Free The Time Until by Casey Ford Page B

her eyes,” she informs me with a heavy dose of
sarcasm.  
    “I’ll see you on Saturday,” I say as she turns
to leave.   My friends are left to figure
out what’s going on.   Arianna gives me
one of her ‘freeze your blood’ looks she usually
reserves for Quentin and then takes off after Sam.   Obviously, she’s on comfort duty.
    I’m not even sure what’s wrong.
    I’m left here watching the corner where Sam
just disappeared around thinking about where we went wrong.
    Where I went wrong.

 
 

Chapter Twelve

 
    5 Years Ago (Age 15):   December

 
    The biggest soccer tournament of the year is the
Christmas Tournament.   Since this is my
freshman year, it’s my first time playing in the tournament and I’m starting in
the final.   I won the right and beat out
the others for my position.   Plus, this
is the first time the school has made it to the final in all the years they’ve
gone to the tournament.
    So, yeah, no pressure.
    The team is doing better than expected and by
half time, we’re only down by one goal.   This in itself is incredible, since we’re playing the returning state
champs.   I feel bit of pride for having
six saves out of seven shots on goal.   The coach is going through a strategy for winning and I’m all for
it.   It means I’ll be getting more action
in the back – it gets so boring being keeper for a team with good defense.
    The ref blows the whistle to warn us that the
second half is starting soon and we all take our positions.   I have to take one last look into the crowd
to see if she’s there, but still can’t see her.   I’m having one of the best games of my life and she’s not here to see
it.
    Where the hell is she?
    The strategy is aggressive and risky.   Four strikers, three
mid-fielders, and only me and three defenders. It’s risky since we’re
already one goal behind and we had four defenders in the first half.   I can only imagine what will happen with one
less defender.   We can only hope that the
strikers do a good job and keep the score close.
    We manage to tie the game and I manage to keep
the ball out of the net for a full 45 minutes.   I actually collapse in relief and fear when the ref blows for the end of
the game.   We’ve tied the state champions
and now it’s up to me to get us the win.   Of course, it’s not all up to me, but I’ll have the biggest role.
    We’re going into penalty kicks.
    I both love and hate penalty kicks.   I love them because it’s just me and the
kicker, mano y mano .   I hate them for the same reason.   It’s all about reaction and guesswork.   You try to make a strategy to trick the
kicker into kicking where you want him to, but it’s really hard to pull off and
it fails more often than it succeeds.
    Me?   I go
by my gut and my reaction time.   It takes
about one second for the ball to get to the net after leaving the kickers foot,
that leaves me with exactly half a second to decide where the ball is going and
move in that direction.   I miss more than
I hit, but I do enjoy the thrill of it all.   Now if only the game didn’t come down to either me saving the ball or
total defeat.   That would be great.
    Plus, she’s not here yet and that’s really
starting to play with my nerves.
    Each side picks their best five kickers. When the
first one for their side gets ready to take his shot, we’ve already gone and
got a goal.   I take a wild guess and jump
in the complete opposite direction, there’s one for them.   Our turn again, one more goal for us.   I’m able to block one and let two more go
through as the tiebreaker continues.   Their keeper has the same luck and so it comes down to the final guy for
each team.   Our best player places the
ball in the upper V of the goal securing our lead.
    My turn to be the hero.
    We’re now up by one, I save this goal and we
win.   Miss and we keep going. Basically,
it’s all down to me to win the game for us.
    No pressure.
    I have to be