The Rest Is History | ✓

18 | the matchday

Something seemed to have shifted between Archer and I after our last conversation by the fireplace. It was like we were both hyper aware of what we'd said to each other, and terrified of who might confess what next.

All through the week we'd been stepping on eggshells around each other and it was honestly getting so tiring. I wasn't liking it one bit.

We were having our footy practice in the early hours of Wednesday when an overhead kick from Leslie sent our ball flying into the boys' side of the pitch.

"Wentworth!" Heady called out to me. "Go get the ball."

I sighed and ran over to the other side. I immediately spotted Archer standing a few feet away from me, wearing a tank top which made his lean biceps stand out a bit too much for my comfort. They almost distracted me from the fact that he had our ball in his hand.

Great, I thought. Another confrontation I didn't need.

"Um, that's our ball," I said. Gosh, I sounded so lame.

Archer stared at me. He looked a bit flustered, as if something was making him uncomfortable.

I raised my eyebrows and looked at him expectantly. "So...care to return the ball?"

He snapped out of his reverie. "Oh, yeah of course." He threw the ball and I caught it effortlessly. I jogged back to our side of the pitch, only to see all my teammates smiling at me from ear to ear.

I frowned. "What's so funny?"

Evelyn chuckled. "Oh, nothing. He was just checking you out, that's all."

"Who?"

"Who else? Your ex boyfriend."

I gasped. "He was not!"

Miranda, who was a year below me, patted my shoulder. "Don't worry, Vivian, one day you'll be able to get over your blindness."

I rolled my eyes at her. "Sod off."

After that, Heady called out to us to quit our chit chatting and we went on with our training. We had a match against St Margaret's Sixth Form College the next week, thankfully at home, and we needed to train extra hard before it.

But even then I couldn't shake off the conversation I'd had with the girls. Was Archer really checking me out? Why would he do that? He wasn't supposed to do that.

I gave my head a slight shake. No, they must've been mistaken. He couldn't be.

°

Next week came and soon enough, we had our match against St Margaret's. I was usually not a nervous wreck but this time, I was a bit scared too, since our opponents were pretty strong. They had a solid defence and one of their strikers was really lethal.

Heady gave us the much needed pep talk before we ran out onto the pitch. We gathered in a huddle and Evelyn, our captain, gave us another short but motivational speech before she went for the coin toss.

The next ninety plus minutes were a blur. I ran like my life depended on it, and ended up providing an assist after thirty minutes. But soon afterwards St Margaret's scored and equalised.

At the death, when the score was still 1-1, I was sure we were going to end the game tied. It was already 90+4 minutes and we'd got 5 minutes of added time.

But then we got a free kick, from almost the same position as the one where I'd taken the free kick during training before our Christmas holidays, to show Archer.