Serendepia

“Come on, guys, the game’s already started” exclaimed Ava, walking briskly to enter the building.

“We wouldn’t be late if you hadn’t gone to the wrong place” JC complained.

“How was I supposed to know that the main court is under renovation and they would be playing on the old court?”

“I bet your girlfriend told you when she invited you, but I’m sure you were so distracted watching her that you didn’t even hear her”

If Camila didn’t know them as well as she does, she’d think he was jealous of Ava’s not-so-little crush on her classmate, but their fleeting relationship had ended with the two of them on very good terms and now they were practically best friends.

“I already told you that Beatrice is not my girlfriend” Ava pointed out trying to look annoyed and intimidating to avoid being further bothered by the same topic; however, failure shoed itself in the form of the heat spreading across her cheeks.

“I second JC on this” opined Camila going just a couple pf steps behind her friends due to her shorter legs.

Ava’s footsteps stopped right in front of the entrance to the old gym and she turned around to show her face expression of indignations. “Even Judas wasn’t that treacherous” she replied dramatically with a hand on her chest. “He’s my ex, you can’t be on his side, it’s part of the best friend rules”

“You made me run halfway across campus, so I’m reconsidering being friends with you”

JC laughed in his ex’s face and followed Camila into the gym.

After a couple of seconds examining the available seats in the bleachers on either side, Ava took them both by the hand and led them to the first row of bleachers on the right, front of the side of the court where her university’s team was playing.

“If the ball hits me in the face, it will be your fault” JC mentioned as he noticed how close they were to all the action of the match.

“They’d be doing you a favor” Ava replied without taking her eyes off Beatrice.

Camila ignored the small argument started by her two friends and concentrated on checking the notifications on her phone since she didn’t quite know what was going on inside the playing field.

She had a text message form Todd, a friend of JC’s that Ava and she had just met two weeks ago when they attended a party of another of JC’s friends; Camila had hit it off with him, they had a fun conversation and there was even a bit of flirting, so they had been talking for a couple of days now after JC gave his friend her number.

While neither JC nor Ava had any idea what the general rules of volleyball were, they could identify when teams scored a point and that was enough knowledge to celebrate like true fans every time their college team won one.

After more than an hour, several breaks by both teams, and the 5% battery alert on her phone, Camila finally decided to pay attention to the remainder of the game as she had no other way to fight boredom.

She knew three of the players at her university: Shannon, her partner in more than one class; Mary, Shannon’s girlfriend; and Beatrice, the one to blame for Ava dragging them there when she should have been finishing one of her projects.

Camila looked at Ava, who couldn’t seem to take her eyes off Beatrice, which made her about to tease her best friend; however, a movement too close in her peripheral vision caught her attention.

As she looked ahead again, she found one of the players running in her direction to catch the ball before it hit the ground.

The girl succeeded, hitting the ball to get it back on the playing field, although the move she made ended up causing her to fall on her knee and slide on the ground into the stands.

Camila spread her legs apart to prevent the player coming straight at her from hitting her knees and hurting herself, which caused the girl to end up even close to her when she stopped.

The short distance between the two allowed Camila to see a brunette girl with a light skin tone and brown eyes who had messy hair and her cheeks flushed from all the exertion of the match, in addition to her heavy and accelerated breathing.

Most people’s general definition of sexy was surely far from what the girl in front of her looked like at the moment, but Camila was sure that she was the sexiest thing she had ever seen in her life.

As soon as she processed what had just happened and what she thought of the player’s physical appearance, Camila felt the heat generated by the brunette’s palms, which had landed on her thighs when the girl had slowed her slide and continued on her with a firm grip.

Realizing the full position they were in, Camila felt the heat rise quickly up her chest to her cheeks; she was sure her cheeks and most of her face had taken on a deep red color, something she could quickly confirm as she saw the girl in front of her tilt her head slightly to the right as a small smile began to take hold of her lips.

“Lilith!”

Shannon’s shout managed to pull the girl out of the little bubble she had ended up wrapped up in next to Camila, causing her to look over her shoulder and quickly get up to run back to the playing field.

“Hey, Cam, are you okay?” Ava questioned, placing one of her hands on her best friend’s shoulder. “She didn’t hit you, did she?

“What?” replied Camila, a little excited. “Yes. No… I mean, yes… She didn’t hit me, I’m fine”

At least Ava was more discreet with her smirk at Camila’s reaction, but JC had a huge grin that ensured he wouldn’t pass up any future opportunity to make fun of what had happened.

Camila was about to threaten JC, but all three returned their attention to the playing court as they heard that someone ad scored a point, which caused her to look back at the mysterious girl who had almost crashed into her less than a minute ago and right at that instant she knew she had lost any right to tease Ava for not being able to look away from Beatrice as she herself now couldn’t take her eyes off one of the another players.

It was about five more minutes before the end of the game was announced, Shannon quickly kissed her girlfriend, then walked over to one of the other team’s players to shake her hand and ended with a cordial handshake between the two team captains.

“We won!” Ava exclaimed, stretching her arms in the air.

