Your brainwaves fire on the right side.
It’s not a bad thing, they reassure you of that; creativity would strike quickly and often, an imagination built on thought processes others would very rarely understand. Lost cause. Lost in your own little world. But once your boots touch the dewy grass of the soccer pitch, you realize you’ve never really been lost at all. Staring furiously against the sun and stealing the ball from the boys and running away with the match just enough times to get you noticed.
Because the game is a work of art. You understand it in thick lines and brushstrokes, chipped balls and poignant splashes into the goal like Jackson Pollock paintings. Drip, drip, drip, boom. A celebration of screams that translate into color, hands reaching for the sky as the other team trudged back to the half line. Depression Era. Colliding in hues that streak across the field, jerseys whipping in the wind or glowing bright in the midst of a downpour, praying to God there’s no lightning because rain delays wash everything away. Blank canvases; devastation.
Rarely is there any other place where you feel so understood. School is rigid and lifeless, defined by mathematical equations that blur your vision, report cards that you crumble into your backpack after you endure the harsh looks of your mother. It all doesn’t matter, because you prefer to live in color. Pop Art. Turning the ordinary into extraordinary on that field, mind set at ease with the flourish of a pen to a scholarship sheet. Full ride, UNC. See - you didn’t need your grades after all.
But you do need to keep up.
With your teammates, with the training schedule, heart pumping through one more sprint, the paint running thin behind you as your energy dissipates and you sag to the floor of the athletic complex. Basking in the bright haze of the overhead lights, arcing just enough to capture each touch you send into the back of the net. It’s easier at night, sometimes. You, the quiet, the strokes you put together with the arches and soles of your feet. The echo of the ball whacking against the walls in steady beat.
Your efforts don’t go unnoticed, named to the Starting XI by preseason. Tan from the long days, tired from the long nights - but ready, more sure of anything than you’ve been in your life.
Your style on the pitch is chaotic, staccato, punchy...yet all you feel is peace. Every game, the ball so close to your feet before kickoff, a marble statue before you shoot down the field like a canon and give way to the masterpieces and tragedies of a full ninety.
Looking back now, you'll know when you've hit your youthful crescendo.
2008. Beijing, China. Olympic Gold.
2009. National Championship. Carolina Blue.
2009. National Championship. Desolate Green.
Or are they gray? Her gaze cuts you to the quick before she looks away, and for one moment you wish you hadn’t won because you feel like her smile could light up the world, much like her grip sparks your hand when she mumbles congratulations. Jaw set in a hard line, eyes so depthless you’d never get the hue right on paper.
Doesn’t mean you don’t try, once, mind buzzing from whiskey in the middle of the night years later when you realize they’re still carved into your mind and now they’re carved onto your page.
You panic, crumple the soft sheet of pastel paper.
She shows up at the next National Team Camp.
“Where has she been?”
You ask Kelley after practice one night, tugging at your shoes to avoid the gaze she whips your direction because you may have a lazy way of speaking but nonchalance has never been your forte.
“Sweden,” is all she offers at first, trying to get you to break, but you’ve played this game too many times with her and she knows she’ll never win. “I don’t know, though. I always thought it was bullshit her call-up wasn’t with mine, that she didn’t even have a shot at Germany. She probably took that harder than we did when we lost.”
You still flinch at the memory, move to argue her point, but when you look up and see Christen Press in all her glory illuminated by the field lights, shooting and retrieving and shooting and retrieving and missing, the concave slope of her shoulders is so painful you can no longer form a sentence.
Instead, you wordlessly lace up your cleats and jog to retrieve the ball she’d tipped over the crossbar, fitting it back into the precise line she’d orchestrated. Gesturing to the goal when she eyes you, the hint of a smile on her lips as she turns back to the frame.
“No pressure or anything...”
Her voice is melodic, counting every number under her breath as the tally increases.
You don’t realize you’re holding yours until number 100 goes in and the tension melts from her frame and her face breaks out in a genuine smile.
You were right, back then.
It lit up your whole world.
You become an avid study of Art History during camps.
Not in the historical way.
