Chapter 2

A Chapter by stephanie

Come on Will, you can do this another twenty metres and you’ll be right in front of goals, perfect position to shoot. No defenders, they are still chasing you, it’s just you and the goalie. NOW COME ON WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? SHOOT!

But something catches my eye. I turn my head slightly to the side and see that the defenders are a good 10 meters away from me. I decide to take the shot before I concentrate too much on what I just saw. It was a pretty good kick. Inner right foot, heaps of power with a slight curve to it, top right corner of the goal. Not bad. First goal of the game and hopefully the last, my mind is wandering too much to make another shot like that.

I don’t walk of the field before the coach forces me to be interchanged with another player because I am losing speed and accuracy from exhaustion. Even then I put up a fight to stay on field. I didn’t want to face him; he didn’t turn up for early practise and didn’t turn up at the start of the game. I thought he wouldn’t have the guts to turn up; but he did.

Just hearing his name over the last week has made me want to tear his head off. The others don’t know what happened yet. All they know is that Casey hasn’t turned up for school for a few days and the mention of the name “Matt” around me isn’t a good thing. Day after day the asked the same questions “What’s up with you and Matt?”, “Why aren’t you and Matt talking?” and “What’s wrong with you guys? You were practically brothers two weeks ago! Did you guys fight?”

The thing is we were brothers up until the incident. The horrible twist of fate that left me without the two most important things in my life, my best friend and the one I love. I walk up to the bench that has been set up for the team, up to where Matt is sitting.

“Kevin,” he was looking down at his feet like he would rather be staring at them instead of talking to me. I could see that he was stumbling over the words he wanted to say. Good, I want this to be as hard as humanly possible. I want the words to make him choke, to make him feel like he can breathe.

When he finally looks at me it’s a second before I realise why he still wasn’t say anything. I could feel my nails almost cutting through my skin, my jaw clenched and my breathing getting heavier every moment I spent looking at him.

I decide to save him a trip to the hospital. I grabbed my bag from under the bench and walk up to coach sanders to tell him I wasn’t feeling well and was going home. He offered to give me a lift if I just waited till the end of the game but declined. Waiting here meant sitting next to Matt on the bench, and that was the last thing I wanted to do.

I eye the opening in the long fence. I started making my way to the fence but soon realised that to get there I would have to walk past Matt again. I decide not to risk his health for a second time in two minutes and jump the fence. The chance to knock the breath out of him would come soon enough and this was neither the time nor the place.

On the long walk home I remembered a saying, First with the head and then with the heart; it was a saying in a book I had read a few years ago, The Power of One. It was starting to make sense to me now. At that moment I made a vowel, I promised myself to follow by these simple words with all my power. I would not shed another tear over the roads life takes me and I would always listen to my head before my heart.

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