Things are Complicated

Chapter 7: Soccer Balls are for the Feet only!

“Pass! Pass! Pass!” A lanky guy from my team shouted as I weaved the ball through three of our opponents members.

Finally I just kicked the ball to him, praying he’d finally shut up. All throughout the last three games he’s been shouting for someone to give him a chance and it was finally grating on my nerves.

I blamed the heat and not the fact that I had to walk the four miles to school this morning. The entire way, I argued with each step about whether I should just turn around and not risk further embarrassment or suck it up.

Thankfully, when I arrived, there wasn’t anyone staring or giggling at me behind their hands. I took that as a good sign that D actually kept his mouth shut.

“Why the hell did you pass it to him?” A girl came running up to me, her face red and coated in sweat. “I was wide open!”

Ignoring her, I watch lanky guy fumble the ball five feet and make a pretty decent kick into the net scoring us a point. The males on our team went crazy and slapped him on the back in celebration despite his surprised look. I’m thinking the goal was not what he was expecting.

“Whatever.” The girl beside me huffed, stalking off to the side where the rest of the girls were lingering between matches.

Mr. Buller blows the whistle and starts to shout off the last match up for the day. Out of our five teams only four can play at a time. I feel rather lucky to have not been paired with Jett’s team yet. I did get a little enjoyment scoring against Claire while she played on D’s team.

“Alright everyone, gather around!” Mr. Buller tugged on the graying hat on his head. “The final teams are Blues versus Yellows!”

Shocker there- not.

“Mr. Buller?” Claire raises her hand from the Yellow team, giving me a quick smirk before turning her attention fully on the teacher. “I injured my ankle, can I go to the nurse's office?”

“Go,” he barked, unwilling to test her honesty after baking under the sun for the last forty-five minutes. Mr. Buller glances down at his clip board and said, “Red team, send someone over.”

Everyone on my team became very quiet, staring either at the ground or their nails. No one wanted to be playing in that match, that’s intense rivalry if I ever seen one. Both the Green and the White team have been playing without a break and Mr. Buller had no choice but to choose us.

“Truman said she’d do it!” the girl from earlier called out from behind me.

I flinched at the sound of her voice, she’d snuck up behind me to make it look like she’d heard me.

“Excellent,” Mr. Buller waved me over to D’s team.

Team Yellow is a complete and total sausage fest, I’m the only female. Not even Team Blue has one.

Jogging over to Claire, I take her yellow, mesh vest from her and lower my voice. “Do me a favor and shove your cleat up that girl’s ass,” I nodded to the girl smirking at me with a holier-than-thou look plastered on her face.

“Not a problem,” Claire limps away with a determined look on her face.

“Hey,” D’Angelo jogs over while the rest of the teams spread out across the field. “You sure you want to do this? These guys are pretty rough.”

“I can handle it,” I take left field forward, glaring at the Blue team’s right field forward who thinks I’m hilarious for choosing my position.

Little does that bastard know that Brien trained me over the summer in soccer drills, kicks and everything necessary for being a center-forward. I’m actually going easy on them.