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"Alright practice is over," the coach of the archery team called out from her seat a few yards away. "Go home."
Jaein was nervous as she put away her equipment and slipped into the girls locker room where the soccer team was slowly trickling in as they finished their laps.
Jaein was quiet as she stripped herself from her practice shirt and pulled on her yellow top from earlier in the day. She stared into her locker as Aaleyah entered the locker room, chatting with a few other soccer players.
Jaein tried to make herself invisible, burying her sweaty form inside the hollow of her locker, but their eyes locked and Aaleyah gave her a friendly smile and wave, Jaein snapped into attention banging the back of her head on her lockers threshold in her panic.
Aaleyah came up to her with worried eyes as the locker room began their giggles and laughs. It wasn't that serious, they always laugh when someone gets hurt, even Jaein does. But it's never been her that gets laughed at.
Aaleyahs eyes were wide and worried, Jaein hadn't looked her in the eyes in a long time, "are you okay?"
Besides the painful throbbing and the embarrassment? Yeah I'm just peachy.
Jaein just moved to finished getting dressed, yanking her pants on impatiently.
Jaein hadn't always been such a ball of nerves around alleyah. They used to only have each other as friends thanks to the cultural norms of New York, but one slip up, one mistake from Jaein and she had Aaleyah running for the hills.
"Look I know we haven't talked in a long time," Aaleyah said, and Jaein resisted rolling her eyes, sentences that start off like that are bound to annoy her. "And I wasn't the most accepting when we were little, I was just confused. But if you ever need anyone to talk to about your condition-"
Jaein slammed her locker shut as she hauled her bag onto her back.
"I'm cool thanks," she said rather coldly. She pushed passed Aaleyah and through the heavy whispers of the locker room girls as she hurried out of the gym and into the city.
The sun was setting, and they sky was taking on hues of orange, red, yellow,and purple. Jaein needed to cool off before she entered her grandmothers home unless she wanted even more days on her calendar marked for therapy, so she decided to go ahead and walk home instead of riding the bus.
There were times where she really hated Aaleyah, she avoids her and then treats her like some mental patient? Maybe she isn't normal, but that doesn't make Jaein any less sane.
To cool herself down Jaein does what she usually does, pulls her hair up and down from a ponytail it keeps her hands from shaking. She turned down the dark street that was under repair, it was a quicker way home. The darkness was just a con to the list of pros the short cut provided.
