SEVENS

JACK

Practice started at six. Dinner ended at five thirty. For thirty minutes I had been bombarded by the team about how rugby was played. Somehow they had forgotten to ask if I even knew how rugby was played. I did know enough to watch it but had never been allowed or given the chance to look up what each position was or ask someone to explain it to me. I had seen a few of Pierre's games and that was it. Now though I was being flooded with information about it. Mostly the position I was supposed to play.
    I was the Wing. From all the yelling the thing I gathered I was supposed to do was run and run fast. I was good at running. They reinforced it over and over.
    "You get the ball you run. You run and run until you reach the in-goal and score."
The reminders didn't stop when laps started though. They didn't stop when laps stopped and drills started. The group only stopped when we joined the JV players for mock games.
That was something else I learned. The "team" as I had previously known them was actually just the Varsity half of the team. The Junior Varsity half joined for the second half of practices and were used if substitutes were needed, which wasn't often.
I didn't like it as much when the two halves folded into one. I immediately felt lost and on the edge of panic. Raf, as much as I hated to admit it, was my anchor point. The full group was split into four groups of seven by counting down the line by four. Before Coach, a tall woman who wore dark shades despite the setting sun, got to where I was standing with the gang Bleu grabbed me by the shoulders and directed me to a spot in line. I looked at him confused but he just positioned himself next to me. Soon I realized he did it so that Raf and I were stuck on the same team. Which was how I ended up looking for him after a practice round was done and we were placed against another team.
There was a coach for each team too, though the coaches marked one half of a field and got to advies each team as they moved through the circuit. St. Josephs had four coaches for rugby, two of which were assistant coaches but there nonetheless. Raf and I's team were passing to the next part of the circuit when Raf pulled me over to meet the coach. He had done this with the previous coach too and I expected would with the other two.
As we got closer Phoebe called me from across the field and gave me a thumbs up. I returned the gesture and then turned back to the assistant coach who Raf was introducing me too. I held out my hand to shake his outstretched one before I heard what Raf was saying or looked at the man attached to the hand.
I took half a step back tearing my hand away like he was on fire.
"Jack this is Alexie Hamilton, Alexie this is Jack Chen our assistant coach."  
He furrowed his brows but smiled. "Nice to meet you."
"You--you too." I fought against rubbing my hand along my pants. Jack looked down at it, the one he'd shook. The left one. My scarred one. Jack was left handed of course he shook with his left hand.
Jack Chen. I knew him. I highly doubted Jack would have remembered me if I hadn't shook his hand. But I had.
Please, please don't recognize me.
I couldn't tell if what I saw on his face was recognition or confusion at my reaction.
But he shook it off. Smiled and blew his whistle. We stood back a little so the other five members of our team-- none of which I knew-- could fit around Jack.
"Alright, I'm not going to give you any strategies right now but I do want you all to keep a keen eye on each other. Work together to get the ball to the score zone." And we all dispersed leaving assistant coach Jack off to the side of the field.
My head stayed with Jack.
He was one of the three people who had made fostercare bearable. The three years were hell but Jack had been one of the people who had kept me off the mental edge. He had been best friends to my foster brother, Reece, been almost a brother to me himself. He knew I had scars and he knew I was supposed to be with my mom. He also knew me by my legal name.
My feet were taken out from under me. I landed hard on my back and felt the breath leave my chest. Choking I rolled to my side and coughed to kickstart my lungs. Raf ran up and kneeled on the grass beside me.
"Lexi. Hey are you okay?"
I nodded but couldn't vocalize my response thanks to the coughing.
"What happened? You just stopped. You had the ball."
"Fu--fuck off."
I could hear him scoff, but he grabbed my arm and helped me climb to my feet. "Im asking a serious a serious question."
"I just got distracted."
"I don't believe you." I nodded again in response. "Come on, lets prove you're good enough to justify all this bullshit."

—————

Practice ended at eight. Raf and I were the last out the locker rooms and back to the C wing. I was ready to fall to my mattress and sleep until practice woke me again. We only made it a few steps down the hall headed to the stairwell before a voice behind us was calling for us over the sound of a door banging against the brick wall. "Wait-"

Never had a single word hit me like that single 'wait'. It caused a sharp pain to flare in my chest and my whole body to tighten. It was Japanese.
It had been our secret. Jack had taught Reece and I his native language and we had spoke it like a prayer. They spoke it at school, out of school, everywhere and I joined in, reveling in something so sacred, except that when we were near Mark. Not then.
The sound of it on Jack's tongue shook me to the core. I ignored it and took another step to follow Raf who was for the second time in the past three hours the safest to be around.

"Tomas—" I felt the breath leave my chest. Raf hadn't stopped and waved as he rounded a corner at the end of the hall. I was alone with my past.

"Don't call me that."

"Alexei." Jack corrected. "Please can we talk?" He had switched back to English but I gave my reply Japanese.

"No. And don't even think of bringing it up again. I'm going to my room and you're going to leave and pretend this didn't happen."

"Raf won't let you in. I asked him to let me talk to you." My heart was racing now. Hard and fast. I could feel the weight of Jack's stare and I couldn't shake it off. I began to look from one end of the hall to the other, expecting police and my mom and Mark to fall from their hiding places in a frenzied charge.

"The last time I saw you- look Alexei... where's your mom?" Thankfully he followed suit and continued in Japanese.

"No." I couldn't keep the scared edge out of my voice.

"The judge said-"

I slammed him against the wall with enough force to jar the both of us. My chest brushed up against his with every attempt to control the shaking of my body. Tears boiled up behind my eyes threatening to fall. My head pounded at all the movement and I ignored it.
"I swear to any fucking god that has ever been prayed to that if you speak of it one more time I'll kill you." I only managed a whisper.

"We all missed you." My vision hazed over and everything became silent. "Tom—" but I was running before he could finish.

I climbed the stairs first by twos and threes and then taking four at a time.  When I reached the room I found the door unlocked and the room empty.
Without thinking I locked myself in the bathroom and turned on the shower. I shed my shirt and had a difficult enough time getting it off that I didn't bother with my jeans before stepping under the cool spray.
For a single moment I could breathe again and then my false calm dissolved and I lost my balance. I slid into the basin of the tub, tremors shaking my whole body, breath coming in tight sharp pants.

We all missed you.

I thought maybe I was crying but it could have been just the water from the rusted shower head.

We all missed you.

I thought that maybe the only thing keeping my lungs pumping air into my chest was the spasming of my muscles.

We all missed you.

I could feel the scarring on my stomach, soft patches of layered white lines backed by sharp violent memories of being held down and enduring. I pressed my left hand against them. The spiraling pattern of boiled flesh mirroring an oven top burner etched not quite center over my palm and slowly extended out: tracing lines over each finger. A punishment over spilling soup.
I hated that one the most, my palm. It was the beginning. It was all my fault.
The patches of boiled flesh on my thighs from spilling tomato soup was punishment for clumsiness.
The burn on my hand a reminder not to be clumsy, not to waste food, not to give so much trouble to mom who worked so hard.
The cigarette burns, though few, for being disobedient and getting bad grades.
The white lines a warning to never open my heart.

We all missed you.

I sobbed.