Robert Mann

       Rob had been going places, and he’d been going to them while juggling a ball between his feet. He wasn’t just being cocky when he said he was good; his coach agreed, and soon the scouts did too. Bearing down on the ball, he felt like a demigod. Watching it sail into the top corner of the net, he was a downright deity.

       Okay, so he was a little cocky. But that didn’t change the fact that the scouts wanted him on their teams.

       But then he came along. Kyle Perry, that dodgy bastard. He had talent, but he was known for stirring up shit - getting into afters with goalies and argy-bargy with the refs. He was infamous. So when he “accidentally” tripped Rob, nobody was too surprised. It was the stomping on Rob’s knee that really shocked everyone. The noise it made was particularly disturbing.

       What the fuck I ever do to you?, Rob asked, maybe out loud, maybe in his head. The sharpness of the pain in his knee made everything else dull and blurred in comparison. They carried him away on a stretcher. They pumped him full of painkillers.

       Surgery couldn’t solve everything. His knees were already crocked from all the years of playing and practicing; the stomp just sped up the inevitable by about a decade. Rob’s career was over. The satisfaction that Kyle’s was too wasn’t enough – throughout the rehabilition process, Rob nursed a grudge as well as his aching joints.

       This grew into elaborate revenge fantasies. He never committed them to paper, just in case a police officer ever showed up on his doorstep (there was a suspicious amount of painkillers in his bathroom), but he harboured them in the back of his mind. On his darkest days, some of his plans seemed frighteningly possible.

       Kyle happened to show up on one of those days. This was the first time Rob had really seen him since the game. Kyle had never apologized, a fact that fueled some of Rob’s fantasies.

       Kyle was a mess. He looked as if the last time he’d gotten any sleep had been a nap on a hard bench about a week ago. His hair, which had always been slicked back with gel, flopped in his face and lacked lustre. He looked Rob in the eyes and told him he was sorry. He looked on the verge of tears, though tired people tend to constantly look like they’re going to cry. Rob invited him in and offered him a beer.

PHOTO BY JDIPIERRO, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THE STORY ABOVE IS FICTITIOUS AND ANY RESEMBLANCE TO PERSONS LIVING OR DEAD IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL.

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