Page 4 of After the Siren
‘No, I don’t think you’ve made a mistake.’
‘Why? Why wasthisthe right call?’
She regarded him steadily. ‘You should know the answer to that.’
‘Humour me.’
‘You didn’t tell anyone about the offer because you thought we’d try to talk you out of it. That means you wanted it.’
It had been more than that. It had felt like it might vanish if he’d told anyone, dissolve in his hands. That didn’t feel like awhy, though. The offer had come almost out of the blue. He’d been waiting to be delisted, ready to enrol full-time at uni. Then there’d been Kat Lloyd’s soft, matter-of-fact voice over the phone. Sure, he was steak knives, but a second chance was a second chance.
Priya abandoned whatever it was she was doing with the HDMI cable but stayed kneeling next to the table.
‘You remember that game I came to watch?’
‘Your first and last.’
It had been a high-school game: a preliminary final. She’d been roped into coming as part of a gaggle of Theo’s debating friends. They’d won the granny the week after; he’d kicked five goals and felt like he’d never come down from the high.
‘It was funny seeing you out there. I mean, I knew you very well, but it was like seeing a different person. Or ...’ She paused. ‘Not a different person. It was like seeing you be yourself in a way I’d never seen before.’ She busied herself rearranging thesnacks. ‘It was weird, too – you’re the furthest from a bossy person, but you were just so in command. You know how I feel about sports. I had no idea what was going on. But any time the ball came near you, you were gesturing and shouting, and the other players just did what you said. You snapped your fingers and all of these lads who would never have spoken to us in a hundred years at school were falling over themselves to get the ball to you.’ She grinned at him. ‘The significance of you having the ball was mostly lost on me, but it was impressive. And then you won and I think it was the first time I’d ever seen you lookjoyful.’
He hadn’t thought about those junior games for a long time. They’d been swallowed up by week after week of stats and schedules and the creeping realisation that he was fucking it up.
‘But Ifailed, Priy.’ He hadn’t said that to anyone before. Not even on the way to the hospital while she’d laughed at his jokes and kept one hand resting on his. ‘I wasn’t good enough.’
‘Bullshit. If that were true, you wouldn’t be here.’
‘Single, in a new city, with no friends, living in my sister’s guestroom so I can be kept under surveillance?’
He didn’t mind living with Eva, even if it did sometimes feel like living with a stranger. Of all his siblings, she was the closest to him in age, but she’d moved out of their parents’ house when he was ten. His two eldest siblings, Simon and Alisa, were more like an uncle and an aunt. He loved Eva, but they weren’t close. Still, when he’d told her he was moving to Melbourne, she’d offered him the spare room in her two-storey terrace. Right after she’d finished telling him off for signing a legal document she hadn’t read.
He’d sworn Eva to secrecy and told her about ‘the incident’ (as he called it in his mind), because Priya would worry if he hadn’t told anyone in Melbourne. Maybe softened some of the details a little. ‘I’m on medication now, it’s much better.’ (It wasn’t alie.)
Priya clicked her tongue, disapproving. ‘Always chasing something.’ She sighed and rocked back on her heels. ‘You know I hate being earnest, so just be quiet and let me finish, and then we can go back to being glib and dismissive.’
He nodded obediently.
‘Football was the only thing I ever saw you do for yourself. And you cared about it enough to pursue it even when lots of people in your life told you it was stupid. Including me.’ Her grin was rueful. ‘I know the last two years have been shit. But you wouldn’t be getting a second chance if people at the Hawks —’
‘Falcons,’ he corrected.
‘Whatever, they’re all scary birds – if the Falcons hadn’t seen something in you that they liked. So, you haven’t failed.’
‘I might, though.’
‘Yeah, but at least you haven’t just given it up to become a moderately successful lawyer who bores all the grads with stories about how you’ – she puffed out her chest and assumed a tortured expression – ‘could have been a football star if only you’d taken that deal.’
‘Excuse me, I would be a very successful lawyer.’
‘Not if you’re tormented by thoughts of what might have been. Aren’t there some motivational sports quotes about the courage to risk failure that we could stick to your mirror? Being in the arena or some shit?’
‘Eva is way ahead of you there. She keeps pointedly leaving books about stress and perfectionism on the coffee table.’ He leaned forward to close the YouTube tab. ‘Thanks, Priy.’
She reached up and ruffled his hair. ‘That’s all the earnest you’re getting for the year.’
‘Noted.’
‘And we’re watchingPrincess Mononokefirst. I’ve changed my mind.’
