Score •• louis a.u.

chapter 25

{Louis’ POV}

I run out onto the field with jerky limbs, the nerves taking control once again. The excitement from moments before quickly melts away until I feel like I’m going to throw up. This is it. The start of it all.

“Louis!” John’s voice rips through my ears and I whip my head toward him, jumping up and down to release some pent up energy.

“Go midfield!”

I jog to my position and wait with mounting anxiety for the rest of my team to come out.

“Let’s see,” I talk to myself. “Marc is left center forward, Brent is center defense, Scott is left winger, Angel is right forward, Sam is right center forward, Dan is midfielder, Frank is right winger, Tristan is midfielder, Josh is keeper, and Will is left forward.”

I quickly count eleven and nod my head, taking a deep breath before putting my game face on. Angel and some bloke from the other team flip a coin to call who is starting and it’s us. He and Will stand inside the circle and look at each other for a brief moment before the whistle blows. I stand with my legs spread apart, ready to sprint after the ball. Sam kicks it to Marc and we’re off.

I dash down the field, watching as Will kicks the ball at one of our opponents, hitting him in the chest. Will stays on him, kicking the ball, and sometimes his leg, to force it past him. Will’s name rips from my throat and I sound almost animalistic, shouting his name from down the field. The ball is passed to Angel who is in direct line with me. It’s quick, maybe a little too quick, and too high, but the ball flies toward me.

The first day of Trey on the job flashes through my mind and how we all kicked the ball to each other, the fluidity of the movements and how we impressed her. This is the exact same thing. The ball hits me in the chest and I’m stunned for a few seconds before I quickly recover, having to launch the ball away from this giant man running straight at me. I run after it, glancing left to see where the guy is and glancing right to see who I can pass the ball too.

Dan flies past me and I scream his name, kicking the ball as hard as I can so it flies over his head. Or, it would’ve been over his head if he hadn’t jumped and headed the ball. I hear Trey screaming from the sidelines and I can’t help the smile that splits my face. What she taught us is actually working. Dan keeps the ball in front of him; doing amazing footwork everyone on my team is jealous of him for.

I trail behind him a little bit, just watching in case some ass on the other team decides to steal the ball. They’re not that great, which I’m fairly surprised about, and we have no trouble moving the ball in the center of their group. We get as far as the defenders before things really start picking up. First of all, Scott takes a nice slide kick to the right knee as the ball is kicked all the way down to our side and he goes down at the same time as the ball flies up and hits Dan in the face. There’s a loud crunch everyone hears and the linesman blows his whistle.

I stop running and quickly take a knee, my hands on top of my head and my chest heaving with every breath. I see John run onto the field as well as two medics. One attends to Scott and the other to Dan. Scott is curled up on the ground holding his knee with his face buried into the turf. I feel an instant pain in my knee just thinking about the agony he’s going through. When Dan stands up, the areas under his eyes are puffy and he holds a bloody tissue to his nose. It must be broken; that was a full on slam to the face. I grimace as he walks by and clap for him along with everyone in the stadium.Scott is still on the ground and the medic is talking to him, although I can’t hear what he’s saying.

The medic tries to move Scott’s leg and he screams in pain. I bite my lip and flinch as he whimpers when the medic touches the knee. It’s a few more minutes before someone drives onto the field in a golf cart and drives off with Scott in the back. I stand up and clap for him whilst Justin and Charlie replace Dan and Scott. The ref picks up the ball and kicks it to the linesman at mid field. We all go back to our positions and Angel starts things off again. This time, the other team decides to grow some balls and they put the pressure on immediately. I get kicked in the shins more times than I can count in the next five minutes of play time. A beautiful kick to our goal is stopped by Josh who punts it down the field with all of us chasing after it. I am the first to catch up with the ball and am literally two meters from the goal when the ball is kicked out from in front of me, going out of bounds and I end up on the ground. I quickly stand up and shake it off whilst looking around to see who did it. I see the giant guy who was on me before trying to hide a smile and I roll my eyes, positioning myself on the short side of the goalie.