Adrien
Saturday morning, I changed into my uniform with the rest of the team in the small locker room. I suppressed a yawn as I pulled my jersey over my head. I’d gotten no sleep the night before, but tossed and turned all damn night, thinking of Janey and our kiss.
The feeling in my chest when I kissed her echoed the feeling of a thousand fans cheering my name. It was tasting something sweet and good and perfect; every kind of happiness I imagined for myself, but real. She was flesh and blood in my arms; heat and wetness in my mouth.
But the fucker—Olivier—had ruined it. The whole group had ruined the moment, and made Janey feel like she was just another of my ‘conquests’.
No, I fucking ruined it.
What a joke. I didn’t have any conquests. All the girls I’d ever paraded in front of my friends had been for show. To keep everyone at a distance. I let them think I was out, spending the Rousseau fortune on ‘my women’ when in actuality, I bought them a drink somewhere, maybe kissed goodnight, and never called them again.
Easier that way, to let the group think I was too busy with my dates to have them over at my place, and getting serious with someone was out of the question.
Until Janey.
As we’d kissed, I’d felt hope rise in my chest that she wouldn’t care about the reality of my situation, as shameful as it was, and that she’d see past the playboy front I kept up like a shield.
But kissing her in front of the group—especially Olivier—had been a mistake.
It’s over now, whatever we might have started.
I waited for the relief that I could keep my private life private to hit me, but instead anger, frustration, and repressed lust boiled in my guts. I wanted Janey in all ways—in my bed and in my life. I wanted a different future than playing football, but the pressures of my situation were pressing me down and leaving me seething.
The rest of the guys were nervous for this match—the last one before the final—and were showing it by being extra crude and rough, shoving each other and laughing too loudly. Olivier made a lewd comment about some girl he was trying to screw and I slammed my locker shut. They all stared at me—Olivier included—with nervousness and hope in their eyes. As if I were the only one capable of giving us victory.
Such bullshit.
I wanted to shout that I wasn’t the only reason we were heading toward a winning season, but I swallowed it down. My anger simmered, and I tried to channel it into my muscles and bones and blood. To play as if I were on fire and give them no reason to doubt I wanted to win, and advance, and play this fucking game for the rest of my life.
Our coach, Philippe Desjardins, rallied us just before first whistle, and then pulled me aside as the rest of the team filed out.
“You look tired,” he said with his usual directness.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“You sure?”
I itched to shake off his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sure. Let’s go.”
On the field, the stands were filled to capacity. I wondered if Janey was there, and remembered Robert’s words to me last night at La Cloche after she left.
“It’s better this way,” he said. “No distractions.”
The anger rose in me again on the field. Janey wasn’t a distraction, she was…something more. Or might have been, had Vietnam not torn my entire world apart. My eyes longed to search the crowds for her, but I kept them on the pitch, staring down my opponents like a bull ready to charge.
The whistle blew, the match began.
The Lyon players, in green and yellow, were weak on defense and their best forward was called for being offsides three times in the first twenty minutes. We hadn’t even scored yet and I knew we were going to win.
My blood felt like it was on fire. I ran faster and harder than I ever had, aggressively stealing the ball from a Lyon midfielder. I passed to another of our forwards, Johannes—arguably the next best player on the team, and a factory worker who desperately needed PC to advance. He was agile with the ball at his feet. We charged the Lyon net, two defenders and two wings bearing down on us.
They closed in on Johannes and instead of bolting to the side for a clear pass to me, I cut behind him. With perfectly timed precision, he danced the ball away from a Lyon defender, backwards to me. I charged and kicked, and watched as the Lyon goalkeeper made a diving try for the ball. But it hit the net, high and tight on the upper left corner, completely out of reach.
1-0.
My teammates pounced on Johannes for the perfect assist, then crowded around me. I weathered their congratulatory thumps on the back, my hands balling into fists.
“Nice shot, Rousseau,” Olivier said, and gritted my teeth at as he whacked me between the shoulder blades.
“Fuck off, Caton,” I muttered, and jogged back to center line.
“Someone’s on his period,” Olivier said as he ran past me to take up his position for the kickoff.
As striker, I stood front and center, and Olivier, some dozen meters behind me, called out, “Hey, Rousseau. I think I see your hot American piece of ass.”
“Shut up, Caton!” Robert hissed.
“Why?” Olivier drawled. “I’d think he’d want to play to impress.”
