Amethyst- Book one

The Super Not-Sweet Sixteen of Amethyst Lombardi

Chapter One:

September 2012

Philadelphia,Pennsylvania

            “Don’t drop it!” Sarah snapped. I had to say, that was totally not cool. She was the one who dropped the relay stick, and I had to catch it, which wasted even more time against the other players. I decided to let the matter drop, because feeling irritated would just slow me down. I had to catch up to the runners that were twenty feet away from me already. Though this usually made me feel nervous and desperate, I restrained from shooting after them in full sprint, knowing I would risk pulling a muscle if I did so. I started after them in an average run, then I let my pace quicken. Though I wasn’t as tall as the other runners, my legs were still pretty long, and since I resembled most stick figures inAmerica, I found myself moving pretty fast. Fortunately, this nifty little skill proved itself useful with the first runner, who must’ve got too tired and started to slow down. However, the other runner, a girl maybe one and a half times my size and twice my weight, was tearing through the air like a bullet through water. She would be more difficult, and I wasn’t too thrilled to get any closer to her, but I wasn’t going to let a few nerves keep me from getting first place. I’m sixteen today, I would call it a birthday present to myself. With that bit of motivation, I huffed and kneeled down, practically kicking myself off of the racetrack. My legs were burning now, and I got the feeling that if I kept this up, then they just might break off. But, the finish line was just ten feet away, and hulk girl was only two steps behind me. Using my last bit of strength, I decided to do a little multi-tasking. I kicked off of the ground one last time and leaned forward while I was in mid-air. Letting gravity do the rest of the work, I felt a satisfied smile tug at my mouth as I soared over the finish line. However, my landing was pretty rough, considering my legs turned numb from overuse. I gritted my teeth as my knee scraped against the tar and I felt myself role a couple of inches, but I actually did it!

“Excellent, Lombardi! That is a record, I swear, you did perfect!” Coach Barnes congratulated me as she pulled me off of the ground. I felt myself crash into several more bone-crushing hugs from the rest of the team, and blinked my eyes from the flash of several cameras.

“Now, you do that kind of jumping in the long jump, we’ll have it in the bag.” Coach told me.

“Alright.” I tried to sound enthusiastic, but the throbbing on my leg made it hard to feel excited.

“Her leg is bleeding.” Sarah announced. Panting, I looked down and grimaced at the blood that was starting to stain my socks.

“It looks worse than it is. I’m fine.” I said dismissively, wiping at the blood at my knee. However, as soon as I moved my hand, more blood replaced in the gash.

“Alright, we’re going to have a medic look at that.” Coach declared. Against my protests, she whistled towards the guys’ team and motioned a couple of them to come over. Great, bad enough that I was cut and bleeding like someone from a horror movie, but now I’m going to have to be carried in, in front of everyone!

            And Adrianwas one of those guys! Adrianis pretty much one of the main reasons I joined the track team, because I was hoping I could impress him. I never planned that I could actually be a fast runner, but, there you go. A gesture of romance unburies some hidden talents, how’s that for inspiration? Though I was still a natural disaster when ever I attempted something even remotely similar to flirting with him, this was an all-time nightmare. HereAdrian was, just about ready for his race. His arms looked like they were sculpted by the Romans, which reminded me just how much I loved the fact that the boys’ team had sleeveless jerseys, andAdrian’s mop of dark brown hair was slightly ruffled from warm-ups. I felt my breath catch when he looked at me, and I wanted to scream at myself for making that last jump. I mean, sure, being carried inside by a gorgeous guy may be a lot of girls’ dream come true. But, when you’re sweaty, wheezing like a squeaky toy and bleeding like crazy, it totally turns off that whole romantic, damsel-in-distress sort of thing.