Being on a pre-med track, getting good grades, I’ve derived pride and satisfaction from it. I’ve always liked doing well, knowing I’ve exceeded expectations, pleased the people who matter to me in doing so. If soccer weren’t the one place I felt freest, most joyful, most myself, I would like to be a compassionate, competent doctor. But soccer is my heart, and the opportunity I’ve wanted for so long is finally here, begging me to be brave, to give up these familiar, safe places of validation and straightforward reassurance, to take a risk and grab this opportunity with both hands.
“I think…” I lick my lips, which feel tingly, almost numb. “Med school was my backup plan.”
Viggo snorts. “Only you would have medical school as a backup plan.”
“Will they be proud of me?” I mumble.
His amusement dies away. He leans in, his hand slipping down the middle of my back. “Who?”
“Mom and Dad. All of you.”
“Ollie, of course. We’re already proud of you. If you did nothing but exist the rest of your life, we’d be proud of you. Because you’re ours and we love you.”
I hiccup a laugh. “Sure.”
Viggo frowns. “What’s ever made you doubt that?”
I shrug off his arm. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Then tell me so I will.”
Drunkenly, I lean my elbows on my knees, burying my face. One elbow slips off. “I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna tell the Los Angeleeees Galaxy, yes.”
There’s a thick pause. “Maybe,” Viggo hazards, “this decision should wait for daylight. And sobriety.”
“Pff.” I wave a hand and lose my balance so badly, I nearly fall on my face. Viggo wrenches me back up. “Who needs sobriety?”
“You do, my brother. Now, c’mon, let’s get you to bed—”
“No way, José.” I stagger as I stand. Viggo wraps an arm around my waist, and I use his steadying influence to reach into my pocket for my phone. “Gonna get on my gmaaaaails and tell them my answer right now. ‘Yes, please, Galaxy! Signed, sincerely, yours truly, Oliver Abram Bergman.’”
“I’ll just take that.” Viggo plucks the phone from my hand. “You’re not emailing anyone right now.”
“Goodbyeeee, Bryce,” I sing as Viggo starts us toward the deck stairs, away from the party. He’s going to sneak me around the side of the house, in through the front door, so I don’t embarrass myself around the family, and in some dim, not-as-drunk part of my mind, I’m grateful for it. “Goodbyeeee, collegiate soccer,” I croon. “I was better than you anyway.”
A quiet laugh rumbles in his chest. “This is my favorite part of your drunkenness. You finally find your ego.”
“I am fast as a panther,” I sing to the sky. “And excellent at organic chemistry! And I have a great ass! Hear that, incorporeal celestial being, up there? Ooh, I think I see the Little Dipper. He’s my favorite.” I hiccup. “Oh dear. I think I’m very drunk. How did that happen?”
Viggo laughs again. “You had a lot of beer, Ollie. What did you expect?”
What did you expect? That sentence. It sends me hurtling back to earth from my stargazing as the world’s spinning worsens, memories blurring across time and space. That’s what Bryce said to me, when I walked into his place and caught him with someone on their knees, his dick down their throat, and asked what the hell was going on.
What did you expect?
As if we hadn’t been exclusively together for months. As if expecting my boyfriend to be faithful was an absurdity. As if I wasn’t worth his faithfulness. Or his remorse.
My stomach heaves. I groan, “Gonna puke.”
Viggo seems to have anticipated that, because he’s ushering me across the lawn, where the light doesn’t reach and there’s a row of hardy rhododendron bushes. Just as we round them, we both stop. My sister Freya’s bent over, doing exactly what I’m about to.
I open my mouth to ask if she’s okay, but vomit comes out instead.
Freya takes one look at me, then turns and pukes again.
“Okay.” Viggo lifts his hands, backing away. “I love you both. Deeply. But I—” He gags. “I do not have your medical-people iron stomachs. Be well. Call for help if you need it, but I’m sending in reinforcements if you do.”
Then he bolts back up the steps of the deck.
After another wave of hurling, Freya moans and sinks to the grass, flopping onto her back. I feel one last surge of alcohol churning up my throat, wretch it out, then turn and face my older sister. She looks like hell, starfished on the grass, eyes shut.
I, however, feel eight thousand times better already after having puked up my liquid bad decisions. I have a hankie in my pocket that I use to dab my mouth. Then I crouch and offer Freya my backup from my other pocket. She takes it listlessly, wiping her sweat-beaded brow, then her mouth, before she shoves it in between her cleavage and winces.
