Page 28 of Love and Other Goals

We head out the door, holding our slushie cups and water bottles. As we near the truck, Mateo asks, “What do you say we leave the truck parked here and walk across the street to campus? There’s a shaded area with some picnic tables not too far.”

I agree, and we stand at the crosswalk waiting for a break in traffic. “Have you tried it yet? Is it the best post-workout drink you’ve ever tasted?”

Mateo takes a sip. “I’ll give you that it tastes great. I’ll fight you that it can be classified as a post-workout drink,” he quips. We jog across the street before the next wave of cars comes through and walk along the sidewalk to a small alcove with tables outside of the engineering building. There are lots of trees shading the area and a cool breeze blowing, making it the perfect place to sit and relax.

We sit on two benches next to each other around a square table, and I make a show of opening my water bottle and taking a long drink. “See? I’m hydrating.”

“I approve,” Mateo says before doing the same. He then takes a drink of his slushie before continuing, “So, you’re obviously going to have to tell me a little more about that soccer show back there.”

I smile down at the table and switch to sipping my slushie. “Yeah, no one at Townsend knows that I used to be so hardcore about soccer. I mean, Teegan and Amaya know that I was on the soccer team in high school, but even they have no idea how competitively I played.”

“Or how incredibly skilled you are?” Mateo asks with a raised eyebrow. I blush. “So, the bow and arrow—was that your signature goal celebration?”

“Starting my sophomore year of high school, it was,” I tell him. “I played on our high school team, but in the fall seasons I always played with a club team. It was an ongoing gift from my grandparents on my dad’s side, to pay the fees for me to play club soccer. I switched to a new team in a different league sophomore year, and our team name was The Archers. There was an archery range that agreed to sponsor our team if we adopted the name.”

Mateo rolls his eyes. “I know exactly how that goes. I once played on a team called The Locomotives, thanks to an auto parts store.”

“That definitely makes Archers not seem so bad,” I say with a giggle. “In our first game, I scored a goal in minute three, and that’s just the celebration that my brain landed on in that moment of adrenaline. My teammates and our sideline went crazy, so it just sort of stuck. Of course, my dad decided to be super embarrassing and started bringing a sign that said ‘Bullseye’ to hold up every time I scored.”

“But you kind of loved it,” Mateo says with a mischievous grin.

“You’re right, I totally did,” I laugh.

He leans in with one elbow propped on the table between us. “So…why didn’t you keep playing? It sure looked like you had the skill to play for a college team. What made you decide not to?”

I fiddle with my slushie straw for a minute. Eventually, I turn toward him to prop my toes on the edge of his bench. Wrapping my arms around my legs, I rest my chin on my knees while I think.

“I don’t know,” I start. “Well, that’s not true, I do know, but sometimes I wonder if my logic was flawed.”

Mateo props his head with one hand and just looks at me with those perfect brown eyes, not pushing but just waiting expectantly.

“I had my plan all laid out, knowing exactly what I was going to major in, what activities I would join, what leadership check marks I needed on my résumé to prepare for law school,” I finally share. “I knew it was going to take a lot of focus to be prepared to apply at the beginning of my senior year. And I also knew that college athletics takes a lot of time, attention, and dedication, even at the DII or DIII level.”

Mateo nods. “You’re not wrong there.”

“So, even though I had soft offers from a couple of schools, I just shut it down. I decided I was done after my senior year because I had to focus on my long-term future plan. I haven’t even touched a soccer ball since the final game of my senior spring season. It’s like I just quarantined that area of my life to the past. Even though it used to make me so happy.”

Mateo is quiet for a minute, taking in what I’d shared. “And how was it being back out on the field today?” he asks.

I can’t stop myself from grinning widely. “Completely amazing. It’s like every muscle in my body had just been waiting to be called up to perform again. I don’t know that I’ve had that much fun since coming to Townsend. Thanks so much for letting us play, even if it did result in extra running for you tomorrow. I feel bad about that.”

He smiles back at me and says, “I’ll gladly run extra laps in the name of you remembering how much fun soccer is.”

I take a drink of my slushie and wave toward Mateo. “You’ve heard my soccer origin story, now you need to tell me yours. What made you get started playing?”

“Well, if we’re going to talk origin story, then I guess we’ll need to call it fútbol, since that’s what most of the world calls soccer, including Guatemala.” Mateo winks at me. I love the authentic way he pronounces Guatemala. “My dad grew up playing soccer all the time, never on an organized team, but just for fun with the kids on his street. There wasn’t any opportunity for him to play seriously, but he always loved the sport.”

He’s smiling to himself, and I silently soak in how sweet he is every time he talks about his family.

“When my dad had sons living in America, he couldn’t wait for us to be able to play ‘real fútbol’,” he says in an accented voice, I assume mimicking his father. “He was out in the yard teaching my brother Miguel and me soccer drills basically when we started walking. We joined teams as soon as we were old enough.

“When Miguel hit middle school, he decided he wanted to start playing American football with the kids from school. And my dad totally supported him in that. Dad was always cheering him on from the stands, but he couldn’t offer much by way of extra coaching since he wasn’t very familiar with the sport.

“But I always loved the extra time with my dad kicking the ball around in the backyard, so I stuck with soccer. When my sixth-grade coach told my parents that I might have the natural talent to play in college one day, my dad started working harvest jobs again just to be able to pay the club fees for a better team in a nearby city.”

Mateo pauses, lost in the memory. He clears his throat before continuing. “My dad always pushed me to do my best, to constantly improve, but he also always told me how proud he was of me, even when I played poorly. The day I got the offer to play at Townsend was one of the best days of my life, watching my dad cry while we talked to Coach Anderson on speaker. I had an offer to a school closer to home, but Dad had done all sorts of research and was convinced that Coach Anderson was going to be the next great men’s soccer coach. So here I am.”

My heart is a melted puddle thinking about Mateo with his sweet dad. “Do they ever get to come watch you play?” I ask.

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