The Play

But now, I had no idea what I’d done and I could no longer pretend it happened to someone else. Now Kayla was involved and I cared more about her than anything.

I remember practice. I remember…well, I remember before practice. Going to a pub up the street, having two pints of ale. I hadn’t eaten anything that morning except for eggs and in my strange rational, I thought the two beers would be better than nothing.

But that was just an excuse I was making myself. I knew that. I had woken up sick and worried about what Kayla’s decision was going to be. Even though she told me she was going to stay, it wasn’t real until she told someone else other than me. I was so used to people telling me what they thought I wanted to hear and I wanted to see it, to know it.

I wanted to take the edge off. I wanted to not care.

But that’s not how your temptress always works.

She riled me up instead.

She added fuel to a bonfire.

De

So I hurt him. I slammed into him as he came at me, wanting the ball and for that moment I thought, No way mate, you won’t stop me.

And so I stopped him. I barely felt the impact myself.

Alan was pissed. Everyone was. And Brigs, I saw him up in the stands, watching me, and I could feel his disappointed from all the way up there.

I fucked up.

In one of the worst ways possible.

I hurt one of my own which means I hurt my teammate which means I hurt myself.

But that was the point, wasn’t it?

Everything after that was a blur.

I left the stadium and went up the street to the same pub I was at earlier. Drank a pint. Brigs came by, tried to talk to me but he’s the last person I want to hear from sometimes. Sometimes he’s my brother. Sometimes he’s just a reminder that I don’t really belong. That my family isn’t my blood. And that my blood thought I wasn’t worth keeping around.

I remember coming back to the flat but feeling so ashamed of what had happened, so angry, that I couldn’t even stand to be there. I didn’t want Kayla to see me. I couldn’t even talk to her or look her in the eye.

Then my memory blanks out.

What I do remember is the feeling. The putrid, black tar of my heart and soul, where the darkness had gotten in and spread like cancer. I remember anger and rage and paranoia and jealousy and everything else that hurts and cuts and kicks you to the core.

I know all of that must have been directed at her.

I’m beyond praying for miracles. I know she got the brunt of it.

I swallow painfully, my mouth like it’s filled with sawdust, and slowly ease myself out of bed.

I walk unsteadily to the door, the room tilting as I go. I pull open the double doors and peer inside the drawing room. There’s no one there except Lionel and Emily on the couch, on top of the extra comforter I usually keep at the end of the bed.

A flash comes into my mind, a fragment of a memory.

I remember getting up in the middle of the night, taking the blanket to her asleep on the couch and putting it over her.

I remember that.

The memory breaks me.

I have to suck in a long hard breath to keep a sob from escaping.

She wouldn’t even sleep with me last night.

And now she was nowhere to be seen.

I make my way into the hall, the bathroom, the kitchen.

It’s just me and the dogs.

Like it usually is.

Like it probably always will be.

Lionel follows me wherever I go as I look for her, showing me his loyalty. He only loves me because I love him but that’s all that I can get and it’s all that I can take. He’s a constant. He’ll never leave, even when he’s seen me at my worst too many times to count.

Emily is too new. She stays put, watching me warily. She doesn’t know me in and out yet. In many ways she’s like Kayla. Thinking she can trust me, hoping for the best. But this isn’t me at my best, this is me at my worst and what trust she had in me in shattering, slowly. I think Emily will come around, because I rescued her, saved her, because she is, in the end, just a dog.

But Kayla is infinitely more complicated. She’s a beautiful, caring, sexy as hell, multifaceted human being and I know I have hurt her in ways that are probably irreparable. She can’t be taught by conditioning, by rewards. Her loyalty isn’t infinite. She doesn’t provide love unconditionally because I’ve taken her in and offered her kind words. She’s someone I’ll have to spend my whole life trying to win over, to prove myself to, to constantly give my heart and soul to. There are no guarantees with love or life and her love is something I can never take for granted, if I’m even lucky enough to still be given it.

I search around the flat for signs of her. Her purse is gone but her suitcase and everything else is still here.

I have no idea where she’s disappeared to. I contemplate calling Brigs or even Amara, but I’m not sure how to explain myself. Of course I call her a few times but I’m put right through to voicemail. Even the sound of her cheerily sardonic message feels like a dagger to the heart and I’m bleeding all over again.

What if I fucked up beyond repair?

What if I’ve really, truly lost her?

Bloody hell.

What did I do last night?

So I wait. I sit down on the couch and I wait and I wait until it becomes less about waiting and more about fighting. Because it’s guilt again and it’s hate and it’s shame and they’re coming around, trying to pull me under, smother me until I can’t take another breathe.

And out there on the street, in the nearest store or pub, there’s something that can take me far away from all of this pain. It’s even singing from the bathroom medicine cabinet, the Percocet, another way to numb it all away. I can’t pretend that I’ve not been popping a few of those every single day.

I put up a good fight though. I hold my ground, even though I know it would make the physical pain going away. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve thrown up already this morning.

Even as noon nears though, she hasn’t returned and I have no choice but to go to practice. It’s the last thing I want, the last thing I need. I don’t want to see the accusing looks of my teammates, I don’t want to feel guilty all over again, I don’t want to move a fucking muscle because of how sick I feel.

But I can’t fuck up absolutely everything in my life.

I slowly get ready and then leave Kayla a note on the hallway table in my chicken scratch handwriting.

I’ve gone to practice. Coming home straight after. Please don’t leave. I love you. We can work through this, please stay and wait for me.

I stare at it for a moment and the words sounds so soulless and futile, as if they could ever convince a woman like Kayla once she’s made up her mind. But I leave it there anyway because it’s all I can do.

***

Practice is unbearable. If it weren’t for people like John and Thierry, like my coach who seems to believe in me no matter what I do, even when I fuck up, I would have turned around the moment I stepped on the pitch. I would have just walked away. I’ve been through so much but everyone has a breaking point and today would have been mine if I hadn’t had a few supportive faces there.

The good news is that De