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It’s a punishment.
My mom’s punishment.
But I guess my therapist caught me at a bad time.
Because I’ve had a shitty fucking day.
Four girls, on separate occasions, stopped me in the hallway to tell me about their love of soccer. To tell me how they’ve seen every one of my games and how I’m their favorite player.
It’s fucking high school again.
At least back in high school, I had Sarah. Not that that stopped the overeager girls but still. There was some relief.
“Why do you say that?” Dr. Bernstein asks, breaking my thoughts.
I sigh and run my fingers through my hair. “Because it’s not about the sport. It’s just an activity to reform them. Teach them team building. That’s why my mom put me up to this.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Because she knew it would bug me. It would remind me of my mistake over and over. So I never make it again.”
That’s what my mother does.
She highlights my mistakes – which are very rare and far between – so I never make them again.
She knew I would hate coaching schoolgirls and that was the reason she gave me this job. To remind me of what I could be doing right this second as compared to what I have to do.
I remember one year my math score wasn’t perfect. It was a shock to her and to me both. Because I’m good at math. I could do math in my sleep.
My mother went to the school with me to have a chat with the teacher and to find out if there was a mistake in my scores. Turns out there wasn’t. I’d misread a number and hence, solved the equation wrong. She brought home my test, underlined that equation and stuck it up on the fridge.
So I’d see it every day. So I’d be reminded of my stupid mistake every time I went to get a glass of milk or juice.
Needless to say, I never misread a number again.
“Just because your dad is gone doesn’t mean you can slack off. In fact, you have to work harder, Arrow. You have to work harder than everyone else. You have to do what he didn’t have the time to do. You have to truly become your father’s son.”
So in order to do that, in order to become my father’s son, she made me perfect.
She punished every single mistake of mine to the extent that I never made it again.
If I ate too many cookies before dinner and ruined my appetite, she forced me to eat every bite on the plate. It took me throwing up a couple of times from the stomachache before I learned not to do that.
If I ever fucked up a game or a test at school, she would make me stand in the dark until I learned to never ever screw up my passes or misspell a word on a test.
I think I was twelve or something by the time I was fully trained, by the time I became my father’s true son.
Well, I truly became his son the day they drafted me to LA Galaxy and named me The Blond Arrow. But still.
“Well, that’s a little intense.”
My therapist’s voice brings me back to the moment. “My mother’s intense.”
She is.
She’s always been that way.
Sometimes I wonder though. If she was like this when Dad was alive. Or if his sudden death has made her even more stern.
Because it can get exhausting at times. It can get tiring, trying to meet her approval, trying to be perfect 24/7.
But it is what it is.
I have to pay the price if I want to be The Blond Arrow, don’t I? Plus, she’s my mother. She has brought me up herself, made sacrifices for me.
I owe her everything.
“I think we should talk about it, about your mother,” Dr. Bernstein says.
“I think we shouldn’t.”
She stares at me a beat. “Can’t you just quit? Your job, I mean.”
“No, I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I made a mistake and I have to pay for it.”
“You know, it’s okay to not beat yourself up like this.”
As soon as Dr. Lola fucking Bernstein says this, I’m reminded of her.
The girl with thirteen freckles and a penchant for dangerous and desolate places.
My secret keeper friend.
My secret keeper friend who tried to kiss me.
She tried to put her mouth on me like some kind of a lovesick schoolgirl.
How naïve does she have to be to do that? How fucking reckless and careless to try to kiss someone as angry and as agitated as me.
How fucking stupid?
And so, my next words to my therapist come out clipped. “Maybe it’s okay for you and for other people to not beat themselves up. But it’s not okay for me. If I don’t beat myself up, then I make mistakes. If I make mistakes, then I’m not perfect. If I’m not perfect, then I can’t be who I am. I can’t be The Blond Arrow. So maybe it’s okay for other people to cut themselves some slack. But I don’t get that luxury because I have to be my father’s son. I have to make his dream come true.”
