SOL - Changes Part 1

Everything is in reverse now. The old you would have tolerated a lot of football and hard work to reach a weekend of drinking and sex with someone like Olivia. You weren’t complaining. Olivia is the perfect partner. She knows what she’s doing, she has the body of a male fantasy, and the fact that she loves anal makes her almost too good to be true. It’s balanced out a bit by the fact that about thirty seconds after she cums, she has forgotten about you and is thinking about social media again.

Regardless, you’re grateful for her friendship and the distraction that she offers.

You’re still grateful to be back to work when the week resumes. It’s strange, but being with someone like Olivia is as distracting as it is a distraction. It brings up all these other thoughts that are not relaxing.

It’s different on the pitch, even with Riley and Lara around. You can focus on football in a way that you can’t focus on girls anymore. It seems to make a difference.

Tiff is looking at you appraisingly as you drink water during a break.

“I heard you were partying hard this weekend,” she says. “I’m glad to be wrong. Keep it up, Adella. You play like this and we’ll have to make some changes.”

You find it amusing that you’re impressing her without trying. Of course, that raises new questions. How much of your talent and potential were you leaving on the table all these years by chasing skirts nonstop and thinking of the rest of your life as an afterthought. It’s not like there’s anything inherently wrong with partying, you just find yourself questioning why you did it. Was it because you wanted to, or because somewhere along the line, something made you believe that you were supposed to? Like there was a little voice inside that told you that people would think you were a loser if you didn’t pump your body weight in sperm into three different women each week. A part of you wonders if you should talk to a therapist; another part doesn’t trust yourself not to sleep with her.

Lara’s avoiding you, but you expected that. Riley is not. She’s not going out of her way, and you haven’t spoken since that night, but she’s not shy about giving you a smile or making you a part of the drill.

You see Lara in conversation with Tiff, and you tell yourself not to speculate about what they’re talking about.

When the whistle finally blows, you find a thousand texts from your agent in Barcelona. You weren’t in prison for very long, and you’ve been out for even less time, but already things seem to be getting back to normal. You aren’t sure what to think about that. You should be grateful; not everyone gets a second chance like this. You decide to go with that. That’s the best way to look at it.

In the shower attached to the locker room out on the field, you find yourself in the same spot you were in that second day of camp, when you and Riley… It feels like a long time ago. As you squeeze body gel onto a sponge, a light touch makes you jump.

It’s Lara. She steps into the stall and pulls the curtain shut.