About a Loser

Chapter 3

Gemma's point of view

I can feel them watching.

Staring.

I shouldn't have stormed out like that. It made things worse. Damn it, Gemma, why are you such a useless idiot?

"Alright girls" The coach is a middle aged, bold guy who wears a frown like most girls wear makeup. I'm not usually the person to judge someone by their first words, but he's incompetent. If there's one thing that I'm sure about, it's that things are not alright.

My gaze shifts towards the other girls, sitting not too far away from me. I made sure to go to the other side of the bleachers as soon as I saw them walking onto the track, but they're still too close for my liking. Grace is staring, so I look away quickly. I don't even know how or why I'm still here. I could have walked straight to my car and driven home. Should have.

I'd be lying in my bed right now, pretending like none of this ever happened, like it's all a bad dream.

The thing is – I know my mom. She'd make me go to training again tomorrow. She wouldn't let me quit. Sometimes I feel like the only reason she gave birth to me is so she could have someone to torture whenever she feels bored.

"You'd better start warming up right now, because you're already running late" the coach continues, "And you should all know by now that lateness is unacceptable because we are on a tight schedule."

"Here we go again" Grace mutters under her breath.

"I am very disappointed in you" he continues, "All of you. This is not the first time you are late for training, and I really don't see why this always happens. The boys manage to get here on time, so why can't you?" He gestures towards the other side of the track where a couple of guys are busy doing sprints and, from the looks of it, probably also wishing they had never been born. Isn't that what sport is all about anyways?

They are too far away for me to make out individual faces, one certain really hot individual face in particular, but I bet he's over there. Not that I'd be looking for him. In fact, I really hope I'll never see him again because I'll never be able to look him in the eye without remembering that mortifying cheeseburger-experience.

"They started their warm-up ten minutes ago," coach continues, "You really need to work on this. Once you leave high school and move on to real life, no one is going to wait for you because you're taking so long in the changing room."

"Once you move on to real life" Grace imitates him, just loud enough for the other girls to hear, "As if this was some kind of video game or whatever."

"A deadline is a deadline and when I say we meet at 6:35, then you'd better all be here at 6:35, or else.."

"You said quarter to seven" Ella interrupts with an annoyed sigh, "You always start the boys off first and then forget about it and complain about our time management. How 'bout you work on yours before you go around casting the first stone?"

"If I say 6:35, I mean it, and I definitely did say 6:35, now stop your lame excuses" he replies, sounding even angrier than he did before.

"You'd think that if the schedule is really that tight, you'd cut the five minute speech you always give us about tardiness, coach," Grace interrupts, standing up. "I say we just start our warmup now, because we all have things to do and places to be so we might as well get it over with." She starts jogging before coach can protest and the other girls quickly follow her. I watch them, unsure whether I should follow. It's not like I belong with them.

Two seconds later, I sincerely regret my indecisiveness when coach notices my existence.

"You, there!" he barks, shooting me an annoyed look, "Who are you? What are you doing here?"