The Student Therapist

Chapter 9

"It's a fucking hand off, Kyung! It's not that hard!" Lisa shouts from the sidelines, red in the face as she screams at Betna who had yet again fumbled the ball.

We were playing Daegu FC, a team we've beaten with ease in the past and we were losing. The score was 7 to 17 and we were minutes away from half time. You could see the frustration practically pouring out of the coaches and the players on the sidelines, but most importanly from Lisa."

On more than one occasion, she turned to me and practically begged me to let her go out for a few plays and I had to tell her no every time. With each rejection, her frustration just grew eventually to the point that she walked over to the water bottles and with one sweep of her arms knocked them all of the table.

"Manoban!" Coach Yang had turned from the edge of the sideline to shout. "If you don't go sit down and shut the hell up. I'm going to throw you out of this stadium."

That was only ten minutes into the game. But now, with two grueling long minutes left before halftime our team was doing embarrassingly poorly. Berna had been sacked three times already in the second quarter, fumbles the ball four times and threw two interceptions. Now, we were on third down with eleven yards to go and it was safe to say that nobody expected much.

Berna managed to hand the ball successfully and get the first down. But by the time the clock stopped to signal halftime, we were still on the opponent's side if the field. All of the players truged off the field looking exhausted and dishearted by the score and filed into the locker room while cursing Berna Kyung's name.

I leaned against a locker in the back of the room and watched as the players hung their heads, discouraged from how the game was going as they awaited the Coach to come talk to them. Lisa was standing beside me with her jaw clenched and murderous glare set on the back of Berna's head who was staring hard at ground silently.

Coach Yang walked in and throws his play book down on the ground before looking at the girls with anger clear on his face. "What the hell is going on out there, guys?"

"It's not our fault. Kyung can't throw." Someone grunts from the front.

Coach whips in the direction of the voice and growls.

"Who the hell said that?" He says slowly, one of Jeongyeon's friends. Yiseo, raises her hand. "Yiseo, tell me something. Is a team made up of one player?"

Yiseo visibly gulps st Coach's hard tone and mutters, "No."

"You're right about that." Coach snaps. "A team isn't made up for one player and football team isn't just made up of the quarterback. There's a lot of fucking work we need to improve out there and it doesn't all fall on Kyung."

He gaze sweeps across the locker room of exhausted players and he continues. "Is our O line asleep out there? Why the hell are you letting Kyung get sacked? And I need the running backs to go their routes and make their touches or else we're going to lose by a hell of a lot more than what we're losing by already."

Coach Yang crafts a new plan quickly and manages somehow to boost the team morale. He offhandedly drews up a few plays that require Berna to make short passes or hand the ball off. And by the time halftime is almost over, everyone thinks we migh actually be able to pull a win out of this.

"This is bullshit." Lisa mutters behind me as the team leaves the locker room. "Nothing changed. Kyung still sucks."

I push off the locker I was leaning on and shrug. "You never know what could happen."

She scowls at me as she snaps slowly. "I know that without me our team is nothing."

All previous respect I had for Lisa, albeit not a lot of all, evaporated at the sound of her arrogance. I turn to her incredulously and shake my head at her, which in return only ignites the anger in her eyes.