellie, preferably. Only, next time, remember that there are ways to take someone out that won’t get you ejected.”

  “You mean…?”

  “I mean the way you handled Beaumont at the Olympics.”

  Emma’s brow rose. Was a national team coach really counseling her to take on-field revenge in a way that wouldn’t get her—or the team—in trouble? Then again, these were extenuating circumstances, and Melanie, as the players had gossiped about ad nauseum, had lived with another woman for most of the decade she’d been a USSF coach. She was a private person and didn’t talk much about her home life, but at the same time, she wasn’t exactly in the closet.

  “I’ll remember,” Emma said. “But to be honest, I hope there isn’t a next time.”

  “You and me both, Blake. You good now? Really?”

  Emma nodded, feeling immeasurably lighter. Knowing that someone else had her back—and Jamie’s—made a huge difference. “I’m good. Sorry I lost my shit out there.”

  As they returned to the bench, Melanie raised her voice. “Apology accepted. I don’t want to see you lose it like that again, understood?” But she turned her head and winked where no one but Emma could see it.

  “Absolutely, Coach,” Emma bluffed back.

  Melanie held her eye significantly before heading to the other end of the bench, where she conferred with Jo and Henry. The other two nodded and stared at Emma, who bowed her head in pretend contrition. If ever there was a next time, she would follow Melanie’s advice and find a way to hurt the bastard legally, just as she’d done with the Canadian player who had stepped on Emily Shorter’s head. Sixteen or seventeen was plenty old enough not to be a homophobic asshole.

  When they shook hands at the end of the scrimmage—which the boys’ team won easily, god damn them—Emma held her hand away from the one who had taken Jamie down and muttered, “Fuck off,” loud enough that he couldn’t miss it. She smiled thinly at the next player in line, whose Adam’s apple bobbed nervously as she slapped his hand. Okay, so maybe some of them really were still just kids.

  She tried to catch Jamie’s gaze as the team met and cooled down, but her girlfriend avoided her. This wasn’t surprising, given that she hadn’t looked at Emma even once since the shoving incident. Still, shouldn’t Jamie be glad that someone, as Melanie had pointed out, had stood up for her?

  The silent treatment continued in the van. Jamie already had her headphones looped about her neck when Emma slid into the driver’s seat, and refused to look up from her phone where she appeared to be scrolling through her music database.

  Emma was tempted to make a grab for the phone, but as her earlier foray into reckless action hadn’t gone particularly well, she opted instead to clear her throat. “Hey.”

  Jamie lowered her phone. “What?”

  “Can we talk?”

  “Apparently.”

  Emma decided to ignore her sarcasm. “I feel like I should say I’m sorry, only I’m not entirely sure what I’m apologizing for.”

  Jamie scoffed. “Are you serious, Emma?”

  She felt herself bristling and tried to tamp down on the urge to defend herself in front of their teammates, who despite their own headphones and conversations she felt sure must be listening in. But the words popped out anyway, delivered in the acerbic tone that used to make Sam gaze at her in obvious disappointment: “In case you missed it, Jamie, I’m the one who stood up for you against that juvenile delinquent.”

  “I didn’t miss it.” Jamie looked down at her phone, rubbing at a smudge mark on the now dark screen.

  “Then why won’t you look at me?”

  She expelled a short breath. “I didn’t ask you to defend me, Emma.”

  “We’re teammates. It’s what we do.”

  That got Jamie to look at her. “So you’re saying you would have gone all Mike Tyson for pretty much anyone out there?”

  “I didn’t actually hit him, you know.”

  “You had your fists up and you threatened to kick his ass!”

  So she had heard that part. Emma hadn’t been sure. “Saying and doing are two very different things.”

  “Are you going to answer the question?”

  Emma blinked and looked away. “No,” she admitted softly.

  “No, you’re not going to answer the question, or…?”

  “No, I wouldn’t have done that for just anyone.” She returned her gaze to Jamie’s. “The thing is, I wouldn’t have had to.”

  “Excuse me? What’s that supposed to mean?” Jamie asked, her voice tight.

  “He went after you for a reason. You know that, right?”

  Jamie shook her head. “On second thought, I don’t think I want to have this conversation.” And just like that she pulled the noise-canceling headphones over her ears and hit play on her phone.

  Emma watched her for a second, toying with the tip of her ponytail. God. Why was this so hard? And why did they have to do this in front of other people? Too bad she couldn’t drive the van away until all the stragglers had been accounted for.

  Gently, trying not to alarm Jamie, she tugged on her headphones. “Hey.”

  Glaring at her, Jamie pulled them down again
. “What?”

  “I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to piss you off. But he can’t just do that. No one should be able to get away with that. It’s not fair.”

  Jamie took a deep breath and closed her eyes. As she exhaled, Emma thought she heard her murmur something. Then she opened her eyes and shifted in her seat toward Emma. When she spoke, her voice was so quiet that Emma had to lean forward to hear her.

  “You didn’t piss me off. It’s just, what if his teammate hadn’t held him back? What if Ellie hadn’t been there? You could have gotten hurt, or thrown off the team, or both, and it would have been because of me.”

  “Nah, I could have taken him,” Emma said. “What does he weigh, like a buck thirty soaking wet?”

  Jamie shook her head, frowning. “This isn’t funny, Emma. He was my problem to handle, and I would have except you didn’t give me the chance.”

  “I was trying to help!” Why couldn’t she see that?

  “No,” Jamie said, “you were trying to protect me. I don’t need your protection, Emma. I’m fully capable of taking care of myself. Kind of been doing it for a while now.”

  But, Emma’s mind insisted, what if you can’t? She swallowed the words and tried to focus on what Jamie was saying. At some level, she knew that Jamie’s reaction had less to do with the kid on the other team and more to do with the assault in France, even if she wasn’t sure exactly how the two incidents intersected. But she didn’t have to understand the intersection to respect what Jamie was asking of her.

  “Fine,” she said after a minute, her tone grudging. “I won’t throw down on your behalf ever again.”

  It took Jamie a moment to respond, as if she hadn’t expected Emma to capitulate so quickly. “Okay, then. Promise?”

  “I promise.” Emma paused, thought of her stalker situation, and amended, “In theory.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I reserve the right to revise my statement in the future as required.” God forbid the situation ever arose outside the soccer pitch… She pushed the thought away. Nope. Not going there.