To Fall

REECE

I bend a little, hands on my knees. Sweat runs down my forehead, my legs shaking from exhaustion. I keep my eyes on Teddy, the goalkeeper, as he throws the ball right in my direction. Adrenaline runs in my entire body, and all I hear around me is just muffle. Before I know it, I’m speeding through the field, trying to work my way around the defense.

But suddenly, I find myself trapped. The boys are approaching me, trying to steal the ball, and my eyes quickly scan the place.

“Through, Reece!”

I manage to follow Keith’s voice — he’s already exactly where I need him to be. We don’t need to talk, we’ve already been through this a million times — and we still play perfectly in sync. We both know what we’re doing.

I pass the ball with all the strength that I have, and it lands perfectly right in front of his feet. He grabs it, his brows knit as the determination sinks in. He doesn’t even need to take a step, he just kicks the ball and that’s enough. A perfect goal that ends the match.

He jumps up, screaming ecstatically, as I let my body fall back on the grass. I’m trying to catch my breath when I see him running towards me, letting himself fall right beside me. We smile as we hear the whistle blow.

“Okay! That’s enough for today, boys!” Coach yells from the other side of the field. “Keep it up, you two, and we’ll kill it at the match next week!”

Suddenly, the fantasy’s over. We’re back at school, training for nothing more than a silly match between two youth teams, none of which can even compare to professional football.

But it was good while it lasted.

“You bet, coach!” Keith raises his thumbs up, still out of breath.

Besides us, and maybe poor Trevor who we’ve been stealing the ball from non-stop this match, no one else has been taking this practice seriously. That’s why we aren’t really known as a good team — in fact, we lose almost every match we play. And sometimes, it’s really bad — like last week when we lost by seven goals.

A couple of minutes pass until I finally decide to get up from the grass, giving Keith a hand to help him up.

“God, I’m exhausted,” I mutter, unable to keep my posture upright.

“Me too. But we killed it! It’s totally worth it!” He’s beaming with excitement.

It’s always surprised me how much energy he has when it comes to something as silly as this training. How much faith he has in this pitiful team — yelling at them when they don’t give it their all, and encouraging them that next match will be better, even though it never is. Some would say that he’s wasting his energy, but they don’t know that’s impossible. Keith could never waste his energy simply because… Well, he’s just full of it. In fact, he’s overflowing.

But what should really be highlighted here is that, if he has so much love and ambition for a team that is worse than the worst, then there’s no doubt he absolutely gives his all to everything and everyone else that truly matters. And that’s what I’ve always admired about him.

“Wanna come over later? We can watch a movie,” I offer while we’re heading back to the locker room.

“Can’t. It’s mom’s birthday.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Wish her a happy birthday from me.”

“Thanks, man. I’ll come over tomorrow. Tell your dad to order pizza.” He snaps his fingers.

A tradition that goes way back — every Friday is Pizza Friday at our house. Because I’m tired from school, dad is tired from work, and pizza is easy. Plus, when it’s only me and my dad, if we order a family pizza, it’s enough to last us through Saturday, too.

Well, ever since Keith started coming around, one pizza just wasn’t enough anymore. But the evenings did become more fun. Not that they weren’t before, but having a new face coming around — specifically Keith — did change the atmosphere a bit.

“Alright.” I nod at his request.

“Mads!” He yells out, turning his head to the bleachers. “Come on, we’re leaving!”

I stop in my tracks and follow Keith’s gaze. My eyes meet Maddison’s as she slowly gathers her books and stands up. She lets out a relieved sigh while she approaches us, holding a big purple bag in one hand which I suppose contains their mom’s present.

I never noticed she was there. And although she seemed pretty occupied with writing something in her notebook a second ago and not giving a damn about the match, I wonder if there was a moment where she was watching us play.

I need to remind myself that this shouldn’t matter to me. That the possibility of her being impressed by how I play — by me — shouldn’t get to my head. Because Maddison is Keith’s little sister, and a big inconvenience for me.

She’s loud — way louder than him — which is why people gravitate toward her — to be surrounded by her infectious laughter and good energy. And she can’t shut up even if her life depends on it — even in the gloomiest moments, when you don’t even have the strength to think, Maddison will come along and shatter the silence in seconds. She’d talk, ask questions — personal or not — jump from one topic to another, and she’d make you get so carried away, to the point where you forget what the problem was in the first place. And on top of that, she has a way of noticing even the smallest details — details that are too personal and hard to spot, that will reveal you even if you don’t want them to — she’ll notice them, remember them, and remind you that they matter.

All in all, she’s annoying, too loud, has no concept of personal space, and she makes you believe you like it.

“So? What do you think?” Keith proudly asks, placing his hand around her shoulders.

“You do realize that’s just training, right?” She raises her eyebrows mockingly. “You’re all sweaty!” Her eyebrows scrunch up in disgust as she brushes his hand off.

I need to remind myself that I shouldn’t be annoyed at this pretentious grimace. Or the way she pulls away from his sweaty hand. It’s just their type of sibling teasing that I’ll never understand.

And yet, the little stuck-up has already gotten under my skin. As if the perfectly smooth hair and the sweet scent coming off of her weren’t enough.

“Excuse you?” Keith clutches his chest, pretending to be offended.

“You’re taking this match too seriously.” She chuckles.

“It’s commitment, Mads! You’ll see. One day we’ll be big. Right, Reece?”

She moves her eyes to me — her eyebrows sceptically contracted, still with the same mocking smile.

She’s annoying.

“Right,” I say quietly, not moving my gaze from hers.

“Whatever you say.” She brushes off, turning to Keith again.