Under the Summer Stars

Beth

"Um," I said as we approached an old, beaten up looking school. "Why are we here?"

Drew was the first to answer. "This is where we went to middle school. That field right there," he pointed to a green, painted on, AstroTurf football field, "is where I got my first kiss."

"Me too," Marty laughed, shaking his head with a wide smile as if reminiscing on old memories.

"Okay, but," Elle said from next to me. "Why'd we come here?"

"Well," Drew shoved his hands in his pockets and turned away from the field, facing her. "We come here a lot, to, I don't know, chill out for a bit. And now that it's summer, we won't get screamed at for trespassing."

He paused for a second, thinking about what he just said. "Okay, maybe we will still get yelled at for trespassing, but when does that actually happen?"

I laughed.

"Jack, go get the balls," Kristin said to him, confusing me. He nodded quickly before scurrying away. He reappeared about thirty seconds later with a mesh bag full of about eight soccer balls.

I smiled. Soccer.

I have played soccer since I was in Kindergarten. In my first year of high school, I was the very first freshman captain to hail from my school. The seniors despised me for it, but I think they eventually got over it.

Since senior year is starting up soon, I had to prepare to be our captain. So far, I haven't started doing the workouts Coach gave us for the summer, but it's only the first day of summer. I'll start tomorrow.

Jack saw me eyeing the soccer balls so he opened the mesh bag and tossed me one. "You play?"

"Yeah," I nodded, doing a trick to show my emphasis.

"Oh, God, does she," Elle rolled her eyes. "In middle school she was on three travel teams in addition to our school's team."

"That's true," I kicked her the ball, and she did a trick to get it to her hands. "But you also played on one of those travel teams and the middle school team, too."

"That's true," she laughed as she kicked the ball back to Jack. He caught it and threw it back into the mesh bag, then gave the balls to Marty.

"So, what, is soccer the big sport here?"

"Nah," Jack shook his head with a slight smile. "We're baseball here."

"And he's your captain here," Drew put his arm across Jack's shoulder.

Captain, huh?

"Do you play baseball, too?" Elle asked Drew.

He shook his head. "I play golf. A sport for all the preps out there."

"Please," Kristin scoffed. "You're anything but preppy."

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We ended up staying at the middle school for about an hour before we began to get tired.

Marty and I seemed to be the only people who noticed a fire crackling on the beach. I nudged Kristin and nodded my head toward it.

"Should we go?" I asked her.

"Why not," she shrugged, and faced me with a friendly smirk. "Maybe you can make new friends."

We approached a group of teenagers sat around a fire, empty bottles of beer scattered around the cool sand, and one of them was smoking what was either a cigarette or a joint.