Persisting Anyway

1) Hospital Visits

"Alright Sydney, this is it. Last jump okay? Make it your best."

I would have sufficed for a good luck I thought. My coach meant well but he was always pushing me to do my best, even if I had qualified for State Championship.

I walked to the strip of concrete. I found my mark of 65 ft and placed my right foot forward. Meticulously, I placed my foot as close to the mark as I humanly could.

It's interesting how when you prepare to run and when you are running, everything disappears, except for the white mark and the sand. You look down at your feet staring at nothing, then you see the white mark, the one thing you are supposed to watch for, and you don't even look! Then you hope and pray you don't scratch and your arms gave you enough momentum and your land was successful and you don't fall backwards.

Only to place second in State.

One Year Later

"I cannot believe you still talk about how bad you did! You did fantastic, you placed second in state and you call that a disappointment." Claire walked with along side me with her arm draped over mine.

"I did not go to state to place second, I tortured myself with bounding and everything all the time, I went to place first."

"Well, I think that just going to state is a huge accomplishment. I mean, I dance..."

I wasn't paying that much attention, I watched as Carter and his friend Josh ran down the hall, tossing a football back and forth. People would duck their heads to avoid the ball.

I watched them in annoyance, goodness Carter annoyed me. I had the biggest crush on him from seventh grade to the end of freshman year. Reality caught up to me and I realized that a popular boy and an unpopular girl could never be together, that crap only happened in movies. Sure he was good looking, and considered perfect in every single way.

When middle school came I got brains and braces, he got muscles and maturation came to his advantage. I was left in the dust and he was extremely popular before I could even say 'wait up'. I would not have said it anyway; we rarely talked from second grade to sixth grade. We exchanged a smile as we passed each other. Seventh grade was as if we had never met, we rarely saw each other, but he would not even acknowledge my existence at all. In high school if someone mentioned my name, he would probably say 'who?' So yes, maybe I hoped that one day he would somehow notice me again. Even if it was just briefly, if he just smiled.

I realized that I was not annoyed at him as much as I was annoyed the way that high school ended up. I was annoyed that there were cliques and Carter and I had grown apart over the years, very far apart at that. Sure I wanted him to acknowledge me, but then I could prove to myself that maybe the separation of popularity and the lack thereof was not so far apart.

I walked, too lost in my thoughts to realize the football and boy growing larger and larger and before I knew it, I was on the floor.

My head pounded as I gathered what had just happened, and why my head hurt so bad.

My answer came when I saw Carter standing over me.

Not exactly how I had imagined, or wanted for that matter, to have Carter notice me.

Before I could even take a breath, Carter was rambling. "Oh my goodness, are you okay? I am so sorry, the ball was thrown too hard and I was trying to catch it before you got hit in the head but I ran into you and now you're on the floor and your head is probably hurting, you fell on it, and I am so sorry." Carter rambled on without taking a breath.

"I am going to be late for class." The first thought through my head was the last thing that would have come out of my mouth had I been fully aware that an extremely good looking guy was merely inched away. But no, I wasn't fully functioning seeing as I had been knocked in the head and hit my head on the ground as well.