Breaking Down Barriers

This is unedited! Please don't be too harsh.

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Amelia glanced to her right, her defence had gotten lost a few metres behind, now was the perfect time to shoot. She yelled at Ashley for the ball, and caught it as she jumped, then landed close to the hoop. Her wavy blonde hair swished down her back in a ponytail and as she raised her arms to shoot, someone smashed into her ankles, knocking her down. 

"Ah -- shit!"

She was tangled with another girl, still holding the ball. "Sorry!" A girl who she identified as her defence, a nervous freshmen said, "I didn't mean to slide tackle you! I just kind of.. did." 

Amelia just grunted and pulled herself to her feet. Her team was standing around her, and her coach was looking on concerned. "Ammy, are you okay?" Ashley inquired as she looked Amelia up and down.

"I'm fine, it wasn't that hard. Can we keep playing?" Amelia insisted. Slowly the crowd dispersed and only Amelia, the freshman and their coach was left. 

"What happened?" The coach demanded, looking down at them both from her massive height. The freshman started to talk, but Amelia interrupted. "We ran into each other."

The freshmen girl looked relieved that Amelia hadn't thrown her under the bus, her naivety was kind of funny, she still had the face of a middle schooler, freckles and unplucked eyebrows. She didn't look like she belonged in high school.

"Amelia, you're going to have to go home now." Her coach ordered, crossing her arms. "You've got a large graze forming on your leg and I don't want you playing right now incase anyone knocks it. Don't do track or hockey tomorrow." 

"C'mon, I'm fine, I've had so much worse." Amelia begged. If she went home now she would miss out on training.

"No, you've been working yourself too hard anyway. Go watch a movie or something." Coach said.

"Fine." Amelia sighed. It was still light out, so at least she could walk. Her duffle bag was sitting on the bleachers, so she walked slowly over to pack it up, watching all the other girls do sets. 

Her house was a long way out, though it wasn't really her house. Amelia was an orphan, but she refused to live with a foster family, so she stayed in a halfway house. A place for kids to stay before they're placed. She had her own room and did everything she could for herself. She didn't want to depend on other people but the caregivers at the house did somethings for her. To Amelia, foster families were the worst. She had been to so many and each one of them had different rules, it was difficult to adjust. The families who didn't even know her would try to control her while being her best friend because 'she had been through a rough time'. 

She ran her fingers along fences as she walked, irritating barking dogs and vicious old ladies who didn't want their property infected by teenagers. It was only 5pm, nearing sundown in San Diego, but it would take her almost an hour and a half to walk home because her school was in Mission Valley, while she lived in Clairemount. She could catch the bus, but she was saving for university. Her parents were completely useless, even in the short time she knew them. They were drug addicts, kind of like the herion addict parents in Breaking Bad. They had lived in appalling conditions, but Amelia couldn't remember and didn't hear much about it. She had no money from them, and by the time child protection services took her off them, her father was dead and her mother was having a breakdown, locked in the bathroom. Hence, her need to save her money. So she walked.

Mission Valley was usually safe, but tonight she felt uneasy. For one, several police cars drove past her, then a car started to follow her. Amelia wasn't sure if it was at first, but when it slowed to her pace she became worried. She tried to act cool, like she didn't notice it, but her heart was beating faster. She bent down to tie her shoe, and finally became conscious of the huge graze on the side of her leg. The car pulled up next to her and rolled down the window. "Hey baby, how much." A sleazy man in the driver's seat asked. "Piss off." Amelia replied, scrunching her face, and kept walking.