Expect The Unexpected: A Short Story

I have learned to live by the catch phrase of the big time show, Big Brother, on CBS. “Expect the Unexpected”. On this particular day I did not. The same rude and angry tone my sister had every morning when she yelled at me to turn off my school alarm. It was a bit cold that morning with the early chill but that’s just because southern California isn’t used to the cold. I got to school that day and the hype was insane for the soccer list to come out. My friends and I have been waiting for this moment for six years now. This was our special year and we all knew it. It had meant everything to us. We were ready to take on senior year as a team and then winning CIF, the major playoff system my state had after high school league, together.

It was the kind of nap you wake up and think you skipped something such as dinner or even slept through the night. Nevertheless, my phone had blown up while I was asleep so I had known the list was out. Without reading the texts, my eager self was ready to see the list and who would be playing alongside me my senior year. I look at the roster, thoroughly confused to not see my name. For me I think to myself, surely it is a mistake, except with the terrifying thought in the back of my head that this was indeed, not a mistake at all but reality. After fully bringing myself together, I had known that the coach did not put me on the team. The hours in my room I spent sobbing salty tears pondering the decision that the coach had made had me sick to my stomach, as well as extremely confused. Both my parents gave me unexpected responses to the situation as if they knew this was going to be the outcome all along. I was so curious until hours later that night both me and my dad could not sleep. He said, “sorry son this is my fault.” I was filled with mixed emotion; anger, sadness, grief, etc. My body could not function and I could not get the words “why” to come out of my mouth no matter how hard I tried. He came to my room to eventually tell me that him and the coach had come to a very staggering disagreement and he figured he might pull a stunt like

Everybody was curious as to why but I had no answer for them except for, “I don’t know.”

I took a bath that night which I never had, turned off the lights and just cried endless tears. As I sat down in the pitch darkness I thought to myself, what if everything had panned out differently. What if I had woken up and my name was on the list. Either way it was done with and I would not be able to play soccer my senior year. Nobody at school could every imagine the emotional emptiness I had been through the past 24 hours. My sister never even bothered to ask if I had been okay. All I knew was that I wanted to be on that team more than anything, and it had been taken away from me and my “potential teammates”.

Soccer has taught me all sorts of life lessons and it came with friends that I can call brothers. With all this, I learned to take your weaknesses and make them your strengths. Being cut from the team encouraged me to work even harder than before in the offseason and try to get a scholarship to a small school. With that not working out I went to Cu-Boulder for business and tried out for the club team. I made the team, I could not be happier and neither can my family and