More in the way of defining Christen as sharp angles and concise routes, ninety degree pivots across the top of the box and shots so brutal the ball doesn’t spin. So different from the decisions you don’t make until they happen, spinning magic down the sidelines and unspooling wavy crosses, breath heavy with excitement in your chest as you continually connect with her. Opposites, yet a mirror image. Rorschach tests. Same wavelengths.
Or maybe in the way you follow her silhouette as the sun fades on the pitch, lithe legs and unruly curls whipping in the wind she creates behind her. Eyelashes catching gleams of the sunset, light rays breaking through her teeth as she laughs when Kelley shoves her off the ball, onto the ground. She’s never serious when you think she’ll be, an enigma you chase to the back of your mind as the moon appears, bathing everyone in harsh shadows and unforgiving highlights. Not Christen though, never. It’s dark under the camber of her cheek but heaven on her bone structure, and you’re unsure if you’ve just become biased over time or if she’s just that starkly beautiful.
You find your answer when she walks into breakfast one morning, shadows now circles under her eyes as she folds into the chair next to you.
Former.Latter.
“Rough night last night?"
You’re not sure where the courage comes from to ask something so blunt this early in the morning, and the way she scrunches up her nose in response makes you wonder if you’d ever do the right thing around her anyway.
“Something like that,” Christen finally murmurs, following her gaze around the room before she angles her chair closer and all the air dissipates from the table. Vacuum sealed. Closed for business. Your eyes flit down to her lips as she takes a sip of her coffee, trace the slim lines of her fingers as they tap against the mug. Giving her the space to say what she needs to say even if you’re fighting the urge to pull her in tighter. Former, then. Maybe both.
“It’s just…” she begins, watching her shoulders drop the same way they had when she first showed up all those months ago. “You never know when it’s going to be your last call up, you know? When your hard work isn’t enough, anymore. The last day is always the worst for me because it could actually be my last.”
You sit heavy in the silence for a while, staring at your hands as you pull for the right words to say. You want her to be confident, to realize that she explodes off every medium because she’s the calming presence of a neutral color, even if she’s all bright in your head. You want her to feel assured in her spot here after it’s been almost half a year now. You want to promise her the Olympics, but you know that Christen worries about history repeating itself, and the blank page of her inbox is as destructive as a promise you can’t keep.
“It’s just one less day until the next camp, Chris. Next month’s, next year’s...I have faith in you getting called in for a long time, but that’s how I thought about it when I first got here. Just one less day until you’re back.”
It’s then you realize how close you’ve gotten to her, the quick nod and easy smile into her cup all the reassurance you need that she understood. Accepted your answer, even, feeling her presence expand beyond the confines of your conversation until others are inviting themselves to the table and you feel like the spell is broken. Her eyes save it for a moment though, and she doesn’t even need to say it. Thank you.
She’s an alternate for London.
She’s at every single camp until she’s not standing there beside you, up on the podium again, Gold slung around your neck.
You smile and celebrate and feel proud to be there, but you simultaneously feel the guilt because history is repeating itself . Christen’s eyes from college burn into your brain and a quick pang of misery presses into your heart, surrounded by flags and confetti.
"One less day,” you text her the morning after.
She doesn’t respond, but you hope she finds whatever comfort she can in it.
You don’t expect that comfort to come in the form of You.
“One less day,” she says in greeting, bumping her hip against yours as the team congregates in the lobby of the hotel. You want to say hello or how are you or how do you feel but instead you just smile, knowing that it’ll reflect on her face and you’ll be able to read her in a second. Endearing crooked teeth and that bottom lip she bites down on, confirming your internal theory: she wanted to prove her worth, yet make it look effortless. The eternal give and take of Christen Press - forever behind the scenes, yet standing right next to you.
God, you’d really studied her.
Gotten to know her, you correct in your head, because Christen’s inner struggle wasn’t the only give and take happening right now. There had been text messages and photos that escalated to phone calls with easy silences, an invitation to Paris caught on the tip of your tongue one night because she was so close. Proximity in Europe was entirely different than states away, but something had held you back. Given her Sweden, given her something to call her own. Rococo, all rosy and dappled in memory.
You see the freedom that entire week of camp, Christen destroying the competition with a smile.
