A life in the Dark

C h a p t e r N i n e

F r i d a y 1 3 t h S e p t e m b e r
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"Okay, I've had enough," I told Tessa and Jadyn, who had teamed up against me. I got to my feet and grabbed all my things, stuffing them in my bag before walking off.

"Hey, we were talking to you, swet," Tessa sassed as Jadyn caught up with me. "Where are you even going?"

"Somewhere that's not here!" I said, on the verge of screaming.

"Why bother? We'll just follow you," Jadyn gave me a small, but hard shove when I had the foot nearer her in the air, causing me to do a little horse-trotting/skipping routine to avoid falling into the dirt. She smirked, watching me look like a lemon.

"Then follow," I replied, the plainness of my voice confusing the pair, who remained rooted to their spots for a second, before shrugging at one another and running to catch up again. Mostly silently, but with poking, punching, pinching et cetera, the girls followed he to a bit of the school the boys call "the cage". This is because it basically is. It's a concrete playground with those high, metal netting fences all the way round and also on top, so that it's completely caged off with two exceptions of doorways. This is why the guys play football there, since the ball cannot go out. Later on the school even bought a few goals to put in.

"Wait," Jadyn suddenly spoke. "You're not seriously going in there? To get away from us?"

"What?" I replied, sliding the lock across the door. "Of course not!" I pushed the door open.

"Don't-they'll boot the ball at you-like a walking target," Tessa...advised?

"Yeah that's an awful idea," Jadyn warned. I felt rather smug. Either they'd realised what extreme measures I'd currently go to to get away from them and where being nice now or they simply wanted me to stay out so they could still get to me; basically they were afraid of coming in. Good. Perfect!

"Sorry, I'm not listening to you," I sang. Besides, despite their interpretation, I'm not just sitting there awaiting them to aim for me, which is inevitable. Ignoring their protests, I stepped inside. Only half of the guys were actually playing a match, the rest were crowded around someone, listening to something or rather. I carefully walked up to them, chewing on my lips nervously when one of the guys-Dominic-pointed me out to his friends. One by one, they all looked up, shocked that a girl had set foot in the cage. After a painfully long time, I was finally standing in front of them, their eyes piercing through me from all directions. I gulped. "Hi," Finley broke the awkward silence, for which I'll be eternally grateful.

"H-hi," I stuttered shyly, raising a hand to nervously rub the back of my neck. "I-I was wondering if I c-can join your match?" They all stared at me as if I was mad, then Finley noticed Jadyn and Tessa guarding the door I came through, and had an epiphany.

"Those two following you, huh?" he inclined his head in their direction; I nodded. "Sure, what'cha got?"

I beamed across at him. "Pass," I called over to the guy with the ball, who absolutely whacked it my way, obviously expecting me to miss straight away, but I controlled it and swiftly flicked it up.

Next I attempted several keepy-upies with the side of my feet, from one foot to the other which went quite well, if I do say so myself. All the guys were silent, probably concerned about whether I was really gonna continue to embarrass myself. By choice. But of course, I couldn't see since I was focused on the ball.

I was amazed how all the practice was paying off in terms of precision: I hardly had to move to hit it the next time, until eventually I decided to kick it up a bit higher, over my head in an arc, where I only just managed to catch it with the back of my leg, the cool material soothing the back of my thigh. Then I dropped it, the guys began taking louder, so I continued into a rainbow flick over my head-getting tonnes of comments. God knows what they're saying.

The ball came close over my head, where I lifted my leg to meet it at ninety or so degrees to my body, my arms swinging along to build up momentum, and kicked it back, where I tried to keep it up, passing from one heel to the other, which I expected to mess up on since you can't see the ball. I kept this up for a minute or two, until I chose to mix it up a bit and nudged it higher, bent over a bit and caught it in my neck. Thankfully it went to plan for once and I proceeded to roll it down my back, a bit like a bad gymnast would and chipped it up with my heel; there were oohs and ahs of what I presumed was disgust as I went on to catch it using my foot to hold the football there, resting between my leg and shoe, then they got louder as I tried to perform a series of pretty awful 'round-the-world's one after the other. I can hardly ever do it.

Then I tapped it up and did multiple headers, one of the things I'm best at at the club, getting reasonable height with each, then brought it down to my knees, jerkily keeping it from the floor. Bored with that, I left it to hit the floor and when it bounced, I booted it straight up, so that it hit the netting ceiling and falling quite fast, but somehow I managed to header it straight up from that, my hair coming out with each movement. Finally, I twisted round backwards with full power, hoping my heel would come into contact with the football as it fell, which-luckily-it did, whereupon I smashed it towards the goal, but way off course. The guys all raised an eyebrow, mockingly. But for once, I was confident I'd have the last laugh as I'd practiced making it curve.

They all watched, shocked, as the ball slowly changed direction and landed safely in the goal, rolling out from the net. There was silence as they all took this in. I looked up at them and my heart stopped.

He didn't...

~~~~~~

Dun dun dun!

(Oh, the cliffhangers! Hahaha the mystery!)

So, wicked skill shown here by Lettice, wish this was me! 😭

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