Once I'm whole

Chapter 3

The whistle blew, signaling the two teams to start.

Quarter way into the game, none of the teams had scored a goal yet until, Jer tackled the ball from number 11 and passed it around the team, confusing the jaguars. He faked left and passed it to Ryan, our midfielder. Ryan was also called the flash because of his major speed. He could confuse the crap out of the opponent without breaking a sweat. He took the ball and sprinted towards the goal and had Sam assist him in the goal. Sam gracefully handled the ball before shooting up the right hand corner of the goal and scoring it beautifully. The crowd went wild.

Half time came around and we were leading. We just had to keep it this way. Soccer is a game of grace and strategy. We just had to keep our defense up and prevent them from scoring a goal. Coach yelled at Tom to stop showboating and focus on trying to get another goal in before time was up. A score of 1-0 is barely anything to be proud of. But a score of 2-0, now that is something to talk about.

The other coach was furious. You could see the steam coming out of his red face. I loved that look. We knew we had struck a nerve. The crowd was loud today. It was a full audience and I sweeped the audience stand to find Marco sitting with my family. Of course he would sit with them. I laughed quietly before putting my game face back on. We had a team to obliterate.

As the third quarter came, the jaguars played more aggressively. They played with more force and were more rough with the team, even getting a yellow card for trying to push a player out of the way. Anyone could see that they were mad and wanted this win as bad as we did. But the difference between our teams was that while they played like robots programmed to work with each other, we played like one single unit.

Damnit, one more goal come on.

The last quarter came and the crowd grew more unsettled, the atmosphere was intense and wild. As the last whistle blew, the crowd went wild. The crowd cheered loudly as I was pulled aside by Jer and Sam. They lifted me on their shoulders and hooted loudly for the whole team to gather around us. Two guys, Fred and Ming, from the basketball team came over with a cooler of soda and poured it all over the team, howling with laughter as the soda engulfed me the most. Crap I was going to have to use a body scrub and have a warm bath to get all the sugar of me.

The field settled down and my parents came over to congratulate me and Jer. They avoided touching us but somehow still managed to plant a kiss on my cheek. As I was about to go to the locker room, a familiar figure came running at me.

" YOU DID GREAT" Marco yelled as he gave me a big hug

"Thanks dude" I chuckled

"NO WAY" Jer gasped, "MARCO! Dude what are you doing here? when did you come back? Holy sh-"

He was cut off by the three teammates running towards Marco and him and pouncing on them until they toppled on to the ground. Boys. I rolled my eyes and chuckled to myself.

" We are totally having an afterparty at my place " Zach jeered

" HELL YEAH" Sam cheered

Followed by a bunch of hoots as more of the team approached us. We introduced Marco to the rest of the team although Sam, Zach and Ryan already knew him from kindergarten. After a few introductions, Marco announced that he was going to start practicing with us next week and the boys welcomed him to the team.

The boys slowly trickled off, looking for their girlfriends or going to shower in the locker room. Jer walked off to take a shower and I thought that I probably should too.