But I knew that my pity wasn’t what he’d want. If I had to bet money, I would have said that the longest length of time he’d ever taken off from playing was when he tore some ligaments in his foot but, I wasn’t about to bust out my Kulti-psycho-stalker-knowledge.
Keeping my eyes forward, I cleared my throat and then followed up by doing it again.
Because—two years! Two years!
Holy shit. How was that even possible?
I dwelled on the number one more time, and then locked it away to process it later in the privacy of my own home. Two years was a lifetime and yet it was more than long enough to explain why he had such a huge stick up his ass. The poor guy was like a eunuch. No soccer was pretty much the equivalent of losing your balls, at least that’s what I figured.
Compassion and understanding rolled through me.
Easing off the brake, I told him my own story. Although later on I’d wonder why I bothered. It wasn’t like he’d care. “When I was seventeen, I tore my ACL during a game, and I was out for almost six months. My parents and coaches wouldn’t even let me look at a soccer ball or watch a game because it drove me nuts to know there was nothing I could really do to speed up the healing process.”
Those were some of the worst months of my life. I’d never been really bitchy but toward the end of my recovery, I’d gotten so short-tempered I wasn’t sure how my parents didn’t slap me for being such a pain in the ass. “It was the longest six months of my life and probably the most miserable,” I added, shooting him a sidelong glance.
His attention was focused forward, but I did see him nod. “I’ve been there.”
I knew he had, but once again, it was Kulti-psycho-stalker-knowledge that I’d take to the grave with me.
We stayed quiet the rest of the way to the house, his house, whatever. Only this time as soon as he opened the door, I told him, “I won’t say anything about your dry spell.”
Kulti nodded, and I could have sworn he had something that could have been considered the smallest smile in the history of smiles pull at the corners of his mouth. Then he was at my trunk getting his bag and actually raising a hand in a half-assed goodbye as he walked up the stone path to the front door of the big house.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about Kulti, and how he hadn’t played in two years, the rest of the day.
The next day, during practice, I couldn’t help but keep staring at Kulti and wondering how the hell he hadn’t murdered anyone since he’d quit playing.
I mean… he hadn’t played at all? Or just… I don’t know, hadn’t played a regulation game? By the look of his movements and his body language, it didn’t seem like he’d completely stopped playing, but what did I know? Two years couldn’t completely erase a lifetime spent with a white and black ball.
Harlow elbowed me in the ribs as she stopped right by me.
“Did he just call you a slow-ass?”
The team was running drills, and I’d been in the first group of players.
I hunched my shoulders up, saying nothing. What was there to say? Kulti had called me slow during a drill, and then asked another player if she had two left feet. She was the same girl I’d run with in the morning a few times by then, the one that always wanted to beat me at sprints.
Was she slow? No. Hell no. Sandy was really good.
“I would like to finish drills in this lifetime, can we move on?” a voice bellowed from the other side of the field.
Absently, I reached over to the shoulder that had been punched. At that moment, Kulti glanced over. The space between his eyebrows crinkled, and for a split second, I debated hunching over and pretending I had a shooting pain going through my shoulder so I could mess with him. He hadn’t brought it up the day before and neither had I.
I didn’t do it though. Harlow was a little too attentive. She’d notice. Plus, I had no idea how he’d handle it.
Really I had no idea how to handle any of this. Was I supposed to not be saying anything about giving Kulti rides home? Because I hadn’t. Not even my dad knew, and I usually told him everything. He wasn’t treating me any differently than he had before I gave him rides, so it didn’t mean anything.
There wasn’t anything to tell. Was there?
“Is your shoulder bothering you?” Harlow’s voice tore me away from looking at the German.
“No.” My face flushed as I turned back to her. “Ready?”
She shoved me to the side and took off. “Catch up, slow-poke.”
Little did I know that the ‘slow-ass’ and ‘slow-poke’ nicknames were only the beginning. Before practice was over Kulti had called my passes sloppy, and then followed up by saying I needed to learn how to play with both legs.
This was coming from the man who played with his right foot ninety percent of the time? Ha.