Page 13 of Racing Heat

It surprises me that he noticed. I open and close my mouth several times, but the words aren’t coming.

“Are you having a stroke or impersonating a fish?” he says.

I laugh out loud and smack his arm. “Stop it and say something helpful.”

“I made you laugh,” he tells me. “I think that counts as helping.”

“Not really,” I say with a shrug. “I’m thinking about it again.”

“This isn’t your first away game. How did you deal before?”

“The truth?” I ask him.

“Obviously,” he says with a roll of his eyes. “If I’m going to help you, you can’t lie to me.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I let out a long breath, narrowing my eyes at him.

“Out with it. What do you normally do?”

“I normally pace back and forth like I’m doing now. And if I could have managed to get any food down, I’d be puking it up,” I admit with a shrug.

“You can’t do that. You need to eat so that you have energy to run all over that field.” He reaches over and taps my nose.

“But you’d never know that I did.”

“No, you wouldn’t. But you still can’t do that. There has to be a better way to deal with the nerves than that.”

“What did you do?” I ask him again, hoping he’ll give me some advice or tell me how he used to cope.

He sighs. “You think I’m going to have some magical answer and that it’s going to make it all better for you, but it doesn’t work like that.”

I shake my head. “What good are you, Ford?”

He chuckles. “Not much, apparently.”

I squat down and put my head in my hands, trying to quiet the thoughts and doubt. They’ve been creeping in since I’ve been on this bigger, more public stage. There are more eyes on me than there were in high school and even college. This just feels so much bigger and scarier. It’s funny to me, as a high school soccer player, I enjoyed the away games. They always meant that we rode on the bus with the team, singing as loud as we could to whatever song was popular at the moment. After the game, we were either bubbly because of a win or down in the dumps because it was a loss. We’d eat packed lunches that parents would prepare when the game was far away. It was a real bonding experience.

So much goes into away-game preparation when you’re on a NWSL team. It’s not just the game. There’s almost always a flight involved. A charter bus taking us to and from the facilities. And we’re not just traveling on game days; most times, we arrive early and get a bit of practice in. I swear, the longer we’re here, the more anxious I get. Shorter trips mean less anxiety.

I feel a hand on my shoulder. I look up and a pair of brown eyes are boring right into mine.

“Hey,” he says in a low voice. “I can help you.”

“I thought you said…” The rest of the sentence dies on my lips.

“I want you to close your eyes,” he tells me.

“What? Why?” I ask.

“Because I want you to try something.” He sighs. “What’s wrong? Don’t you trust me?” His eyes sparkle, looking like giant chocolate orbs that hold answers to all my fears.

“Yeah, I trust you,” I whisper.

“Good.” His hand moves to my back, and he begins to rub it.

I lean into his touch, forgetting where we are and that someone could easily see us. I can feel his breath on my neck.

“Take three deep breaths,” he tells me.