A Day in My Life

Happy Place Destroyed

For the rest of Sunday I mostly hung out with Aubrey who was over to talk to Blake. I may have monopolized her sometimes but I just couldn't help it she was so nice and sweet to me. 

Then it was Monday morning and I was jamming my gear into my backpack and putting on comfy clothes I could change out of quickly after school. It was just Day 1 of the tryouts and it would be held on the field next to where the football team would be doing training later in the year. So if I made it onto the team, and Dylan was out training with the football team about an hour later, he could take me home. I would have to wait on the benches in the cold, but god forbid I should walk home alone. Blake was very happy about the arrangement, but me? Not so much. 

After getting to school, I spent the whole day worrying about the try outs...

What if I messed up a lot?

Have I forgotten everything from all my previous soccer seasons?

Is it possible the coach would automatically hate me?

Would my team hate me?

Would my friends make it on the team?

Would I make it on the team?

Even Chris squeezing my hand encouragingly under the table in Math and later Biology couldn't stop me from stressing. 

As we left the classroom he grabbed my hand and we walked over to the field. Like the adorable coach he was, he gave me a pep talk too.

"Look Dakota, you're good at this! You're great at soccer, everyone will love you and you'll be amazing! So don't worry so much!" he said.

"I know but what if-" I started.

"No! No what ifs! You got this Kota! Good luck." he added with a smile and a rub on my arm. 

I nodded and pecked him on the lips before going into the locker room and seeing my friends. Sam and Reilly were both there lacing up their cleats so I chose a good bench near them and did the same. While I was pulling on my shinguards and socks and tying my cleats into place I could feel the fear slowly seeping out of me and being replaced by my love for the sport. Once we had all finished and walked out onto the field, I was feeling one hundred percent better. This was my happy place after all. 

I leaned over to Reilly as we waked into the area with the other people and whispered "Where's the coach?" 

"I have no clue! But this is where we were told to meet!" she answered.

Sam added "I heard he used to play on a professional team before he got injured and was dropped!" 

"Thats awful!" I said. 

"I heard he's really, really good!" a ginger girl added, coming over to us. "I'm Kayla, by the way."

We introduced ourselves and Reilly said "Well we don't really know much about him... I wonder if he'll be here on time today." 

She checked her phone and showed me we had one minute more before practice officially started. 

I shrugged my shoulders and we all went to go wait in the giant group circle. 

Right before the minute was up, we saw someone walk out of the guys locker room coach area and begin to walk over to us. 

We were all stunned into silence. Because a slightly less pretty version of David Beckham was walking towards us. He had brown hair swept back and tattoo sleeves down his veined arms. Yes, I had Chris, but it was like looking at the sun, you know its bad for you but you can't help it sometimes. As he looked up and noticed our widened eyes he smiled a big smile and picked up his speed. Once he arrived he slid into the center of the circle.