We were tied at two - two. 

​

I was up two - nothing a few minutes ago, but a few mistakes gave away my lead. Now, I had the ball. I took a deep breath, released my foot, and started to dribble. 

 

***

 

Soccer was his favorite sport. 

​

And it had been mine, too. We played it everywhere—against weathered walls, behind school buildings, or on fields covered with snow that rose to our shins. It didn’t bother us that we didn’t have proper cleats or that there often wasn’t a goal; our passion for soccer transcended such trivialities. As long as there was a ball and space, we seized every opportunity to play. We loved the finesse of the sport, the feeling of striking a ball and watching it twirl in an elegant, crescent path through the air. Even when the rain barred us from playing outside, our heated debates on the next Ballon d’Or winner echoed around the dinner table. 

​

Aside from our passion for soccer, my cousin Tianyu and I had nothing in common. I grew up in a well-off household in Shenzhen, a first-tier city in China. He came from Huainan, a town in the Anhui province, shrouded in all the silt and dust from the coal plants that littered its streets. Tianyu was raised in a family of modest means. Unlike me, he didn’t study abroad or travel to fancy places for vacation. However, he found joy in the simplest things—eating his favorite meal, watching the World Cup on his TV, or spending time with our grandparents. Six months younger, he was a head shorter than me but stockier. The muscles of his thighs and calves flexed with every stride. His hair was trimmed low, and paired with his thick neck and square jaw, gave him a mean look that overshadowed the humorous person he was inside. Whether it was cracking a joke about his fear of developing a bald spot or boasting about a girl in his school who secretly had a crush on him, Tianyu’s energy was infectious; even when his voice turned raspy from all the screaming during the soccer matches, he’d still laugh like a broken machine. 

​

We saw each other every summer when I visited my extended family in Anhui province. Since Huainan had no airports, my family first flew for six hours to Hefei, the nearest city. As the airport's sliding doors opened, we were ambushed by swarms of touts, all clamoring for our attention to ride their cabs or book their overpriced motels. We pushed our way through the crowd, brushing aside the flyers thrust into our faces and dodging the spit that escaped their mouths. Then came the long wait at the bus station, where, with smog and dust from passing cars burning our eyes and throats, we waited hours—sometimes days—for a hot, bumpy shuttle to Anhui. 

​

Family gatherings were squeezed into my grandfather’s tiny apartment, with twenty relatives sharing two bedrooms and a living room. The dinner table could only fit eight people, so the rest ate on the sofa, sometimes on the floor. I always ended up on the floor. As my extended family chatted away in rapid-fire and incomprehensible Jianghuai dialect, I pretended to follow along—nodding when they discussed job openings or mustering a chuckle when they gossiped about my older cousin’s new girl. I ducked as their arms reached over me for grandma’s special steamed pork, squishing my tiny body out of the competition. Their chopsticks snapped up dumplings like a heron’s beak, clamping five or six at a time, while their spoons swooped down to claim the last of the mapo tofu. By the time the battle settled, only a few pieces of soggy broccoli were left for me.

​

I was surrounded by family, yet it only deepened my loneliness. With no internet at Grandpa’s apartment, I couldn’t call any of my friends or use my phone at all, and the isolation only grew as I struggled to understand my relatives. I didn’t know why they were so different from me, I just knew they were. The complexity of class relations and interpersonal dynamics revealed itself in the cramped apartment, the perplexing dialect, and the hot, and bumpy shuttle ride that my younger self couldn't quite make sense of. 

​

Being the other eleven-year-old in the family, Tianyu was the brother I never had. He cared for me the way I expected my older cousins to but never did. Every time we sat down to eat, he found ways to include me in the conversation or sneaked an extra dumpling onto my plate.  He hated when I called him 四弟 (Sì Dì; fourth younger brother) and insisted that he was 四哥 (Sì Gē; fourth older brother). He claimed he was more mature than I was. 

​

“I do more chores in a week than you’ll do in a lifetime,” he’d remind me when I told him he should be content with 四弟. “And I’m always cleaning up after you.”

