74 The Storm After The Calm

Warning: This chapter has every tendency to, and probably will, piss some people off. Not my best work, I admit but things will get better, I promised.

Shit!

He missed Amber's match. Even though it wasn't his fault, he could've called her ahead of time to tell her that he wasn't going to be able to watch her match. It was wrong of him to just leave like that after promising her that he was going to watch her match.

"Fuck me" Omari muttered under his breath. He continued walking to his house. His pace slowed significantly though. After remembering how he had messed up, each step felt like a boulder was attached to his legs. It was like he was feeling the fatigue from the match he just finished playing and something else.

After walking for several minutes, while simultaneously brainstorming excuses to tell Amber, he saw a surprise waiting for him at his doorstep. A surprise that he wasn't entirely ready for.

"There you are" Amber said as soon as he reached his house. Her tone didn't contain the relief that a person's voice usually had whenever they found what they were looking for. He voice was exceptionally dry.

Omari opened his mouth to talk, but Amber stretched out her hand. "I don't want to hear whatever excuse that you might've cooked up this time. I'm sick of hearing them, I hate them"

"I-I…" Omari tried to talk but he ended up stuttering. "Look… i-it wasn't my fault" He said finally.

His words caused Amber to chuckle. "It wasn't your fault that you couldn't use your cell phone to make a phone call?" She asked him sarcastically.

As soon as Amber responded, he realized how pathetic his excuse sounded. It was his fault no matter how saw it. No matter what, he should've at least informed her that he wasn't going to be able to make it to her match.

"You know what?" Amber said. "Let's hear it. What's the excuse this time around? Your coach said that you should come early to do extra training? Or you just love playing football so much that you couldn't wait for an hour or so to watch me train"

Omari exhaled. Amber was angry, he understood that. He also understood that she had the right to be.

"I made my senior debut today" Omari said lightly.

Amber looked like she was about to talk down on whatever excuse Omari was about to say but her expression softened when she heard that Omari made his senior debut.

The fact that her face softened didn't mean that the storm was over for Omari though. He recognized a new emotion settling into her gaze, an emotion that Omari knew all too well. She was hurt.

"You were going to make your senior debut today, and you didn't tell me?" Amber's voice broke as she asked that question.

Omari sighed. Right now, Amber was like a raging fire that only seemed to get wilder no matter what he tried to do to calm it.

"I uh… I…" Omari was tongue tied. He couldn't think of an excuse to give her at that point. "I didn't think of it" He said finally.

"So I'm not that important to you?" Amber asked

Omari opened his mouth to talk, but then he closed it back. He really didn't understand what was wrong with Amber. He didn't even tell his own parents about the fact that he made his debut today, in hindsight, he realized that he should've done better.

"That's not what happened" Omari said finally. "I was so excited I didn't…"

"Don't you dare tell me that you were so .excited you didn't think of telling me" Amber said finally.

Omari sighed lightly. He didn't know what to say anymore. Amber wasn't giving him any space to try and defend himself.

After Amber spoke, the pair spent a full minute in awkward silence. Omari looked like he wanted to speak several times during the minute of silence but he kept closing his mouth.

"Tell me" Amber said all of a sudden. "What's more important to you, me or football"

When Amber asked that question, Omari wanted to laugh. Barring the seriousness of the situation, Omari would've burst out into uncontrollable laughter.

Right now, he wasn't sure that he wouldn't regret his decision later on, but the only thing that was most important to him was football. Football was his life, football was his reason for living. Without football, he'd be dead. Football was everything to him.

On the other hand, the person that was asking wasn't just any random person. It was Amber. He knew his answer to the question the moment that she said it but to say it was the hard part. In the end he could only stay quiet. He believed she was smart, she should know the meaning of his silence.

"Did I even have to ask?" Amber said. She scoffed after she made that statement. "I should've known. You know, if someone asked me to choose between football and you then I'd have easily chose you. Up until now, I thought it was the same for you"

After she said those words, she turned around and started walking away.

"If it really was going to be that easy choosing me over football" Omari said all of a sudden making Amber pause in her steps. "Then you're playing football or all the wrong reasons. I've said it before, football isn't your dream. You're probably just playing it because you want to get your parents' approval. I respect what you're after but you're going around this the wrong way" Omari continued.

Amber turned around. Omari could see teardrops forming at the corner of her eyes. "Who the fuck do you think you are to talk to me about such matters?"

"I'm just a… friend telling another friend the truth" Omari said. "Do you know why you haven't been scouted yet? It's not because you're not good enough because you're easily one of the best players in the school squad. It's because you lack the passion, the drive, the emotion that almost every other player has"

"Shut. The. Fuck. Up" Amber said while gritting her teeth.

"You're only getting angry or hurt or whatever because you think, no, you know that I'm right" Omari said. "I'll be waiting your phone call later to tell me how right I was" Omari said.

Amber snorted and turned around to leave for the second time that evening. And for the second time, she came to a halt because of something that Omari said.

"I'm sorry by the way, for not telling you about the debut, or giving you a phone call. I admit that was wrong of me" Omari started walking to his house. "But I'm not sorry for telling you the truth"

A/N: Same old, same old

100 P.S = 1 extra chapter

Fifteen chapter comments = 1 extra chapter

Book getting contracted = 2 extra chapters and an update rate of two chapters a day for the next two weeks.