Evening the Score // Book One

Chapter 9

Elena had the same routine before every game. She woke up and had six eggs and two pieces of bacon. She took a shower, a long, hot one. She smoothed her hair into a ponytail and put the headband around her head to tame the wisps. And then she pulled on her sweats, her lucky t-shirt and a pair of flip flops. She walked out to her car, got in, turned on some Bon Jovi and drove to the field.

That's how it was supposed to go. That routine had held tried and true all these years. It kept her anxiety and nervousness at bay.

But this morning, the anxiety and nervousness were going nowhere no matter how hard she tried. Her phone had been silent all night last night. No text messages from Harry. Which wasn't odd at least not by itself. What was odd was he usually left her one knowing she'd wake up in the morning to see it. And there wasn't one this morning.

Elena wasn't usually this emotional. But once she'd started to admit her feelings for him, the floodgates opened. She silently cursed Eric in her head, even though it wasn't his fault. He got her talking about Harry yesterday and now the feelings of missing him were rearing their ugly head. She'd done a good job of controlling it, it sucked that she was going to fail so miserably now when she was in the home stretch.

She reluctantly pulled her gym bag onto her shoulder, trudged out to her car and got in. Getting to the field was the longest drive of her life. And even though she never saw her phone come to life she picked it up at every red light anyway.

It was official, Elena had fallen off the deep end.

Andrea watched as her teammate walked in, her head hung low as she threw her bag down on the floor in front of her locker and huffed out a breath as she collapsed into the chair,

"Something wrong?" Andrea asked as she pulled her socks on.

Elena shook her head,

"No."

Andrea sighed. She expected that answer out of Elena even though she knew it was a lie,

"Ben..."

Elena sat up and leaned closer to Andrea,

"Is that how guys do it nowadays?"

"Do what?"

"Signal that they don't like you anymore? They just disappear?"

Andrea nodded once,

"Ah...so you've reached the "out of contact" part of the relationship, I see. Always a fun time."

"I think I might have made him mad."

"How on earth could you make anyone mad?" Andrea asked, honestly shocked at the thought.

"I was...I don't drink a lot...but there was some leftover wine. And I was bored. So I poured myself a glass...or four...and I Googled."

"Googled? What did you Google?"

"Him. I was on YouTube and a bunch of other sites I have never even heard of."

"What did you see?"

"Nothing big. He was in an interview though and I kept texting him. And last night on our Skype date he just...seemed distracted."

"Maybe he was."

Elena stared back at her friend for a minute,

"I sound stupid...you can just say it. I sound like an idiot." Elena shook her head as she started rifling through her bag to get her things, "Forget it...if he texts me fine. If he doesn't, fine. I have other things to focus on."