People didn’t show up to watch soccer.
People didn’t show up to watch
high school women play anything.
But during the semifinals, the stands were packed.
I overheard the owner of the diner on Main Street
seated on the bleacher in front of me explain
to the owner of the hardware store about offsides.
A group of senior guys had brought cardboard cutouts
of players’ faces. My sister’s head bobbled around.
Out of the woodwork, everyone who ever wanted to feel
like they could be worthy of something
showed up to the games.
Because we all wanted to see for ourselves
what it could be like to be so good at something
that other people noticed.
Maribel and Dad showed up looking flustered.
The half was just about to end.
“I can’t believe we’re late. The appointment ran over.”
Maribel rubbed her belly, the small
noticeable bump starting to show.
She leaned over to me as we watched the team
jog off the field and huddle around the coach.
“It’s a girl,” Maribel leaned over and said.
It was this type of world that I wanted a sister to grow up in.
One that could celebrate her accomplishments
not because she was a girl but because she was worthy.
But I wasn’t the one on the field.
I wasn’t the one with the cardboard cutout of my face.
I wasn’t doing anything to create a type of future
that I wanted for a future sister,
because I wasn’t doing anything
to create a type of future that I wanted for myself.
I had no clue what to do.
A whistle blew and the second half started.
I watched the game descend into a slog of possession.
The crowd was rapt with every play.
Every corner. Every turnover.
I watched Row go after the ball.
Targeting a player. Legs pounding against the field,
and I saw something that I didn’t know how to have.
But even there, surrounded by hundreds of people,
all chanting Row’s name, I couldn’t help
but drift away and think about Mom.
How she would be so proud of Row.
She would have loved to be here, to see someone just like her.
Someone who could attack life the way she did.
But what would she say about me?
The daughter in the stands who doesn’t
have any real hobbies or talents to speak of.
The daughter who is supposed to grow up and be something
but has no idea what that something is
or how to find it and pursue it
the way that Row pursues a player.
The daughter who can’t seem to let go of her mother.
The daughter who still wishes that she could be held forever.
Row
Ten minutes later
Kennedy texts again.
Do you want
to build a
snowmaaaan?
I am not
your Elsa,
I text back.
Well, then,
ask your sister.
Row
I type and delete
and type again
and let the words
sit on the screen
like turtles on a log
sunning themselves
in springtime.
Ariana’s not here.
Ariana
I once saw Row talking to Rory from Studio Art;
Busy, the girl who invited me to her house in seventh grade,
the girl with the magazines and a friendship I thought
that maybe I could have had; and Paola,
the girl that everyone thought was Row’s older sister,
because they’re both brown and play soccer,
and except for the whole different-parents,
different-last-name thing, people still assume that they are.
Row and I haven’t been at the same school together
since California. Since before Mom died.
We haven’t had to occupy the same halls,
interact with the same people.
Row hasn’t had to see me, in my world,
and now she was here, and it was her world.
It was like suddenly my sister was different.
Not my little sister. But one of them.
One of the normal, well-adjusted girls
who could walk down the hall
every day and talk to people.
One of the girls who had a lunch table to sit at,
friends who texted her, a whole team of people
who called out her number down the hall.
I didn’t recognize her.
I didn’t recognize myself.
It was senior year and I didn’t even have
a regular table to sit at in the cafeteria.
Like all the years before I snuck bites of food
in the library during lunch while doing homework,
and for all these years it has been fine. I even liked it.
But I watched Row talk to Busy, Rory, and Paola.
I didn’t want her to know that after all these years
I hadn’t moved on. I hadn’t found my place
in this world like she had. I hadn’t figured out
who I was, and it scared me. Because someday
I needed to leave, and what was I supposed to do
with an entire future?
What would Row say if she found out
I wasn’t a good model to follow? I wasn’t
a sister who would pave the way. That she
didn’t have a mother or an older sister around to guide her.
I didn’t want her to see me, so
I slipped around the corner and disappeared.
Row
Why would anyone
go outside in this weather?
Kennedy texts back.
There’s, like, seven inches of snow
and it’s fifteen degrees out at best.
I look out the window again
and see ice crystals swirl into snowdrifts.
Where is she?
I try to push aside the feeling
of being left behind.
So, you wanna come over here?
I text. I feel a small pang of guilt
immediately after pushing send.
Like I’m trying to replace
Ariana with Kennedy.
I don’t know.
Maybe I am.
Maybe I should.
You heard me, right?
Why on earth would I want
to trudge through this weather
and hang out at your house?
Because we’re friends.
Then I drop in an emoji
of two girls dancing.
Ariana
The bus stops at the next station an hour later.