IDIOSYNCRASY // Soccer

Ch. 6

I stood in front of the cork board. I was waiting for Coach. He said it would be up first thing in the morning. But, here I am, standing in silence with other possible teammates. I notice how all of the guys impatiently wait. Parker taps his foot repeatedly. Bryson plays with his fingers.

I see Coach and immediately get off the wall. His clipboard was pressed to his chest, so no one could see. Coach gestures us to the wall, making us give him space. He grabs a tac and pins the list on the cork board. I race to the board, pushing everyone out of the way.

I scan through the lists, defenders, mid field, I wasn't there. But my spirits lifted when I saw I was a forward. I gasp in shock, "I made it! I made it! Bo-yah!" I laugh as Bryson picks me up and spins me. Parker was the other forward, meaning I had to put half of our responsibility of scoring on him. In other words, I had to learn to trust him.

"Put me down! I gotta call my friends." I say. Bryson puts me down, mostly because I kept slapping his back. I take out my phone and scroll through my contact list.

"Who you going to call, your long distance boyfriend?" Parker says. He was leaning against the wall, he hasn't moved a spot. I raise my eyebrows at him.

"If I was going to call my long distance boyfriend. At least I have a boy friend, I have a few guy friends who are single." I say. I take a picture of the list and send it to the group chat. It was a group chat made a long time ago.

I see my phone blow up with text messages. 5..4...3..2..1. I see my phone light up, it was Tyler. "Hello!" I say. I was ecstatic that I had made the team.

"See, I told you. You shouldn't doubt yourself. You are way better than you perceive of yourself." Tyler says. I hear him groan in frustration. "You know what this means right?"

I felt my happiness drop, my face showed everything. Bryson seemed to notice, he gestured an okay? sign. I nod my head, "Yeah, I know. Listen Tyler, I gotta go." I hang up on him. I knew what this means, I had to face my teammates. It was inevitable that we are going to see each other.

I send the photo to my mom, not knowing when she would respond. I don't even know where she is currently. Bryson walks up to me, "Hey, do you want to come to Phill's Pizza after school? We always go there after we find out who made the team." I nod and walk away.

"Charlotte, Coach wants to see us." I look up to the voice behind me. It was Parker, I had no clue why Coach would want to see us. Parker and I walk in silence to Coach's office. I knock on the door and come inside.

Coach gestures us to sit down, and we oblige. "We are going to work on your trust issues with each other." We both open our mouths to speak, only to be cut off when Coach puts a finger up. "I see there is tension between you. You better work it out, you both are forwards and you have to trust each other."

Coach gestures us to stand up, that was quick. "We are going to do a quick trust fall exercise. After, you may leave." It seemed easy enough. I push Parker in front of me. He raises his eyebrows. I roll my eyes in response. I stick my arms out, waiting for him to fall. Parker turns back at me and breathes deeply. He spread his arms wide and fell backwards. I caught him, which surprised him.

Parker pushes me in front of him. He spreads his arms in front of his body. I open my arms wide, like Parker did before. I try to fall backwards, only to fail when my nerves crept on my skin. Thoughts of doubt clouded my vision. I hear Coach mumble about being here all day. Finally, I fall into Parker's arms. I almost touched the ground.

"See? I got you." Parker says softly. I stand up and open the door. Walking out just like Parker does. I had to get to class. Some part deep inside me felt guilt for doing that to Parker.

I stood outside the noisy pizza place. I step inside, and look for the team. The feeling of disappointment flooded throughout me, were they not here? The feeling washed out as I see Bryson waving me over. I walk towards them, and take a seat.

"Now that everyone is here. Coach told me we had to do team bonding his whole week. Which means sleepovers!" Parker says in a high pitched voice.

"Our first game is this Friday, we are going against the Eagles. The Eagles are one of the weakest teams I have ever played." I say. Everyone looks at me weirdly. "What? I played against them once, 0-24." Their expressions changed.

"So, the news paper was correct?" Chris says. I laugh, the boys keep their eyes on me. Bringing my hand to my mouth, I muffle my laugh. I repeatedly shake my head.

"No, they got it all wrong. I scored five hundred twenty three goals in the last two years. Most of them get it wrong because of how many I score each game." I shake my head.

"Are we going to have a sleepover today?" Bryson asks. All of our heads turn to Parker, who nods. "Then, who's house are we going to?"

"We could go to mine." Parker says. He pulls out his phone and sends his address to me. I was the only new player. The forward before me graduated. How did he get my phone number?

"We should get to know Charlotte here. I say we ask her questions." Bryson says.

"Two questions each." I say. There were only eleven of them. The subs didn't come, apparently they never come for anything. I don't even know if we have any subs.

The first question comes from Bryson, "Why does everyone call you Char?"

I laugh before answering, "Well, when I first joined the varsity team in freshman year. They all thought my name was too long, so they called me Char or Lottie. When they first called me Char, I beat them up and told them never to call me Char ever again. But the nickname stuck anyways."

"What made you get into soccer?" Bryson asks.

"My dad actually played professionally, and my mom and I always came to his games. I grew up watching him play, and I was really inspired by him. Don't even ask about where my dad is, he is just out of the picture now." I say.

"Whats the scariest thing that ever happened to you?" Parker asks,

I laugh at the first thing that pops in my head, "The scariest thing? One time I was playing this team. They literally only targeted me, making illegal moves and shit. But this really heavy guy, about ten times the size of me. He comes slide tackling me, but it went to wrong. The guy aimed for me, not the ball. So I fell to the ground and laid there. I didn't know if I fainted, or I was injured. I laid there until the medic came. We still won, though." I say.

"Have you ever loved someone?" Parker asks.

I felt my face drop, "Yeah, I loved this one guy. Before I told him, he asked out a girl. I got over him now, but sometimes it's still there." I kept my answer short, I didn't want to talk about Sam.

"What was the happiest moment of your life?"

"You guys might not be happy about this. But, when I won State last year, it was like hard work finally paid off. When I held the trophy, it felt so amazing. We never lost any match for those two years I was there. Winning State is the best thing in the world. I am glad that we are going to win this year, too." I say.

"Have you ever had to escape somewhere?"

Very ironic, "I have. I had to escape my old highschool. Scouts were at every game, begging me to come to their college. They were all giving me full scholarships. The students at my school were either pretending to be nice to use me. Or they full blown hated me. People found out about someone and they tried to trick me to give to them items."

No one asked questions after that.

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a/n
So i realized that I first introduced Bryson as Bryce in the first chapters. Considering I cant really change that now, i am clarifying that Bryce is Bryson