Sophomore Year

| 17 |

The swift wind carried her, as she ran inside the cafe. Gina quickly thanked Yara for holding the door open. The two just got finished with their workouts, alongside their other teammate—Mikey.

She trailed along with Yara and Mikey. They talked amongst themselves about how sore they are and it turned into a competition of who's more injured. Yara guided them in a quick prayer and they all laughed. They strolled through the line, getting their food and drinks.

Gina felt a little lighthearted walking with them, it feels good to be apart of something. Walking with them, and having on their matching tracksuits made her feel super confident—a tad bit high and mighty.

"Mikey stay thinking he's the shit." Yara teased, just as Mikey flipped his dreads up into a bun.

He chuckles as he grabs his food from Gina. They look around for an empty table, and on the far end of the room Gina spots Kendrick, sitting by himself. He glances up at her with a smile, he raises his hand to wave but she shifts her eyes away and sits down next to her teammates. She places her sports bag on the table, pushing it aside.

Kendrick furrowed his eyebrows, feeling a bit dejected. He twirled his pencil in between his fingers as he stared at her. He wanted to feel indifferent towards her actions but couldn't... He tried to focus on his notes, once more.

"No bullshit, we have to show out at regionals." Mikey says.

"Yeah, yeah.. We're gonna be out in freaking Delaware." Yara says, as she opens her fruit cup.

"What?" Mikey pauses. "I thought we was going to uh... North Carolina?"

"No. It's Delaware, I remember." Gina says, as Yara hums along—agreeing with her. "I think we're going to North Carolina the week, or two weeks after that. It's in the groupchat."

"Oh, I muted y'all. Can you resend it?" Mikey says.

"Not gonna hold you, I muted the groupchat too. I just check in every other time..." Gina trails off a her phone dings.

Kendrick: can you come sit next to me? I wanna talk about how your day is going :)

She swipes up, and ignores it as she continues to look for the picture, that has the track meet dates to send to Mikey. Her phone dings again, but twice this time 'round...

Kendrick: please?
. (don't ignore me)

She of course ignores him, and continues scrolling through her camera roll.

Kendrick grows slightly angry, he got up from his seat and exhaled roughly...

"You still didn't find it?" Mikey asks, laughing.

"I have a lot of pictures." She snickers.

Suddenly a hand grabs her sports bag—with all his anger built up, to say the least—he snatches it and holds onto to it tightly with one hand.

"I know you seen my text messages..." Kendrick scowled. "Come, and sit next to me."

Gina, not phased whatsoever, continues to scroll through her camera roll.

Kendrick rubbed the back of his neck. "Don't make me make you Gina. Take yo' ass over to my table so we can talk about how your day is going!" He pointed at his table with his free hand.