​

We bickered over many things—like who deserved the last red date yogurt in the fridge, where to go for breakfast, or what gift to buy for Grandpa’s birthday. But soccer held our relationship together. Whenever things spiraled out of control, we’d always settle it in a one-on-one match. The winner got his way, and the loser resigned graciously.

​

Despite our different backgrounds and the 1350 kilometers that separated us, we were equals on the soccer field. We had equal chances to win and to make decisions. Soccer reminded us that, whether he was 四哥 or 四弟, he was still my cousin, my brother.

​

But the summer before I moved to America with my mother, our bond shattered. It began with cracks—cracks that grew into faults, faults that became rifts so deep that by the final days of my stay in Anhui, even soccer, the one thing that had always brought us together, couldn’t mend.

 

***

 

I swerved to the left, feigned a move to the right, hoping he’d take the bait. But Tianyu was tracking the ball, not my body. Every time I thought I had found an opening, he was there in a flash, thrusting out his foot and ready to snatch the ball from me. 

​

“Come on,” he taunted, dashing towards me. “You can’t get past me.” 

​

I darted to the right, then shifted to the left again. He lunged, feet first. I tried to turn but his timing was perfect. His foot connected with the ball just as I pivoted, sending us both sprawling across the ground. I tumbled over him as the ball skidded away. Dizzy, disoriented, we exchanged looks, then focused on the ball. Go! 

 

***

 

A few months earlier in spring, my mom had gotten accepted for an undergraduate program at UCI, so she brought me along to the States. With July around the corner, we told our extended families about the plans and made one last trip to see my grandparents before emigrating.

​

Tianyu became a different person that summer. He ignored my jokes, stopped talking to me at the dinner table, and refused to watch TV with me. When we sat side by side on the couch, a brittle silence strangled the once easy stream of our conversation. Every time I suggested we do something together, Tianyu’s eyes would drift away, his responses terse and indifferent. His jokes, once lighthearted, turned bitter and barbed, like pineapple that hadn’t been rinsed in salt water. He stopped coming to Grandpa’s house on the weekdays, so I spent the evenings alone, longing for our usual camaraderie and feeling abandoned by the one person who had always brought me joy and comfort.

​

Then silence gave way to arguments, and arguments twisted into fists. Every little thing led to a fight—picking a TV channel or deciding who would get shotgun when my aunt drove us to soccer practice. We were kernels on a frying pan. Returning from practice, we had our last fight in the shower. As I turned on the faucet, Tianyu kicked open the door. 

​

“It’s my house,” he shouted, “I shower first!” 

​

“Relax,” I chuckled. “Who do you think you are, you little punk?” 

​

“It’s my house, ” he growled through clenched teeth, closing in on me. Annoyed by his stubbornness, I shoved him back.  

​

“Get out of my face!” 

​

His fist came fast. I returned it. 

​

We fought, our punches landing on each other’s faces, arms, stomachs, backs until crimson blood streaked the floor. 

​

“Stop!” Horrified, my aunt tried to pull us apart. “For Christ’s sake, Cao, stop them!”

​

My uncle barged in. With one hand pinching my ear and the other dragging Tianyu by his neck, he threw us both onto the couch. 

​

“Take it outside!”

​

We took it outside. To the field where we had played all of our matches. We stood at the ends of the soccer field. Just the two of us and a ball in the middle. 

​

First to three goals. 

 

***

 

Time slowed. We crawled forward. Sharp pebbles dug into our already bloody hands and knees. We scrambled towards the ball, ignoring the stinging pain until we collided. He was faster this time. In an instant, he was up, bolting after the ball. I chased after him, but he was already dribbling away. Trailing behind, I bit my lip, frustrated that I had fumbled the opportunity. For a brief second, he turned his head to look back. His face split into a grimace of triumph, and his eyes narrowed with satisfaction. 

​

It was then that I hated him. I hated him for how cold he had been to me this whole trip. I hated him for thinking that what he did was right. I hated him because, for the first time in our lives, he had power over me. I snapped. 

​

I dashed forward. I caught up to him just as he pulled back his leg, preparing to strike the ball into the open goal. Choking on my own bile, I shoved him from behind. 

​

I pushed him harder than I had intended, and time stretched as he stumbled. His arms flailed. His feet tangled, and he pitched forward, head first. I watched, horrified, as, with a sickening thud, his chin collided with the ground. I stopped breathing. There’s no going back now. 

