First Flight, Final Fall

by C.W. Farnsworth

“If you’re doing the same as everyone else, you’re not going to be the best.”

I had something to prove today. I just did.

Beck smirks. I narrow my eyes. Forget him not knowing me well. I totally just got played.

She sounds exactly like a mom, and for once, it doesn’t bother me. She cares, and maybe that’s something I should learn to cherish, not make fun of.

“Nothing. I’m fine,” I repeat, heavily emphasizing the last word. Maybe if I say it enough, I’ll start to believe it.

But I’m cycling through reasons why he could have possibly come here, and keep coming up with only one. Me.

I love soccer, and it’s amplified around Beck. By Beck. Because we’re the same when it comes to this sport, in comparison to all the ways we’re different outside of it. Because he makes me better without saying a single word. Because I love him too, I think, not just the game we’re playing together.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” he asks. “I always know what I’m doing,” I reply, projecting my usual confidence. How ironic that I’m saying that to the one exception.

I’m cynical, but I’m not certain of collapse. Because of Beck. Because…he makes me believe happy endings might be real.

The girl who grew up convinced love was a legend and the woman worried she might have found it.

Stars have a way of suggesting too much. The vastness of the universe makes me feel small, inconsequential. Like maybe the decisions I have to make aren’t quite as massive as I’ve made them out to be.