Forgive and Forget

Amy Winehouse’s soulful voice flowing from the speakers of her mother’s black BMW 3-series, she pulled into the parking lot by her younger brother’s high school. Stopping outside of the stairs up to the main entrance, she grabbed her phone from the centre console and sent him a text, letting him know she was there.

Shutting off the engine, she stepped out into the air that was surprisingly warm for the middle of May and leaning back against the hood of the car, she slipped on her sunglasses and turned her face towards the warm sun, the warm rays feeling amazing against her already tanned skin. A slight breeze in the air caused the skirt of her dress to flutter around her toned thighs.

Hearing her name being called just a short while later, she picked her head up and looked over, breaking out in a wide grin as her blue eyes landed on the approaching form of her brother. “Hey,” she greeted him with a short hug. “You ready to go?”

“Yeah,” he confirmed with a nod, rounding the small car and throwing his duffle bag into the backseat of the car before getting into the passenger seat.

Rolling her eyes at his typically teenaged answer, she climbed back into the car and started up the engine. Driving out of the parking lot, she drove down the familiar streets of the city she’d grown up in, in the even more familiar direction of the airport.

Neither of them said anything more till they were out on the freeway, more than halfway to the country’s biggest airport, she could however feel her brother’s brilliant blue eyes on her from time to time.

“Do you think they’re going to like me? Think that I'm good enough?” he questioned after a moment, causing her to glance over at him.

“They wouldn't ask you to fly out if they didn't,” she pointed out with a small smile, remembering when he’d called her some weeks earlier, telling her about the club who’s interest he’d peaked during a tournament. How they wanted him to come for a tryout at their academy.

“I just...” he trailed off. “I'm just not sure that I'm actually good enough,” he admitted softly, she was the only one of his siblings he dared to share his feelings with. “Good enough to take it somewhere, I mean,” he elaborated as he saw her furrowed brows. “Maybe I'm good enough to get into the academy, but that doesn’t mean I'm ever going to be good enough to actually play in the club, to even play on that kind of level.”

“You know you're good,” she told him frankly. “And whatever happens during these days, no matter if they accept you or not, your future as a football player is up to you, it’s in your hands,” she reminded him. “It’s not so much the talent you have as it’s about the dedication you show, the amount of time you're willing to put in to be better, to be the best.”

“At least we know what you should become once this whole travelling the world thing you got going gets old,” he said after a moment during which he started at her strangely.

“And what is that?” she humoured him as she pulled off on the exit towards the airport. A place she’d last seen some 48 hours earlier when she returned from close to 6 months as a travel guide in Thailand.

“A motivational speaker,” he smirked at her, yelping as she reached over and smacked him in the back of the head.

Driving down the four lane straight to the airport, she could only shake her head at him, “Shut up.”


-x-

The only one left in the dressing room, he folded the last of his clothes that had been laying around in the locker for longer than he wanted to remember. He’d changed dressing rooms as well as lockers a number of times during the years but some things just sort of moved along, never really getting cleared out.

Taking down the handful of photos in the back of the locker, a small smile played on his lips as he could remember each time they’d been taken, where they’d been taken. His brown eyes lingering slightly longer on one of them, he placed them too into the duffle bag and made sure he hadn't left anything behind.

Sure it felt strange to leave the place he’d spent so many years in, but like so many people were telling him as of late, it was time to move on. His talent demanded a bigger arena than he was playing on and for that to happen he had to move away from the club that lay so close to his heart.

Throwing one more look back at the familiar locker room, he smiled softly before swinging his bag onto his shoulder and pushing his hands into the pockets of his loose fitting jeans as he headed out towards his car.

He had no idea what his future held now, but whatever happened, he was looking forwards to it.