“Come with me.”
You’re losing track of what month it is, what year, even, the time between the Olympics and the next World Cup, an endless stretch of friendlies and bright green grass and fresh cleats and timezones. It’s fun but monotonous, something Christen seems to have picked up on as you lazily kick the ball against your hotel room wall. Metronome, back and forth, no progress.
She’s sitting cross-legged on the bed when you finally register what she’s said, hair freshly tied up in braids, coconut notes in the air as you eye her.
“Where?”
“You’ll see.”
She holds out her hand and you take it without question, following her up the stairs until she throws open the door of the roof and you’re blinded by the sheets of rain, the haze of the city lights engulfed in the storm. You blink again and Christen’s drenched in front of you, suddenly five feet away.
“What are you doing?” you call out, but your voice is lost and so seems to be her mind, watching her tip her head back and open her mouth to the torrential downpour, spitting mist back into the air on a laugh. It’s characteristically not Christen, but then again you’ve never seemed to be able to place her to begin with. An endless contradiction; her suitcase unpacked so precisely in your hotel room, emotions so uninhibited as she now spun circles on the concrete.
“Come on!”
She’s in front of you again, buzzing, energy frenetic once you’re out in the rain and a shiver wracks through your body. You’ll claim it was the cold, even if your heart’s warm in your chest as she throws her palms up to the sky because she’s so free right now. Shoulders unlocked from her neck and confidence unlocked from whatever confines she’d tucked it away in for so long. Wild and uninhibited and happy, and you wish with every second you were capturing pictures of her shadow across the light beams, chasing after her once you come back into your senses. You’d never been a fan of storms - but this... this was something else entirely.
California. February 2015. Sharp Contrasts.
You’re languid in your wandering, at ease with the boardwalks and rush of people as purpose surged inside you. A year for the history books, the storylines, so much to prove to the world the only way you knew how. The tilt of a smile on your lips, fingers drumming against your thigh in anticipation for practices now only hours away.
It takes you a bit to realize that Christen is so sullen beside you, stiff in posture and reactions. When you finally catch her eye she’s not even here, cautious greens so far away you’re lucky she even sees you enough to react. Slows her gait, pauses in the middle of ocean winds and the weight of whatever moment she was having.
“You alright?” You venture to ask, wondering how many times over the course of these years you’d said it. She’s on your mind all the time, and sometimes you think it’s because you never know if you’re in hers. If she even actively thinks about you, if she waits like you do for the next call, a notification on illuminated screens. You’d never been much for technology until she’d punched her number into your phone.
“Just trying to let go...or brace myself, I can’t tell yet,” Christen says softly, brows knitting down as she takes in your confusion. Biding her time, hues lifting to the water as she tries to decode her own fragments for you. Chiseled. Chipping at her own marble.
“The pressure to make the final roster. I’m trying to let go of that. But at the same time I feel the need to brace myself again - I wasn’t ready last time, to not make it. It was so hard to face myself, face you.” You whip your head up at this, but she’s not ready to turn back yet. Why You?
“To be good but not good enough, to watch it all right at my fingertips. It’s an impossible feeling to be right there, and not be able to do a single thing to change the outcome. Any confidence I had back then vanished - when I went back to Sweden it became this zero start. I ripped my life into pieces and stared at a white blank page and thought ‘who in the world am I?’.”
When had she picked up on your knack for art references?
“I think I have something good now, something I feel strong in - but what if I have to rip it all up again? What if I’m so close, again? What if I’m number 24, again? I think my heart would break at the first tear.”
You reel back to three years ago suddenly, this conversation so familiar in your heart you just want to give her the same answer. But now, maybe, you owe her more than that. She’s confided in you so much over this time, even when she knows you’ve never felt the same things she has. Gloss over your life and you’ve never seen your dreams evaporate because of strategy or needs or not being enough. You wish, suddenly, you understood that devastation. Loss due to injury was different than loss because of who you were.
Vulnerability wasn’t your strong suit, but you’d be damned if you didn’t try for her anyway. She deserved that much.
