The Perfectionists

Chapter 2

Uma Arsulu shifted from foot to foot on the Auradon Prep soccer field. The manicured lawn looked vivid green against the woolly gray afternoon clouds that hung low in the sky. It felt as if the gentle autumn warmth had been sucked out of the air overnight, leaving a moist chill that cut through her warm-up pants. Uma breathed in the scent of freshly cut grass and impending rain. The smells of soccer.

"All right—we're going to have to go heavy on the offense." Uma rubbed her hands together as her teammates listened. "Megan and Gina, you two take the midfield. Shannon, Sujatha, Katie, and Lindsey, you're defense. You guys are going to have to stay on your toes. The rest of us are on forward."

"We're going to crush those boys." Katie O'Malley glared at the opposing team: Auradon's varsity boys' soccer squad. Today was the annual girls-boys play-off.

The boys' coach, Coach Marcus, and the girls' coach, Coach Leah—who were, incidentally, married to each other—paced the sidelines in identical maroon-and-white soccer anoraks. Uma glanced at her coach briefly, then looked back at her team. "Jordan, you've got our goal, right? Don't let those bastards score."

"I've got this," Jordan said. At almost 5 foot three and her long black hair and chiseled cheekbones, Jordan was also Uma's best friend on the team.

Then Aria ,daughter of Ariel, who normally played center mid but had taken over as striker when Uma was injured, looked at Uma harshly. "Are you sure your ankle's healed? You don't want to hurt it more by coming back too early." Uma frowned. "I'm fine," she insisted. Of course Aria didn't want Uma to play—she wanted to take her place. But Uma was fine . . . mostly. She had a high ankle sprain, but she'd powered through it with physical therapy and the occasional hit of OxyContin—the same drug, actually, that Ben allegedly OD'd on. And now here she was, back on the field after just three weeks. She had to prove to the coach that she was ready for the big play-off game in two weeks. Winning that was her ticket to an athletic scholarship at the University of Auradon, something she'd been working toward her whole life.

Suddenly, Uma felt two strong arms wrap around her shoulders. "Gotcha," her boyfriend, Gil Legume, murmured in her ear. "Get off me," Uma mumbled good-naturedly, elbowing him. "I'm trying to focus." Gil snickered. "You're cute when you're in game mode." He bumped fists with two of his buddies, Guy Kenwood and Timothy Burgess, who'd also wandered over. "Ha-ha," Uma said with a laugh, trying not to be irritated that Gil wasn't taking this game seriously. "It'll be less cute when we kick your butts."

She and Gil had been together forever. Their parents had been best friends since college—they'd been in each other's weddings and had moved to Auradon at the same time. Ursula, Uma's mom, had gave birth to Uma the same year Gaston's wife at the time  gave birth to Gil—and then a year later Ursula had Uma's little brother, Urson, she had left Uma with the Legume family for two months. There were framed photos in both houses of Uma and Gil  holding hands on a playground, or red-faced and crying in a mall Santa's lap. There'd been a few of them sharing a bathtub as toddlers, too, but those had been banned by both Gil and Uma on the grounds that they were weird and creepy.

Over the years, both their families did joint vacations and holidays, held weekly board game nights, had standing Saturday-night barbecues, and were always on the sidelines at Uma's and Gil's games. And now Uma and Gil were both being courted by UDub's respective soccer coaches . . . which meant the Arsulu/Legume lovefest could continue into college. And then, if everything went according to plan, they would graduate, get married, and have Arsulu-Legume babies.

And that plan was more important than ever now. Gil and soccer were her only two constants, the only things holding her together when it felt like her world was falling apart. With Urson gone, her whole family had shifted. She was suddenly an only child, and the family her parents had worked so hard to create was crumbling. Her parents kept it together in front of her, but she often heard her mom crying quietly in their room. And her dad would stare out the window as he did the dishes, as though if he looked long enough, he would finally see Urson coming in for dessert. The only times her parents seemed like themselves were at dinner with the Legumes or cheering for Uma on the soccer field.