Finding Your Person

Chapter 5

It was about a hundred-yard walk from the school to the soccer field. We walked out in two lines. In the back, one of the freshmen girls, Alli, rolled the speakers that were playing our warm-up playlist. Every year we had a different playlist and would all collaborate to choose our favorite songs and the songs that would get us excited and pumped up for the game.
The field looked so small from far away, but we had one of the bigger fields in our league. Walking onto the field had always given me such a rush. As we crossed the field to our benches, I noticed the other team hadn't arrived yet. Although the benches at the school were maybe over a decade old, they were still standing and in good shape. Over top of our bench we had a wooden cabana that protected all of us from the sun and rain. Behind the bench there was a fenced wall that had hooks for our bags. Our benches were pretty nice.
Once we had gotten to the bench, we all began to hang up our bags, one by one, and made our way back on the field to begin to stretch and do our warm-ups. It had become a habit of mine to look at the sideline. People were beginning to show up, and I kept looking around for my family and Liam. While we began to stretch, I heard a faint "Let's go, Mas!" When I looked over, I saw my little brother Aiden sitting on top of my dad's shoulders cheering. An immediate smile was smothered across my face. Gabby looked at me and laughed with amusement at how cute he was.
After warm-ups, our Coach Meyer called us all in. She began giving us the lineup, and it was the same as just about every other game.
"Alright girls! I want to see a lot of energy out there today. Just give it your all, and no matter what, the end result is I want you to walk off this field with no regrets. Play with your hearts. Alright." Both she and Coach Hayes stepped away. Before every game, we would all huddle up and after Coach would give us the line-up and speech, I would say a team prayer.
We all bowed our heads, and I began, "Dear Heavenly Father, I want to thank you for giving us this opportunity to come out here and step out on this field as a team and as a family. I pray that there will be no injuries and we play a safe, hard game. Lord give us all the power and the strength we need and that you would be with us on this field today. God, we love you and are so thankful for you. And we pray that at the end of this game, we come out on top. Amen."
"Amen!" everyone followed. Coach Meyers and Hayes stepped back in.
Coach Hayes led the chant, "Let's do this, girls! Team on three. One! Two! Three!"
"TEAM!" we all chanted in unison. We then made our way out onto the field.
Seeing everyone there gave me a boost of adrenaline. It was the realization that at any moment the whistle was going to blow and life off of this field didn't exist. All there was, was this moment in time--ten of my sisters out there and eleven others with all the same objective, to win.
As I looked down the sideline, I saw Brady's hand go up giving me a thumbs up, and he started to cheer. Right next to him was Liam with Aiden on his shoulders. They were screaming and cheering. As soon as my eyes met Liam's he gave me a smile. Not just any smile, but the kind that makes your eyes almost close and then he screamed, "Let's go, Mas!" No one besides Gabby and Scotty knew of my nickname Mas, but I didn't care; I knew they were cheering for me.
"Seems like you have quite the fan over there," Scotty leaned over whispering to me.
"Yeah, they are pretty great," I said, unable to contain my smile.
" 'They,' weren't who I was referring to." I looked at her, rolling my eyes, jokingly pushing her while laughing.
"Come on, let's go," I babbled, trying to avoid her last comment. I stuck my hand out to start our game ritual handshake. It ended with us jumping up into a chest bump. Right when my feet hit the ground, I turned to Gabby who was across the field, winked and blew her a kiss, since we were too far to do a handshake that was our ritual.
I was just a little superstitious.
I played center back. Alongside of me was Scotty; she had also played center back. Gabby played right midfield. Sometimes my coach would throw me at center midfield, but I loved playing defense.
The whistle blew and that was it. The world went silent and my head was in the game. I didn't have to worry about anything other than winning.