​

I dashed for the ball, dribbling past Tianyu as he let out a howl of pain. But I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop.

​

“You pushed me!” His voice cut through the air like a knife, “You dirty cheater! You dirty fucking cheater!” 

​

I passed the halfway line. 

​

He lay sprawled across the ground. His eyes were filled with anger and disappointment, a mix of blood and spit streaming from the corner of his mouth. 

​

“Really?” He spat, coughing blood, “You did that, just to win?” 

​

I turned back. The goal loomed ahead. At that instant, I wanted to pick up the ball, punt it high over the fence, and watch it soar into the woods in the distance, where neither of us could retrieve it, and pretend nothing had ever happened. But I dribbled on, refusing to stop. Each step heavier than the last. My legs moved the ball by a mechanical impulse rather than my will. 

​

The goal was just ahead. I drew my leg back. The ball lay still, waiting for the final strike. The world was silent. The only sound was my own ragged breathing and Tianyu’s distant, muffled cries. 

​

With a swift, practiced motion, I swung my leg, and my foot connected with the ball. It sailed through the air, cutting a clean arc towards the goal. The net rippled.

​

The score was three - two. 

​

I won. 

 

***

 

Years have passed and I have yet to tell anyone about this part of the story. 

​

Partly because I could never find the right words—the way they always stick to my throat like phlegm—and partly because it still hurts. 

 

Two years after the game, Tianyu died. 

He committed suicide. 

 

I lost two parts of me that day. Family and soccer. I never looked at soccer the same way. I stopped playing. During the entire soccer unit in P.E., I sat alone on the bench, eyes shut, praying for the class to end. Whenever I opened them, memories of my final match with Tianyu spilled over like Jenga blocks, collapsing and suffocating me. 

​

Instead of going to the park, I spent most afternoons playing poker by myself in the classrooms when all my classmates had left, so it was just the janitor and me. A kid might join me, sometimes, and we’d play Texas Hold’em, using markers and colored pencils for bets. Over time, I became good at reading straights and flushes, sometimes even calling out their hands. But no matter how many games I won, there were some things I could never guess, cards I could never read.

​

I tried to tell myself many times that what happened in the match wouldn’t have changed his death. But sometimes, as I watch the ball connect with someone’s cleats and soar in a graceful, crescent arc, a part of me wonders. 

​

If the ground had been a little wetter that day, maybe when I dribbled I would’ve slipped, fallen, hit my head, and blacked out. And nothing would’ve happened. Or if I had struck the ball with just a tiny bit less power, it might have stopped right before the goal, so I could apologize and patch things up. Or I could’ve left the score at two - two and told him we’d finish our match when I returned from America. Maybe the thought of beating me would’ve given him a little more motivation to live. Maybe things would’ve been different. Maybe soccer would’ve still been something we shared instead of something I lost. Just maybe. 

 

***

 

Last summer I went back to Anhui for the first time since that game. When I packed my suitcases for the trip, I found an apology letter I had written all those years ago but never had the courage to mail. It read: 

 

Dear Tianyu, 

 

I hope this letter finds you well. 

 

Wish you a happy 12th birthday. My mom and I got you a brand new soccer ball from Decathlon. I’m sorry for what happened during our match. I was lonely, lost, and frustrated. I didn’t want to lose my only brother, yet you were so distant and different all of a sudden. But what I did only pushed you further away. I hope you can forgive me when you’re ready, and we can play ball again on that secret field you discovered. 

 

Oh, and by the way, you left your Lego man in my backpack. It’s still sitting on my table. Maybe you could come pick it up someday.

 

***

 

I turned 17 yesterday. 

​

I am a junior in high school now, and speak English just as well as Chinese. I found love in a new sport—tennis—and spend most of my afternoons practicing on the courts.  

​

On some days I still stare at the ceiling and tear page after page of paper. Just plain, white, paper. I’d fold each page in half, press my fingertips on the crease so hard that they bend, and try to tear the paper perfectly. But it would never be perfect—whenever the tear reaches the end of the crease, it would always veer off and take a part of the right side.