I’d be crushed.
No, it’s for the best that Ziggy showed up, that our wild night was cut short, that Gavin and I stopped before acting on this attraction and ruined the tentative camaraderie we built during our trip for the preseason game.
I know I’ve likely done some damage, pulling away tonight. Gavin’s pride may be hurt until he lets me explain myself and tell him it had nothing to do with him and everything to do with a family emergency. Worse, he might be relieved.
Worse yet, he might not actually care at all.
Just how much I care about that is deeply worrying.
“Ollie?” Ziggy peers out from the house and sees me standing outside my back door, lost in very unwise thoughts.
It’s definitely for the best that my sister showed up.
“Sorry.” I tear my gaze away from his house.
“Why were you next door?” she asks, glancing toward Gavin’s house. “Do you need to go back? I can wait.”
“Nah. Nope. All good… Just a…quick…little…neighborly visit. No big deal.”
Stepping inside the house, I shut the door, then lock it. Ziggy flicks on the soft overhead recessed lights, then flicks them off.
“Too bright,” she mutters, then flops onto my sofa, all long, lanky limbs. A groan leaves her.
“What’s the matter, Zigs?” I squeeze her toe gently as I walk by into my kitchen. “Want some tea?”
“Yes, please,” she says, massaging her temples.
I wait for her, because that’s what Ziggy needs when she’s upset—time and patience to let her formulate her thoughts, not pressure to spit them out. As I turn on the kettle and set out two mugs with peppermint sachets in them, Ziggy stares up at the ceiling, her socked feet bouncing rhythmically off the edge of my sofa.
Finally she says, “Nobody takes me seriously.”
I close the distance between us, circling the dining table, then leaning against the back of the sofa. I peer down at her and ask, “What do you mean, ‘nobody’？”
She doesn’t meet my eyes. She just keeps staring up at the ceiling. “I mean nobody.”
I sift through that, trying to think about what she needs from me, if anything beyond a listening ear. Ziggy’s struggled socially for a long time. It’s part of why she ended up having a comprehensive psych eval and getting diagnosed with autism. She was depressed and anxious, had compulsions and panic attacks. So many of her needs and struggles weren’t being met or understood, and trying to mask them had led her to the edge of a breakdown.
After being diagnosed, she took her time to process her diagnosis, learn her unmasked self, finished high school through cyber school while spending a lot of time in therapy, playing soccer, keeping life simple, her social circle small. Surprising us all when it came time to decide between trying to go directly into professional soccer or play for a team in college and she was hell-bent on going to UCLA.
She got in, of course, made the team, secured a full-ride scholarship, and she’s seemed to be doing well so far. She’s a senior now, and she’s also on the US U-23 team, playing only for them now that UCLA’s season is over. I thought she’d really hit her stride, was feeling more confident and acclimated since becoming an upperclassman on the UCLA team, since making U-23 and its starting lineup. She’s seemed to be doing well.
Sure, she’s a little weepy sometimes and wants to come over to watch rom-coms with me, make popcorn, and not really talk about anything. I can always tell something’s on her mind when she does that, but usually just being with me, laughing, goofing off, seems to have her smiling and calm by the time she drives back to her studio apartment near campus.
What have I missed while I’ve been wrapped up in my life? Twisted up with Gavin lately, the pressures of the new season, the weight of responsibility since being named captain. When did I lose track of my little sister?
“Ziggy,” I say quietly, reaching down and stroking her hair, which she always likes. “What’s making you feel this way? Did something happen?”
She shrugs, dabs her nose and blinks away the first threat of tears in her eyes. “Not one specific thing, no. It’s just…” Groaning, she scrubs her face. “In the family, I’m always going to be the baby. The one everyone just…”
“Adores?” I offer.
“Yes!” she yells, like this is the worst offense.
“You poor kid.”
“Shut up.” She punches my thigh without even looking and nails my quad perfectly.
“No dead-legging me. My legs are my livelihood.” I lean down and poke her armpit, making her squeal. She sits up and wipes away tears from her cheeks.
I hand her a tissue and say, “You sure nothing specific happened?”
“No.” She shakes her head, then blows loudly. “It feels like this everywhere. In the classroom. On the team. In study groups. I know I’m quiet until I’m not and then I’m blurting stuff. I know I can be awkward and I’ve got habits and behaviors that make me seem immature, but I’m an adult. I take care of myself, and I know my needs and my limits and how to advocate for myself, and I’m trying so hard to be perceived as independent and mature and I’m not.”
She sucks in a breath and says, “I just want to feel like people respect me. Like they don’t see me as this timid weird girl, but instead…as a woman who can do brave things and unexpected things, and be, like…cool.”
“Ziggy.” My heart twists. “You are cool.”
She rolls her eyes. “You’re my brother. You’re obligated to say that.”
“I mean it, though. You’re cool. You’re genuine and smart and have incredible deadpan humor. You have the most impressive vocabulary of anyone I have ever met. You’re beautiful and a veritable fountain of random trivia knowledge. I always want you on my team when Trivial Pursuit time happens at the A-frame.”
Laughing faintly, she stares down at her hands. “Thanks, Ollie.” After a long stretch of silence, she says, “Do you ever just feel like…you’re outgrowing yourself? Like there are these parts of yourself you thought would never change that are rearranging inside you? Like the things you thought you knew most about what you wanted from others, from yourself, are morphing you into a person you’re not sure you’re ready to be, but you can’t stand for things to stay the way they are, either?”
I stare at her, feeling my pulse pound as her words reverberate in my heart and through my limbs. Not that losing our self-control and getting physical was objectively “good,” but I think about how good it’s felt since Gavin and I came to blows on the field—the relief it’s been since the tension I’d compressed and compounded inside myself cracked my kill-him-with-kindness facade and spilled into pranks and honesty, trust and even a little laughter…and pleasure, even closeness. Just a bit of closeness. Somewhere we’d never have gotten if I’d just kept gritting my teeth and smiling my way through my misery.
I think about how long I’ve told myself I couldn’t have those good things with someone if they so much as brushed shoulders with soccer. And I think about how unsatisfying it’s felt to live such a compartmentalized life. Because that’s not who I am, or…if it was, it’s not who I always want to be. For a time, putting my head down, pursuing my goals with single-minded focus, served me, but that doesn’t mean it always will or that what was right for one season is right forever. Ziggy’s right. You outgrow parts of yourself, and maybe this way of dealing with my fear is something I’ve outgrown. That doesn’t mean my fear, my very real reservations about mixing pleasure and my profession, has just evaporated, but it feels…freeing, to acknowledge how I’ve been handling it might need to change, might bear reexamination.