Perfecting Patience

“I love you, Zeke!” the half-naked woman screamed above the music.

Joel, one of the stage crew, pulled her away. She jumped up and down, careless of the fact that she didn’t have on a top, and the crowd went wild.

Finn laughed into the mic right in the middle of the song, skipping a few lyrics, and shook his head, amused. I laughed and continued to play. The rest of the show followed suit. Crowd surfers and the smell of drugs in the air contributed to the high the show gave us.

Later on the bus, we finished up the night passing around a joint. I’d had too much to drink on stage and the bus beneath me seemed to be shifting and moving side to side. That wasn’t possible considering we’d be in a ditch somewhere, so I knew it was all me. I laughed it off and picked up my phone to call Snowflake.

It rang and rang and I could feel myself getting aggravated. Why wasn’t she answering? I hung up and called again and again until finally she picked up.

“Hello?” Her voice was broken and full of sleep.

“Hey, baby. What are you doing?” I slurred into the phone.

“I’m sleeping, Zeke. Is everything okay?”

“It would be if you were here. Why aren’t you here?” I whined drunkenly.

“You sound like a little bitch!” Chet laughed loudly.

Without thinking, I threw my phone at him. He ducked and it smashed into the wall of the bus. I jumped up and snatched it from the floor. The front of it was cracked, but it was still lit up.

“Hello? Snowflake?” I said into the phone.

There was no sound.

“Shit!” I threw it again.

The aggravation was getting to be too much. I missed her and it would be a few more weeks before I could even think about going to Florida again. Patience was stuck there dealing with school registration and soccer practices.

This whole situation was too fucking much.

I passed out on my bunk with my broken phone clutched to my chest.

The next day, it took me forever to find a store to replace my phone. I tried calling her from everyone else’s, but she didn’t answer. It was later in the afternoon by the time I had a new phone. I called over and over again, but still she didn’t answer.

I was starting to stress and I had no way of reaching her to know if she was okay or if she was just pissed at me for calling late at night and waking her. I knew better than to call too late. We were in Seattle, and Florida was three hours ahead of us, but when I was drunk and missing her, time zones and all that bullshit was the last thing on my mind.

Finally, toward the end of the day, she texted me.

Patience: Sorry, was in class. Going to practice. Call you later. Miss you. Love you.

Five

Patience

Sex with Zeke.

That’s the only thing that even came close to giving me the high that soccer did.

As I ran across the field in complete control of the black-and-white ball, I lost myself. The exhilaration and the power I yielded on the field felt amazing. Control. It was all about having control over something. I’d lived without a certain measure of power for my entire life. Soccer had always remedied that. How could I have ever thought I could quit soccer cold turkey?

My teammate, Hope, ran up beside me and I kicked the ball to her. We continued that pattern down the field until finally she passed it to me and I kicked it straight into the net. The goalie dropped to her knees in an attempt to stop the ball and then punched the grass in aggravation after it zoomed past her.

“Hell yeah!” Hope said as she high-fived me. “We’re going to dominate this season.”

It was just practice, but it had been so long since I played and had teammates. I hadn’t realized how much I missed it.

Originally, the whole school thing was a tiny white lie to buy myself some time away to get better. It was something I told Zeke so he’d agree to a long-distance thing. The last thing I wanted was for him to miss out on the tour, and I knew I had a long way to go. I also knew Zeke being around would hinder my progress.

I couldn’t go around pretending I was all better. I needed to face my demons and actually get better. When he was around, I couldn’t be sick. He would understand, no questions asked, but I was sick and tired of being the sick girl, the broken girl with issues. It was time I became the girl Zeke thought I was.

He once told me I was the strongest girl he knew. I couldn’t tell him then, but he was so wrong. I was weak and me going into a crazy anxiety attack right in from of him was proof of that. Luckily he had no idea it was an anxiety attack, but still, it was embarrassing all the same.

I was covered in internal scars. There’s a funny thing about scars. You can cover them up and hide them, but no matter what you do, they’re always there. They mark you and let everyone who can see them know you’re damaged goods. I was damaged goods. Even though my scars were hidden deep within me where no one could see them, I knew they were there. He knew they were there, too. Some scars never heal. Some get bigger as you grow. They reflect a past that’s branded on your soul and no matter what good comes your way, nothing can soothe the pain they inflict.