Out of Her League |Lesbian Story|

Chapter 21

Felik and Grigor trotted across the field towards us. Felik shook hands with Charlotte.

"What a wonderful work, girl," he said. "I'm a bit emotional as you can imagine. Me, Grigor and the guys at the Matryoshka watched your videotape six, maybe seven times. Stayed up at night."

Then Felik turned to me and stepped over to shake my hand.

"Thank you, Darci," he murmured and looked at us one by one. He seemed too choked up. He shook his head. "You're all here..." he gasped. Then he turned to Grigor. "Can you believe this?"

Grigor smiled and put his arm around his shoulders. His mirror glasses had fogged up. Olive handed Felik a tissue.

"Boy, this team should've been sponsored by Kleenex," she said. Everyone including Felik laughed as wiped his eyes.

Before we had the chance to get more words, there was a piercing yell from Melissa. She ran to join us.

"Melissa, what are you doing here?" I said. "I thought you would play for the Blue Belles."

"I did promise to play with them," she said. "But Mr. Bloom said Stef and I should play for our team if we want to, and he respected our decision."

I realized that my Dad had let Stefanie and Melissa come back to us. Melissa turned to the coaches as if to get their approval. Grigor nodded with a smile.

"Good to have you with us, Melissa," Felik said.

Then he motioned for everyone to gather around and face us, eye to eye.

"There is one thing I want to say," he began, "The last few weeks, we lost our way a little bit, didn't we? But I said to Grigor just a moment ago that all these years I've been in business, all the people I've met with the big houses, the flashy car, and lots of money, this university degree or that, all that stuff..."

Felik dismissed it all with a flick of his hand. Then he stabbed his fist into his chest.

"I learned more from this high school baseball team - I learned more about character and spirit from these girls than from all those other people put together. So, I want to say thank you to everyone here. And I want to say..."

Felik was too overwhelmed with emotion to go on. Grigor pulled him into a hug and spoke softly to him in Russian. Then he turned and gestured to me as if to say 'you take over'.

Me? What could I possibly say? If Felik couldn't speak, what was I supposed to say? How could I do the motivational speech to rally the troops? I could feel everyone including Charlotte staring at me -urging me to do it.

I wasn't sure I could say anything. But then I thought about the coaches and the team and why we had all turned up this day. Sometimes the thing that needs to be said is more important than your ego, and it needs to come out of your mouth no matter how nervous you are...

"Well, uh...on behalf of the team...uh...I'd like to thank Felik and Grigor, the best coaches ever, for having so much faith in us," I said and glanced up at them. They smiled back. "Because of you, we learned that each one of us is special, and even things don't get easier, we can get better at doing them. I mean...we're here now despite all odds, and that means we're halfway winning, aren't we?"

Several of us nodded in agreement. The coaches' faces were filled with pride as they looked at me. Grigor stepped forward.

"That's a wonderful speech, Darci," he said. "We're touched. Anyway girls, today we should just go out and play with all our hearts, but whatever happens, it doesn't matter. It's just a game, alright?"