“I wish...I wish I could give you the right answer. A better answer than the truth, then I don’t know. I just don’t, really. We could both be on the outside looking in by July.” She pales at this, but the look she gives you is skeptical. Something you mimic subconsciously, trying to cancel out the doubt.
“It’s not fair to have that faith in me and not yourself, Chris. You need to give yourself that credit. And if you want me to be honest, the You I’m seeing now is so much more in Love on that field. You’ve always been amazing at the game, no one can deny that. But I’ve never seen you more accepting of yourself and that fact than right now. You’re saying all this stuff here, but when I see you play I’d never think you had a worry in the world anymore. That you didn’t deserve every second of being part of this team. That’s the beauty of this sport - we’re always adding to our portfolio anyway. Ripping a corner off here and there just lets your soul bleed through even more”
It’s not your best work. You’ll rehash it later on that night, wondering where you could have made her feel more whole, more confident. Wondering if the silent smile she gave touched her eyes. Wondering if her “Thank You” was as sincere as it sounded.
Wondering why, when she tugged you out of the way of a passing skateboarder, she never let go of your hand.
Christen falls asleep in your room that night.
Her hands are folded delicately over her chest and her legs are curled over the edge of the bed and you have to half check if she’s still breathing it all seems so soft. You also know she’s a light sleeper, not a great sleeper, and you don’t want to wake her up when Julie pads back into the room, bringing your finger to your lips.
“I think I’m just going to leave her.”
You take out your contacts in the bathroom, the world an Impressionist movement in your wake. Blurry, small, moving, heartbeat echoing in your chest as you slip under the covers next to her. Close your eyes and slow your breath and try not to burn from the proximity.
She’s gone when you wake, a loopy ‘Whoops!’ and a smiley space scrawled on the notepad next to your bedside.
You keep it, trying not to think further into the why.
You buy her a cheesy Valentine’s Day card at the convenience store when you drink the place dry of Gatorade after practice runs too long and hot. Her sweat mingles with the candy hearts she shares in return, salty and sweet on your tongue.
The card appears again in her bag at Algarve, an offhand comment of it being a good luck charm when Kelley teases her. The blush on her cheeks when she looks at you then...you can’t read if it’s embarrassment or something else, staring back a beat too long before your own face heats up and your reach down to fiddle with your socks. Focus. Recalibrating your mind to the game and not the moss green gaze behind you.
She scores in the last match, adding some weight to her words.
Luck or Fate, you can’t discern, catching her when she jumps into your arms.
The Roster is announced a month later, and your heart swells when Press is highlighted on the release. Almost the last name listed but the first you look for, the sigh of relief you choke out probably loud enough to carry through the room. She deserved it, you knew it.
And when her face finally lights up on your phone screen, her first call, you know she knew it too.
History. Yours in the making.
Together.
“Physical Touch is my Love Language.”
She says it right before the first match, shoulder nestled against yours on the bus. Her nervous laugh staccato in your ear when you finally look at her.
Oh. Oh.
The tournament is a work of art.
It’s the anchor of your entire exhibition, the highs and the lows and the dissatisfaction and wiping the sweat off your brow at seven years old and getting the nod to start matches playing for your country in stadiums of thousands. It’s Christen’s One Less Day.
Across the border but so close to home, crescendos and brush strokes and Goal, Press, first game, first World Cup goal, curving your touch down her elbow when the cameras pan away from the substitution.
“You deserved that.” Low under your breath.
“I wouldn’t be here without you.” Breath now caught in your throat.
It’s getting out of the bracket and getting ripped apart when you feel like you barely beat Columbia, when the weight of the soccer world is on your shoulders and Germany looms in your wake, a storm cloud so reminiscent of the ones pouring open against you and Christen before. Powerhouses of this world, now colliding in lighting streaks and sonic booms, the Heavens watching on in eager anticipation.
Penalty Kick. So many seconds. Miss.
Penalty Kick. Less time. Lloyd.
Kelley’s mouth unhinged in a scream, the firecracker of an insurance policy you would have never expected. Another twist, another turn, heading into the finals with a sense of a story arc. Coming full circle, from 2011 and the hollow of your missed penalty kick. You tell Christen about it once, the way your emotions rattled through you in waves. Like grief steps, all grey streaks and red emphasis. Then acceptance, so royal blue. Bigger pictures, bigger outcomes, shattering records and scoreboards and you swear your eardrums when you drill a goal on net in the second half.
