Wrangling teenage emotions is hard enough on good days, but what if on bad days they could manifest as giant flesh and blood monsters?
Pacific Rim meets Friday Night Lights as knee-jerk rebel Sage Sawyer is forced to join her high school "tourneytub...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
When Dawn first benched her earlier in the week, Sage was furious. Almost apoplectic. For a while, she even considered just straight up quitting the team. Right then and there. But she realized it would probably never work. Dr. Howder would just come find her before the hour was up and drag her by her ear back to the benchpen.
Still, a girl can dream.
In any case, Sage calmed down and found herself the most comfortable spot in the benchpen, leaning against a rusty pillar, blowing gum bubbles as usual. Staying as far away from Talia sitting on the actual wooden bench as possible. Watching practice. Day after day. Determined not to say anything. But now, finally, on Wednesday afternoon, some company finally arrives to join her.
Genesis O'Toole piles into the benchpen, kicking up dust as she clambers over the old bleachers to get a good vantage point of practice on the court in front of her. She's taking a well deserved break, to give Peter time to hone his thaumaturgy skills.
Sage tries very hard not to notice all the freckles on Gee's neck, but she already has noticed, so at this point it's already a lost cause. Shrugging her shoulders, Sage saunters over to her teammate, swings her legs over the bleachers, and sits down right beside her.
Gee jumps. Gee realizes it's Sage. Gee blushes.
Sage really hopes she's not blushing as well. "Hi." She says. Usually Sage would have a lot more to say at a time like this, but she's distracted by Gee's emerald eyes smiling at her from beneath a tangle of golden hair. She's positively breathtaking.
"Hi." Gee replies.
"So, uh, whatsup?" Sage offers. She swallows her gum. It's not like she planned to or anything, it's just that Gee is one of the few people she doesn't want to blow belligerent bubbles at right now.
"Oh. You know, not much. Just resting for a bit." Gee says, scanning the other jockeys practicing on the court in front of them.
"Hey, uh, I haven't gotten a chance to say this to you before now, but, uh, I just wanted to thank you." Sage says, guiding a dark blade of hair behind her ear.
"Thank me?" Gee turns her head back again. Now her whole attention is focused on Sage. "Thank me for what?"
"For what you did. Coming into Howder's office like that. Saving my ass. I was probably about to get my ass expelled or something, which, you know, I don't personally care too much about, but once my Dad found out, oooh boy, talk about Krakatoa! Anyway, then you come barging in and show Howder that video and BOOM, suddenly I'm a frikken Jupiter Jackalope! I'm not much one for school sports, but I prefer it to all the other drama my ass was headed for."
Sage is surprising herself with this verbal barrage.
And why is she mentioning her ass so damn much?
She must be nervous. But that's ridiculous! No one makes Sage Sawyer nervous. She's worked very hard to cultivate this image. And in five seconds, Gee has managed to tear it down completely.
"Oh yeah, of course," Gee says, "it was really the only thing to do, once I saw you out there. You're the one with those jockey skills. I just happened to get lucky and have my cell phone in my hand. I guess you were meant to be discovered though, right? Like someone's looking out for you up there." Gee points up in the direction of the sky.
They talk through the entire rest of practice.
Sage is really beginning to see the benefits of the benchpen.
***
Photo courtesy of Jamez Picard on Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/@truemedia. Edited.
