So Wrong, It's Right (Louis)

Chapter 7

For somebody who loved football when he was younger, who found such a passion in it, people would think that he'd be excited to be playing a match tonight. Well, those people would be wrong. Yeah, I still loved football but my passion for it has changed over the years. 

The obvious answer as to why in this riddle is: my father.

If I loved playing the sport so much, then should I be feeling such a massive amount of pressure from the man who only went and stuck around to matches if I was playing up to his standards? Should I be leaving my house for matches absolutely annoyed by that same man's comments that teat me down instead of encourage me?

I've said before that I didn't use the sport for an escape. I wasn't going to use it as a way to stick it to my father either. I never wanted something I loved to be about him.

There's a match tonight. I was generally excited about it, sending messages with Zayn, Blake, and occasionally, Dan, about how we were so much better than the other team we would be playing against. I wore a sly smile on my face for all of it, only to still be aware that once I left my room to leave.  that smile wouldn't be there anymore.

I stood in my room, my gym bag on my shoulder, looking at Liam's stupid hooded sweatshirt, which remained in the same mess as it has been for the past few days now. For a second I thought about returning it to him so I could make a, purposefully, loud comment about Liam just to poke fun at him. I couldn't do that though. 

Picking at Liam just before a match was just plain foolish. I couldn't waste an ounce of smugness  on Liam when I had an entire opposing team to place it on instead. Liam was safe for now. 

Zayn sent me my last message before I slipped my phone into one of the zipper pockets of my my bag, to ignore it until the match was over. I didn't need to leave early to pick up Zayn for the match. His mum was driving him there and, apparently, she was staying to watch him play tonight.

My mum didn't go. I didn't blame her for not coming either. Why would she want to be stuck sitting by the cynical soul that was my father, and her husband? Yeah, I wished she'd support me every once in a while but the price wasn't to bear. I missed when she used to ask me how matches went before I turned just as cynical as my father. I lost her support all on my own. 

"Game on," I told myself as I opened my bedroom door and left my room, my thoughts not on the match but on how many seconds I had before I was facing off with my dad.

There were 11 and a half seconds.

"Louis," my dad said to me. He was waiting by the front door with his shoes, coat, and hat on. That meant that he'd be watching me; not the team, just me. 

"Yeah?" I asked him, already knowing what he'd be saying to me.

"You lads are playing Northwich tonight, They'll be tough to beat since they're 8-1 and you're only 6-3." 

The words that stood out to me the most were 'they' vs. 'you'. It wasn't the team who was 6-3. It was just me.

"Thanks for the encouragement," I muttered to him as I began to walk past him so I could get out of there and as far away from him as I possibly could. 

"What was that?" He asked me as he grabbed my shoulder roughly. "I was giving you a head's up because you should be 9-0. Maybe you should be focusing on actually going for the ball instead of waiting for it to be given to. Waiting around will get you nowhere." He let go of my shoulder.

It was just a school's team, The only person who cared, if that's even the word to even describe it, was my dad. 

I hoped I couldn't find his face tonight. I should even try to look up at the stands at all. With my luck, he'd be the first person I would see.