By the time my brother sent me crashing into the goalpost hard enough to make the sky flash white, my parents had already decided the problem wasn’t Tyler’s temper. It was that I needed to toughen up.
Chapter 1
I was fourteen then, Tyler was seventeen, and for most of my childhood soccer had been the one thing we did together without fighting. Every Saturday morning, our parents loaded folding chairs into the trunk and drove us to the park near our house outside Columbus, Ohio. Dad brought coffee. Mom brought snacks. Tyler and I ran drills until the grass was torn up beneath our cleats.
He was bigger, faster, and stronger, which was normal. He usually beat me, which was normal too. I didn’t mind losing because he used to teach me things. He’d show me how to position my foot for a longer pass or how to watch a defender’s hips instead of the ball.
Then, sometime during his junior year, the way he played changed.
At first it was small enough to excuse.
He tripped me when I was cutting toward the goal. I went down hard and scraped my knee through my sock. Mom hurried over with a little first-aid kit while Tyler stood nearby breathing heavily.
“I went for the ball,” he said.
Dad laughed. “That’s soccer, Ben. Walk it off.”
So I did.
The following weekend Tyler shoulder-checked me into the metal goal frame. My temple hit the post and I saw bright sparks for several seconds.
Mom looked worried.
Dad looked annoyed that practice had stopped.
“You okay?”
“I think so.”
Tyler shrugged. “He came in too high.”
Dad nodded as if that settled it.
“You’ve got to protect yourself.”
After that, the bruises multiplied.
Tyler stepped on my ankles during footwork drills. He elbowed me in the ribs during headers. He came sliding in when I didn’t even have the ball and then acted confused when I hit the ground.
At school, my gym teacher noticed.
“What happened to your arms?”
“My brother and I play soccer.”
He looked at the purple marks near my elbow.
“Pretty rough soccer.”
I laughed because I didn’t know what else to do.
At home, my parents saw the same bruises.
Dad bought me better shin guards.
Mom told me Tyler was preparing me for high school competition.
“You’ll appreciate it next year,” she said. “Varsity players aren’t going to baby you.”
Tyler heard that and smiled.
From then on he started calling me Soft Serve.
“Come on, Soft Serve,” he’d say at the park. “You gonna cry?”
My parents laughed the first few times.
That made it worse.
One Saturday, I was standing maybe six feet away when Tyler drove the ball directly into my face.
It hit my nose with a flat, ugly smack and dropped me onto my back.
Blood ran over my lips.
Mom rushed over with tissues.
Dad crouched beside me.
Tyler stayed where he was.
“He needs to learn to react faster,” he said.
Dad looked at me.
“He’s not wrong.”
That night, I told them I didn’t want to practice with Tyler anymore.
We were at the kitchen table. Mom was cutting coupons. Dad was watching sports highlights on his phone.
“He keeps doing it on purpose.”
Mom barely looked up.
“Honey, Tyler plays hard.”
“No. He waits until you’re not looking.”
Dad sighed.
“You’re brothers. Brothers get physical.”
“He hurts me.”
“If you want to play serious soccer, you can’t fall apart every time somebody bumps you.”
I remember looking at him and thinking, I’m telling you.
Not hinting.
Not exaggerating.
Telling you.
It made no difference.
So I changed how I played.
I stopped trying to beat Tyler. I stopped challenging him for the ball. I stayed away from him whenever I could and mostly focused on getting through practice without another injury.
He noticed.
And he hated it.
“You scared of me now?”
“No.”
“Looks like it.”
Then he got rougher.
Three weeks before freshman tryouts, I finally beat him cleanly.
I cut around him, pushed the ball toward the goal, and heard his cleats coming behind me.
I expected a shoulder.
Instead, his foot hit the backs of my knees.
Both legs disappeared underneath me.
I threw my hands out instinctively.
My left wrist bent backward when I landed.
Something popped.
The pain was immediate.
Not soreness. Not a bruise.
A hot, sharp pain that made me curl around my arm.
Tyler stood over me.
“You should’ve passed.”
Dad came running.
“What happened?”
“I fell.”
Tyler said it before I could.
Mom knelt beside me.
My wrist was already swelling.
At urgent care, the doctor examined it and ordered X-rays. While he was looking at my arm, his eyes moved to the fading bruises on my shoulder and ribs.
“You play a lot of soccer?”
“My brother and I practice.”
He looked at Tyler, who was sitting against the wall.
Tyler was sweating.
Not a little.
His face was flushed, and one knee kept bouncing rapidly.
The doctor looked back at me.
“Any other injuries lately?”
Before I could answer, Dad laughed.
“Two teenage boys. You know how it is.”
The doctor didn’t laugh.
He checked my pulse, then looked at Tyler again.
“How old are you?”
“Seventeen.”
“You play too?”
“Varsity.”
The doctor studied him for another few seconds.
“I’d like to run some blood work.”
Tyler’s head snapped up.
“On him?”
“On both of you.”
Mom frowned.
“For a wrist injury?”
“Your younger son’s bruising is more extensive than I’d expect from casual training, and your older son appears unusually flushed and tachycardic while sitting still. I’d rather be cautious.”
Tyler stood.
“I’m fine.”
Dad pointed at the chair.
“Sit down.”
For the first time all year, Tyler looked scared.
A week later, we were called back.
The same doctor met us in a small consultation room.
He closed the door.
Then he placed Tyler’s lab report on the desk.
“Your testosterone levels are far outside the normal range for someone your age.”
Mom blinked.
“What does that mean?”
The doctor looked directly at Tyler.
“It means these results are strongly consistent with anabolic steroid use.”
Tyler went white.
Dad stopped breathing for a second.
And suddenly, every bruise on my body meant something different.