I couldn’t help myself, but looked to where our group always sat in the stands—front rows, at midfield. Even from the center of the pitch, I could see her. Janey sat among the familiar faces of my mother, sister, and our friends. Her hair glinted long and gold in the hot sun, and my stupid heart rose with hope.
Then she lifted the camera around her neck to take a photo.
For her story…
The referee blew the whistle and Lyon player kicked off by tapping the ball behind him. To me, the sound of the whistle was like a starting gun in a race. Before the Lyon player could pass, I was on him, intercepting his ball, and corralling it in front of me.
Then I flew.
Johannes was right with me. I drove the ball forward, dancing it out of the tangling feet of Lyon defenders and passing to Johannes when they swarmed me.
Johannes took a shot. The Lyon goalkeeper got his hands on it and the ball glanced off like a bullet, flying through the air, right toward me.
The defenders were all over me, but, without thought, I leapt up in the air and headed the ball back toward the net. The goaltender scrambled to get to his feet in time but the ball sailed over his head.
2-0.
The crowd’s eruption of applause reverberated in my chest the way loud music can at a concert. I felt it in my entire body and knew I’d done something extraordinary.
And it meant nothing to me.
The pain of that admission fueled my anger. Why shouldn’t I love this? What the hell is wrong with me?
My team surrounded me again and the congratulatory thumps and shouts were like hard blows on a bruise. And then Olivier was there.
“You magnificent bastard,” he laughed. “You’ve earned all the fucks from all the pretty girls—”
My vision clouded red. I don’t remember much; no thought or conscious act, but one second I was upright, the next I was rolling in the grass, grappling with Olivier.
“What the hell…?”
He was bigger than me, but I had a second where he was baffled by shock, and I cocked back and punched him in the face. My knuckles screamed as I hit the hard bone of his jaw. His teeth tore through my skin but it was his blood that sprayed.
Breathing like a bellows, I reached back for another blow, and felt rough hands grab me under my arms and haul me off. My teammates shouted and swore, some holding Olivier back, half dragging me away from him.
“You rotten bastard,” Olivier seethed, spitting blood. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“You talk like that about her again, and I’ll fucking kill you!” I screamed. “Do you hear me? I’ll kill you.”
A chaos of teammates shocked and angry faces surrounded me, but I tore out of their grasp just as the referee moved to stand before me.
In his hand was a red card.
“Violent conduct,” he said, holding the card up for the entire stadium to see. “You’re out.”
A collective gasp went up, and the stands went as silent as 3,000 people can get. Robert stared at the red card, then turned to glare at me.
A vein bulged in his neck. “You stupid fuck. Do you know what you’ve done?”
I nodded faintly, the fire doused by a cold bucket of reality. I opened my mouth, maybe to apologize. Maybe to tell Robert I was relieved. That’s when I heard him.
“Hallooo, hoi! There he is.”
I turned toward the stands to see him there, drunk off his ass, and waving a whiskey bottle like a beacon at me. In the relative quiet of the stadium, his voice carried straight to me.
“Did you see? A goal like no other. Right off a prince’s crown…”
The referees were motioning for the players to take position for Lyon’s free kick, even though the foul was on my own teammate.
Not just fouled. Red carded.
The realization of what I’d done dropped into my stomach as I walked toward the sidelines. But instead of heading left toward the locker room, I walked slowly toward the stands. The fans booed and jeered at me now, many screaming Pourquoi? Over and over.
As I drew closer, I found my friends’ group. Lucie was crying and Brigitte had her arms around her, glaring at me with pain in her eyes. Janey stared about in confusion at the crowds’ reaction. She met my eye and raised her hands. I only shook my head.
My sister and mother sat in silence. My mother glared at me, a mixture of fear and anger shining in her eyes. Only Sophie, of everyone in the entire stadium, smiled for me. A small, kind smile.
“Did you see that?” the drunken man asked, pointing his whiskey bottle at me. “Did you see what he did?”
Some of the crowd was now booing him, too, and telling him to sit down or get the hell out. Sophie glanced over at him, her smile fading, her eyes full of tears.
I held up my hands to tell her I’d take care of it, and approached the man.
“Did you see that?” he asked me, his eyes glassy and bright. His breath reeked of stale booze and it dripped from his scraggly salt-and-pepper beard. “Did you see...? Do you know…what you did?”
I nodded. “Yeah, Papa, I know what I did.” I put my arm around his shoulders. “Come on. Let’s go home.”