Perfect pass, perfect shot, perfect ending, a prism of hues in your flushed face and white smile, dark skin and national colors and electric energy. Everything you’d always wanted to express, poised in the tip of your finger as you point in her direction. One second against the sideline, watching her clasp her hands in glee.
Chaos.
The locker room is shutter flashes, beer bottles, big goggles and madness. There’s no peace and you’re not sure when there ever will be again, clutching the trophy in your hands for a few seconds and feeling on top of the world. As a woman and an athlete and a champion, more gold pigment flickered throughout your lifetime. You don’t think you’ll ever tire of it, don’t see an ending in sight, but catching Christen’s eye across the room, seeing her curl her finger against the streamers falling from the ceiling, you find silence the second you follow her.
Seismic. Earth shattering - feeling the weight of the moment grasp you as you click cleats through the corridors. Barely realizing you never took them off.
The pitch is still illuminated, fans pouring out against the shadows, and you watch with her. Take in the heavy of it all, backs pressed against the tunnel hidden from view. You feel something shutter from your chest suddenly and you can’t even place it - the pressure? The words you want to say to her but don’t have the composure for? You’re so sure footed on this field...everything is right. Makes sense. But here, now, you could be so wrong. And that scares you to the depths of statue stillness. She could chip your marble, this time. She could crack you into a million pieces and that would be it.
Instead, she wordlessly laces your hands together. Calloused skin, butter soft palms, a determined set in her brow as she stares into the distance. Trying to find the words to say, as if being here together wasn’t perfect enough.
“I can’t...believe….I just... wow .” It’s said on an exhale, all exhaustion and elation and hints of bubbles on the tip of her tongue, the melody of her tone lighting you up all over again. Her hand pulses in yours, glance going to your interlaced fingers, the tiny slope of her wrist, curve of her shoulder, curls haphazardly tied and eyes just so damn grateful. For the game, for you?
“Chris?”
She leans into you suddenly, slowly, glossy grey flicking from your eyes to your lips before closing the distance and all your mind seems to scream is finally.
She tastes like champagne, like syrupy sweat, like the edge of a mint she must have snuck before all this. Like hope, like celebration, like you hadn’t been going out of your damn mind this whole time. Like a blank canvas, like everything you knew you truly wanted right now, curving your palm against her cheek and pressing closer, quickly, knowing you’d paint this moment into your memory every day for the rest of your life.
You swear you see the dazed bourbon of your own eye color reflecting in hers when you finally pull back, sneaking another kiss as you’re dragged away from the wall. Back to the light, to reality; you’d rather stay in the Dark Ages.
“We have all the time in the world now, you know.”
It’s like she reads your mind, shaking off the starry bliss to grasp her hand again, trickle back into the locker room and get bombarded by teammates and watch Kelley’s eyebrow quirk up in sly recognition. Another day, another time, another conversation, silly string like putty in your hands.
The parade. The press. The hangovers. The eventual, brutal reality of packing for different airports.
“Hey.”
Christen pulls you out of whatever sulking revelry you’re in, forming a bridge over your eyes to mask the sunlight. Enough light beams radiated from her anyway, skin so warm you want to hold her and never let go. Much like last night, sneaking to the rooftop of your hotel in New York City and mapping the constellations on her skin because it was impossible to see them in the sky.
You slowly realize her shuttle’s here, that she’s leaving you and you don’t know when you’ll see her again. You want to stutter out plans, to promise her it'll be soon, but you know her heart enough to remember she doesn’t have blind belief in guarantees. Instead you fold into her embrace, eyes closed so all your senses can absorb it like muscle memory.
“I’ll miss you,” you whisper against her ear, lips pressing soundly to the edge of her neck, hidden in her curls. A promise you can keep.
“One less day,” she returns, a placated smile on her face. Your own phrase used against you, art study, waving her off with hope suddenly whole in your chest.
One Less Day Until I See You Again.
You couldn’t hide your grin if you tried.