Loving The Sky

Chapter 54

"I agree you were rude." Ardeth stated.

"I am sorry for my behaviour towards you, I have no right to be rude to you or anyone." Daniel apologized.

"I accept your apology." Ardeth smiled.

"And..." Daniel said taking a deep breath,"If you want I can help you in your Soccer training sessions." He breathed out.

"You are willing to be my coach?" Ardeth asked shocked.

"Yes, only if you still want me to."

"Hell, yeah. I would be over the cloud nine, if you are to be my trainer." Ardeth almost shouted.

"Great, let's start our training sessions from tomorrow." Daniel said shaking his hands with Ardeth.

"Thank you, Mr.Scott." Ardeth smiled.

"I prefer people to call me Daniel over Mr.Scott." Daniel said putting on his sun glasses.

"Who was at the door, Ardeth?" Sherlyn asked as she walked into the living room and stopped.

"Daniel, meet Sherlyn, my girlfriend and Sherlyn, meet Daniel Scott, My new soccer coach." Ardeth grinned at the last part. "I know you both know each other but I wanted to make a formal introduction."

"He agreed to be your coach?" Sherlyn asked.

"Yes, I did." Daniel answered for Ardeth.

"That's wonderful! Thank you very much." Sherlyn said giving a bear hug to Dan surprising him.

"You might hate me going further for keeping your boyfriend away from you due to training sessions." Daniel joked.

"I would never hate anyone who helps him." Sherlyn said to Daniel. "Especially you, you helped us a lot."

"Thanks for that." Daniel said to Sherlyn, "See you tomorrow at the Soccer field near the garage, Ardeth." He said walking away.

"Are you ready for your training session, Ardeth?" Daniel asked standing in the center of the Soccer field the next day.

"Yes." Ardeth breathed out.

"Jamie, get the Soccer Ball." Daniel said, and Jamie walked into the field with the ball.

"Now, Ardeth let the game start." Daniel said placing the ball infront of Ardeth. "Jamie, will you be our goal keeper?"

"Sure, Mr.Scott." Jamie grinned and ran towards the nets.

Ardeth and Daniel competed with each other to make goals running around the field.

Taking a deep breath, Ardeth kicked the ball towards the nets.

"Woohoo!!!" Jamie shouted in glee as he successfully stopped Ardeth from making a goal.

"Congrats Jamie, you are a wonderful goal keeper." Daniel smiled and turned to Ardeth, who was disheartened.

"So, Ardeth. When was your last goal?"

"In the Gender reveal party." Ardeth answered.

"Hmm..." Daniel nodded as he drank water from the bottle as Ardeth watched him.

"So, did you understand what is going wrong with your game?" Daniel questioned.

"I don't know, and that's frustrating." Ardeth said pulling his hair.

"Well, Ardeth you were able to make a goal easily earlier, and even your last goal at the gender reveal party seems to be something that was made with an ease. But you are still struggling. You know why?" Daniel asked and Ardeth shook his head in no.

"Let's figure it out while we take a walk." Daniel said as he walked towards the forest trail near the ground with Ardeth following his closely.

"Serene." Daniel said as he took a deep breath of the moist filled forest air. "My hands are itching to paint these sceneries on the canvas."

"You paint?" Ardeth asked as he observed the lush green forest.

"Yes." Daniel nodded, "Painting is my favourite hobby, it helps take things off my mind and express my deep feelings on the canvas."

"I would like to see your paintings, if it is okay with you." Ardeth quickly added the last line.

"Sure." Daniel said and they walked a few minutes in silence when Daniel spoke again.

"When I was in my college, I used to paint a lot, back then I didn't had much money to handle my college expenses and Soccer expenses since the allowances and pocket money I used to get wasn't that great. And one day I decided to take up a part-time gig, and my friends suggested that I could use my painting skills to make money. Soon I started to make face arts of the people, and used to paint picture and sell them. It didn't take much time before I started to feel my favourite thing to do as a burden and I used to hate painting, since it's no longer a fun time activity but a compulsion to earn money, I used to hate the art supplies in my room. I was fortunate to get into the league which helped me settle in my life but to this day I feel dreadful about how close I was to give up painting."

"The thing is Ardeth, when we do things with love it gives us happiness, but once we take them as a competition to achieve something, it becomes a race, greed replaces love, and the unquenchable thirst for success arises where everything else in life fades away from your mind." Daniel said as they stopped by a lake.

"The same thing is happening with you Ardeth, love the game you are playing, don't run behind the success. These people who are criticizing your game today, are the same people who were praising you when you were in your best form. People will change don't worry about them, think about the people, who held on to you in your darkest times, those people will never treat you accordingly to your success or failures. Play for them and you, knowing that if you succeed or fail they will still love you the same."

"Think about it, and from tomorrow Ardeth, come to ground as a normal guy, who wants to learn and play the game, not as the sportsman who wants to make goals and succeed." Daniel patted Ardeth's back and walked away.