“Hit the wine too hard?” I ask.
She sets a hand over her mouth. “Please don’t talk about alcohol. The thought of it makes me nauseous.”
“What’s wrong?” I flop down beside her and lie on my back. Side by side, we glance at each other, same pale eyes and Mom’s blond hair, though Freya’s is still white blonde, while mine’s darkened, like Ryder’s.
Sighing, Freya glances up at the dusky sky, glittering with silver stars. “My boobs hurt,” she whispers, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. “And my period’s late.”
Discussing this topic isn’t taboo in the Bergman household. When each of the boys got the puberty talk, that included my dad sitting us down and saying, “You don’t turn into a juvenile jerk about your sisters’ periods. You ask them if they need anything, and if they do, you go to the store and get them pads, tampons, pain meds, comfort foods, whatever they need to survive, then thank God your body doesn’t do that to you every twenty-eight days.”
“Last month’s was light, too,” Freya says, her voice soft. “Almost like…not a real one.”
I push up on one elbow. “Wait. Are you—”
“Pregnant,” she whispers, smiling so wide up at the sky, tears streaming down her face. “I’ve been so scared. It was too good to be true, after waiting and hoping… I couldn’t take a test yet.”
I clutch her hand because I know her. I know when Freya’s emotional, she doesn’t need you to fix anything for her, she just needs a hand to hold. So I hold it tight.
“Does Aiden know?”
She bites her lip. “He knows I’m a few days late and feeling wiped out. I promised him I’d take a test tomorrow morning if I still felt this way when I woke up, but…” She shakes her head, wiping away more tears. “I didn’t have high hopes. I didn’t think it could finally—” A half sob, half laugh jumps out of her. “I never puke. And my boobs never feel like this. It has to be a baby, doesn’t it?”
I laugh softly, but my throat’s tight with emotion. “Yeah, Frey. I think so.”
My sister’s smile widens. She starts to laugh through happy tears, and then I’m laughing with her, like I haven’t in months. My heart feels full, its cracks and bruises bandaged by hope.
The clarity of this moment feels surreal. How sure I am, how free I feel having made this decision—albeit under the influence of alcohol, but in vino veritas, the saying goes—to move on, to be brave, to step into this new season, believing in myself and the possibilities awaiting me.
No more brushing shoulders with Bryce. No more relationships complicating my happiness or risking my joy in soccer. My friends and family, playing the beautiful game, that’ll be enough for me. And soon, there’ll be a tiny Bergman baby to adore and pour my love into.
I’ll protect my heart, keep my head down, work my ass off. Those will be my worlds, two distinct ones—the people I love and the game I love. As I glance up, hope burning as bright and hot within me as those stars lighting up the sky, I make a promise to myself: I will never let them be one and the same again.
2
OLIVER
Playlist: “Simplify,” Los Coast
Four years later
“Tiny terror incoming!” I yell outside the training room.
The moment she hears the familiar rehearsed screams of fear, my niece, Linnea, slips through the door, a blur of youth Galaxy jersey and soccer socks, a size-two soccer ball glued to her feet.
“Watch out, folks.” I mime a sportscaster’s voice through hands cupped around my mouth. “She’s three—”
“And a third!” Linnie yells.
“Three and a third,” I amend. “Three foot three, and she’s here to make you—”
“Pee!” she yells.
Preschoolers are strange. Still speaking inside cupped hands, I tell her, “I was going to say ‘weep.’”
Linnie’s dark hair, which she inherited from Aiden, is braided back, her tongue stuck out in concentration. Those pale Bergman eyes Freya gave her narrow as she runs at Ben, one of our defenders. He stands with legs wide open for her, and she nutmegs him, sending Ben tumbling in an exaggerated defeat to the floor.
“She’s unstoppable,” I boom, as she does a step over, which Santi feigns falling for spectacularly, wailing in despair as she beats him. Next, she throws a shoulder into Carlo’s thigh and cuts past him, closing in on Amobi, our goalie. “And she’s going for the—”
“Kill!” Linnie hollers.
Amobi lowers into position, blocking off the entrance to the next room filled with treadmills. Linnie does a tiny rainbow, and Amobi lets it sail right through his open hands.