Always the Only One [Prologue / ?]
“What do you need, Hope, are you okay? Do you need me to come out there?”
The worry in her brother’s voice comes through loud and clear, even if the words are muffled by the bad connection, the shoddy reception out there in the middle of some wide forgotten wilderness. She can picture him, his thick leather work boots, faded jeans. Some old t-shirt, maybe a hole in the collar, a streak of dirt across his chest, and a ball cap pulled down over his eyes to block out the noonday sun.
And as she imagines him, with their father’s gentle eyes and their mother’s firm mouth, she’s tempted to say yes. Just for a moment. She’s tempted to let her big brother fly out and help her untangle the mess she’s found herself in again.
But she can’t. He’s got enough on his plate, and there’s nothing to be done. No quick and easy fix to make things right again.
No, she got into this mess all on her own. She’ll just have to deal with the fallout.
Still. she wishes she could say yes, wishes it was years ago again, and he could fix everything with a bandaid and a popsicle again.
Instead, she rubs a thumb at the space between her eyes and turns down his offer. “No, Marc,” she says into the phone with a sigh, “I’m fine. I’ll be fine. I’m just tired, you know? I just need a break, some time away to figure out what to do about my career, my life.”
She takes a deep breath, and he can see her so clearly in his mind, so far, far away. She’ll be sitting outside, knees drawn up into her chest as she hunches in on herself. Even as a kid she did that, tried to make herself smaller, tried to fold up inside of herself. Like she could disappear into the space where her body was supposed to be.
Like if no one could see her, no one could hurt her.
It never quite worked, Marcus remembers, visions of his sister through the years dancing across his eyes. The world still always knew where she was, always knew how to cut her where it’d hurt the most.
“I was thinking–” she starts, but he interrupts, cuts her off before she can finish whatever she was going to say.
“Come home, Hope,” he tells her. “Pack a bag, hop on a plane, and come home. Hang out with your niece and nephew, take long morning rides in the fields, spend your afternoons napping on the porch. Whatever you want, whatever you need. Just come home.”
She blinks away the tears that gather and threaten to spill over, to run, hot, down her cheeks.
“Marc, I–” but her word fades into silence as something in her chest cracks open, the place where she’s buried every dream, every want, every need that wasn’t her job, that wasn’t “Hope Solo, number one goalkeeper in the world,” the brand that followed her every move, every thought. A most unwelcome shadow, a prison disguised as a genie’s wish.
“I’m so tired, Marc,” she whispers, “I’m so tired of it all. The fans, the players, the press. I don’t even feel like me anymore. I don’t even know who I am anymore.”
Her voice cracks, breaks, as she confesses everything she’s been bottling up for so long. As she feels everything seep out of her, all the anger and fear and contrived detachment, the role she’s played for so long.
“I know, Hope,” Marcus says quietly, in a voice almost like a lullaby, “but maybe this is exactly what you need. A break from everything. An escape. You know,” he adds gently, “it’s okay to run away sometimes. To give yourself some space to breathe and think.”
She’s silent, the only sound on the other end of the line is her breathing, hitched and heavy, and if he wasn’t worried before, if the media reports and the weeks and months of unanswered voicemails on her phone weren’t enough to concern him, it was her silence.
Because the Hope Solo he knows and loves, the Hope Solo he’d grown up with and cheered for and watched become one of the best athletes in the world?
That Hope Solo would have jumped on his words faster than he could get them off his tongue, an almost violent “I’ve never run away from anything in my life, Marcus” in an icy tone.
But this Hope, this Hope who is a stranger to him, to even herself, it seems, just sucks in a shaky breath.
“I’m so tired of running, Marcus,” she tells him, and the ache and pain inside of her is plain. He can almost hear her heart bleeding.
“I know, honey,” he says softly, soothingly, “I know.” It’s the voice he’s rocked his children to sleep with, the voice he’s whispered his love to his wife with in the earliest light of the dawn. It’s everything good and gentle inside of him, and he hopes that even through the crackle of the phone line, even through the static, she can hear it.
“Just come home, Hope,” he tells his sister once more, and it’s not a question, it’s a command. A fatherly request: Come home. Let us carry your burdens for a while, heal your wounds. Come home and let us make you light with life and laughter and love.
He hears the tell-tale echo of his own voice in the earpiece, and knows that they’re just borrowing time before the call drops, before their connection is lost once again, and he’s about to speak when a shaky “okay” comes through, her voice rough and ragged and wet with tears, and he breathes a sigh of relief.
“I love you, kid,” he says, even knowing that they’ll talk again soon, because she needs to hear it, needs to remember that he’ll always have her back.
When he ends the call, Marcus leans back in his leather chair, boots up on the desk in front of him, and sighs.
It’s not the best timing. They’re down at least two members of staff and they’re fully booked through their busy season.
But Hope’s his sister, and she needs him. She needs this–home and family and the freedom to rediscover what she wants out of the world, who she wants to be in it.
They’ll make do, they always do.
“Hey, honey,” he shouts down the hall that leads to the family room, bringing his feet down and standing up, “guess what–Hope’s coming for a visit…”
(I miss O’Solo too.)
Prologue Ch 1 Ch 2 Ch 3 Ch 4 Ch 5 Ch 6 Ch 7 Ch 8 Ch 9 Ch 10 Ch 11 Ch 12 Ch 13 Ch 14 Epilogue














