Forever Is Now

Sore Winner

Mackenzie  |  pov

"You can do this. Just concentrate. You are fine," I keep whispering to myself as I wait for the whistle to be blown to start the game, my opponent probably thinks I'm crazy. We're all in position, I'm on my toes, ready to go.

The crowd is loud, with more people than we have ever had at a game and especially on a Saturday afternoon. Looking straight ahead, I see Alliyah, in her casual but prepared demeanour. She nods at me and mouths, "Are you okay," I nod back. Turning my head to the right, I can see Daphne is trying to get away from her opponent, who is trying to block her from getting into the middle third of the court.

The umpires stall to talk and we relax a little, I walk to the middle of the line to meet Daphne half way, "Are you sure you're up for this? Coach thinks you're not okay, so they'll be no questions asked if you want to leave." As soon as Daphne found out what happened, she's been on protective mode; all the girls have been. And the coach figured out that some thing was off is because my face is so puffy right now, there's no way to hide it.

I shake my head. People have been trying to convince me to go home but I don't want to. If I did, I would be sitting at home thinking about it, maybe still even crying. "I'm good, I promise." looking at the umpires and see them move to position. "Come on, let's play," I slap her hand and we go to our original positions.

Tiffany has the centre pass. I look her her feet getting into the circle and she steps in from the front, using her right leg, Melody needs to work to get it.

One thing I can say I'm good at, is defence. My position as wing defence is something I came into late but I'm glad it happened. The wing attack hardly gets the ball thrown to her and if she ever did, her 3 seconds to pass are over before she can throw it. I'm using all my frustration and adrenaline from the situation with Steven to get through this game and I'm actually doing a decent job. Daphne, Noel and I, manage to overturn the ball more times than we can count. Daphne being goal defence and Noel as goal keeper is the best combination we have.

As soon as that final whistle goes off, I stand still in disbelief. The entire crowd is screaming, girls in short dresses are jumping up and down, others have their heads bowed in shame. Everything is just moving around me and I don't have it in me to react. The noise and chaos is fading into the background and all I can hear is my heartbeat.

"Mackenzie! We did it, girl!" Tiffany yells in my face, snapping me out of my daze. She hugs me from my stomach and lifts me, jumping up and down. The rest of the team runs to us and we celebrate together in a group hug, shouting as loud as we can.

The rest of the school comes to join us on the court and now there's confetti all over us and the floor. I have to get out of here this is too many people for me. I quickly run to the locker room and grab my bag, getting to my car, I start the engine and drive home. As soon as I walk into the house, I pull out my phone and open the group chat.

Decided to go home. I'll see y'all Monday morning.

After pressing send, I get into the shower to wash off the entire day. My phone goes off a few times with replies from the message I sent. Deciding I'll answer later, I switch off my phone and take enough pain killers to knock me out.

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5 missed calls, 6 messages and 9 group messages. None of them are from Wayne. The daily 'good morning' message is not there and I'm almost tempted to restart my phone. Ignoring everyone for now, I dail his number and wait. Voicemail, so I hope he sees my missed calls and calls soon. Its only 10 a.m., so he might be sleeping.

A knock on my bedroom door makes me jump a little and opens to reveal my mom. "Good morning sweetheart, are you coming down for breakfast?" She is already dressed up and ready for the day.

I told her that I'll shower first and then come down. My intentions are to put an outfit together that's comforatble enough to stay indoors but also cute enough to improve my mood because at this point, I feel like I'm carrying my body around and my brain is still in bed.

Settling for a long sleeve, knee length beige body con dress with gold slides. I put on perfume, leave my curls loose, put on very little make up - almost can't even notice it and earnings. I make my way down the stairs and into the kitchen. Seeing the one person I did not expect here.

"So you chose to look like a goddess today?" He says as he moves around the kitchen like he lives here.

I smile and twirl to give him the full view of my outfit. "Thank you, at least I get the recognition I deserve," I say as I sit at the island with my plate held out, waiting to be served.

My mom laughs, "I thought you wanted to be a princess, when did goddess become a thing?" She puts 3 waffles on my plate.

I mouth a thank you, "I can be both, right Ivan?"

He turns around and nods. "Of course, your highness," he puts a small bowl of fruit salad next to my waffles and I can tell he has been here for a while.

"Okay, I have work to do. I'll leave you two to it. Don't burn my kitchen," she points at us as a warning, grabs her plate and cup of coffee, and leaves.

Ivan walks to the fridge and pulls out a tall Iced Coffee from Starbucks and hands it to me. I read the label and it's my exact order. "Judging by the coffee, I guess you found out about yesterday?" Ivan being at my house is not a rare occurrence, if my mom had it her way, he would be living here with us. Its the extra effort of getting coffee that makes this visit stand out.

He moves to sit next to me and I can almost see the questions in his eyes. "Why didn't you call anyone?" He looks and sounds so worried, as if the incident is happening right now.

I breathe and turn my body to face him, "I'm going to have to tell you the story from the beginning because I did call someone, as a matter of a fact, I was on a call with some one for most of what happened," so I recount everything that happened, all the way until I got home. The entire time I'm talking, I'm focused in Ivan's face as it changes from confusion to frustration to anger and it's the only way I'm keeping my myself from crying or wanting to walk away. "And that's pretty much it." I turn to my plate and start eating.

He nods his head slowly and I know he is trying to digest everything, "okay so Noah stopped Steven from kissing you?"

I shake my head, "Steven had already started kissing me. Noah pulled him off,"

Ivan nods slowly again, "okay... so why is the whole school saying you kissed Noah and then Steven?"

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