Grey Skies

Chapter 11

Sorry for the long wait, but next chapter should make up for it(; Thank you for the support!

Chapter Eleven

Absolutely not.

I trusted Davis. I trusted his judgment. He knew what he was doing, up until now. I stare at the ball at my feet. Tryouts were days away. I was years behind. He says I'm ready. I'm nowhere near. My heart pounds. My palms sweat. My ankle throbs.

The only thought roaming my mind is the fact that I can't. It nearly knocks me unconscious--the idea that something I was able to do with ease now supercedes my ability. That I was once good enough and now I'm just not. How does someone deal with that? How is it ever okay? I guess that's what they have psychologists for. Maybe I should go see one. Tell me what's wrong with me. Fix me all over.

"Come on Grey, I'm getting old."

"Shut up."

I'm having a midlife crisis way too early, I want to say. I am way too young for this. I still had a good twenty years before I should have had to deal with this-graying hair, menopause, my age-stuff. God, if this is only a fraction of the crisis, I don't know how my parents do it. Does it happen to everyone?

"Hey Davis, how'd you handle your midlife crisis?"

He chokes on his water.

"When I said I was getting old, I was joking." he says, wiping at his lip with the back of his hand. "How old do you even think I am?"

"Behavior wise or you know, what's on your actual birth certificate?"

"Funny," he says with a sarcastic smile. "I'm Twenty Seven. People tell me that I look even younger than that."

"People lie."

He gave me a hard look and I smiled. Then, as if he finally remembered what brought this conversation in the first place, he asks, "What are you talking about a midlife crisis for? If this is your way of avoiding touching a ball today, I'm not having it."

I sigh and lay on the ground. The gray clouds block the sun, float in the sky, and pass each other with ease. All knowing their place. All looking the same, and yet drastically different. All important in their own way. Maybe not to me, but to someone, something.

I am someone's cloud.

I block someone's annoying Sun.

I can touch a damn soccer ball.

I sit up, only temporarily addressing the fact that I've been doing more sitting than anything else as of lately, and then reach for the ball. My palm runs over the patches and my nails pick at the stitching. Was it ridiculous to be afraid of some ball, especially one that used to make you so happy?

I can feel Davis near me, silently waiting.

"I'm not. It's just. . . have you ever felt stuck? Like you know what you want but you don't know how to get it?"

He kneels in front of me and smiles. His eyes lean more toward green today but I can't bring myself to look at them for too long. "Yeah," he says quietly, "I think I might know how that feels."

I look up from the soccer ball, noticing for the first time the freckles splayed across his nose and cheeks. I smile but a part of me wants to cry again, but I've already cried one too many times in front of Davis. It was beginning to worry me how I don't really have a control of my emotions anymore. I don't really have control of anything anymore.

"I know I want this, believe me. I want my life back, but. . . but I don't know how to get it back."

"You'll be okay, Grey. You wanna know how I know?"