Fade into you

Chapter 4

Lottie didn't turn to look at her once during the whole class. She didn't look her way in the locker room during the group conversation, even though they stood in front of each other. Nat didn't understand, if Lottie was mad her because she had cursed at her, then buy headphones? Wasn't that a clear message directed at her?

During practice, when they were told to partner up with someone, Lottie has asked Akilah, and Nat had found herself alone. For thirty minutes, she had to exercise with Misty, who wasn't even a player.

It's not like her and Lottie were friends.
It's not like her and Lottie were anything else, for that matter.

"NAT GET A GRIP THIS IS THE SECOND TIME YOU LET HER GET PAST YOU!"

It was coach Scott, the one who had always praised her defence skills. But again, whose idea was it to make Lottie try out as a left wing striker? They were usually perfectly fine on opposite sides of the field, barely interacting. She had just allowed the girl to score again. A wave of frustration hit her.

She knows her effect and she's using it to take advantage of you.

She shook her head, and forced herself to pay attention to the game. Shauna had the ball, and was running on the right side of the pitch, leaving behind Akilah. No one ran faster than Shauna, making it impossible to stop her unless she decided to make a pass. She dodged every player swiftly before passing the ball across the pitch.

Suddenly, Natalie was the only person left between Lottie and the goal.

The girl didn't even need to look at the ball. Her impeccable footwork was instinctive to her. When asked how she could possibly know to dribble the way she did, she'd just shrug and say that it made sense to her. Confident in her stride, she didn't even try to run away from Nat, she just charged straight ahead, sprinting, the ball under control in front of her.

Nat wasn't going to let her get past again. Not a third time. She ran towards her, her eyes fixated on the ball. She couldn't let her score again. Why was Lottie so confident that she was going to get past her again? Nat got annoyed. She hated feeling inferior. She hated feeling like she always lost, and Lottie always won.

They were metres away, running towards each other. At any time now, Lottie would bring the ball to the left, or to the right. Nat just had to be fast enough to counter the movement.

The force in which they hit each other made Nat feel nauseous, all of the air inside of her chest slammed away by a single blow. Mud and blood mixed on her knees.

"What the fuck Nat, this isn't rugby why did you charge at me?" Lottie screamed at her in pain, but she couldn't understand. Everything was blurry, and she was still trying to breathe, but all that she could produce were some painful hiccups. In a matter of seconds, they were surrounded by the other girls.

"Why did you do that?" Lottie repeated. Nat looked up at her. A trail of blood came out of Lottie's nose and dripped into her mouth and down her chin. Her teeth were red, but seemed to all be there.

"Why didn't you dodge me?"

"I thought you'd move like you've been doing since the beginning of the game!"

"Well I thought you'd move!" She sounded a lot less convincing than Lottie.

"You know, Nat, there's nicer ways to tell me you don't want us to be friends."

She wanted to tell her that it wasn't about that, that it was about the game, but no words came out of her mouth. She didn't want to be friends. The only thing she wasn't sure though, was whether she wanted to be something else than friends, or if she wanted nothing to do with her, and all of those strong feelings she felt were just jealousy and resentment.