“It was a friendly match” JC said. “I guess it doesn’t matter much who wins or loses”

“Losers may say that to try make themselves feel better about losing, but we won” said Ava before grabbing her friends’ arms and forcing them to stand up with her. “Come on, let’s congratulate the team”

Unable to physically resist, Camila let herself be carried onto the playing field.

“Ava!” greeted Beatrice with a huge smile when she saw that her classmate had actually attended after all.

“That was amazing” declared Ava just before jumping on Beatrice and giving her a big hug.

“Yeah, we’ve definitely lost her” JC muttered as he saw hoe his ex didn’t even seem to care that the other girl was sweaty from the recent game.

“I think they’re cute” Camila commented.

“Are you okay, Cam?” Shannon asked as she approached her friend after seeing Ava and Beatrice’s little interaction.

“We saw Lilith practically fall on you” Mary added.

“She didn’t fall on me” Camila clarified. “I’m fine, she just scared me a little”

“Well, I’ll apologize instead because I’m sure she won’t come to do it” said Shannon as she looked over her shoulder for her friend.

Camila followed her friend’s gaze and found who she was now sure was named Lilith having a conversation that didn’t seem very friendly with another of her teammates from her own team, a blonde girl who didn’t look much happier than Lilith herself was.

“And here we go again…” Mary whispered wearily, as if they had already been through exactly the same situation more times than she could remember. “It’s Beatrice’s turn to separate them”

“Wait, the trainer will take care of it” said Shannon pointing to the older woman approaching the pair of angry girls.

The trained had the blonde girl walk away and stayed talking to Lilith for another minute before the latter headed towards the exit of the gym.

Camila watched the while interaction while JC had already started a conversation with Shannon and Mary about the match they just played; she followed Lilith with her eyes until she finally walked through the doors and disappeared down the hallway.

[…]

The worst part of having to wait alone for JC and Ava outside the building for her best friend’s last class of the day was that it was giving her too much free time to let her mind wander as it normally did in those types of situations.

Another problem adding to her personal list was that she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Lilith and the incident at the game the day before, even that morning her alarm had woken her from a dream where she had the girl within spitting distance of her again.

Luckily, Ava hadn’t woken up to the sound of her alarm, any more than she had in all the time they’d been roommates in the collage dorms, and no one witnessed the huge blush that painted Camila’s face when she realized what she’d been dreaming about.

“Cam, you have to see this!” JC shouted as he ran in her direction waving his phone in his hand.

“Hello to you too” Camila answered with a notorious sarcasm. “My day went well, thanks for asking, how was yours?”

“Look” JC ordered, ignoring the questions and holding his phone closer to his friend’s face than necessary.

Camia took the phone from her best friend’s ex and started to watch the video that was playing on the screen; it was easy the recognize the gym they had been on the day before and the uniform of her university team, she was about to ask JC what was so interesting about a video of the game they had already seen, but in less than a second she understood everything.

The video showed the exact moment when Lilith almost crashed into her and there was even a close-up of the two, although the video had been taken from one of the upper bleachers, so only the player’s face was visible.

“Oh my goodness…”

“Someone was recording a story on Instagram and captured how Beatrice’s friends crashed into you” said JC a smile as if the video wasn’t more than obvious.

“She didn’t crash into me or fall on me” Camila clarified again. “How many people have seen this?”

“About half the university”

“What?!”

“Relax, you can’t even see your face”

“But it’s still embarrassing”

“In fact, people like it” JC replied, leaning over a bit to press the comments button on his phone screen. “Most of the comments are from girls saying how lucky you were; maybe it’s the start of a fan club for Beatrice’s friends”

“Really?” Camila asked incredulously before she started scrolling through the comments.

Many of the girls were asking if anyone knew Lilith’s Instagram account and a few other were asking when the team’s next game would be, but JC was right, in general all the comments were boldly positive.

“Cam…” called JC in a low tone of voice. “Camila!” he repeated louder and added a jab in her friend’s side.

“Ouch!” exclaimed Camila with an angry expression on her face. “What?”

“Look who’s there”

The way JC pointed to his right wasn’t subtle at all, but at least it was clear and Camila had no problem seeing what her friend wanted to show her.

Camila almost screamed out of fright at the sight of Shannon and Mary talking quietly as Lilith stood next to them while looking distractedly at her phone.

She grabbed JC’s shirt and forcibly moved him to place him between her and the group of the other three girls.

“Please tell me she didn’t see me”

“she doesn’t seem very attentive to what’s going on around her” JC commented as he looked over his shoulder to check. “Why would you care if she…?” the questions was interrupted by himself, a realization that just enlightened him and brought a huge smile to  his face. “Oh…”

“Shut up” Camila ordered with the red color taking over her cheeks.

“I didn’t say anything”

“But I know what you’re thinking”

“If you like her, you can talk to her, Cam; after all, she’s already been between your legs”

“JC!”

“Why are you two fighting now?” questioned Ava as she arrived at her side, accompanied by Beatrice.

“We’re not fighting” JC pointed out, looking indignant at the accusation. “We were just talking about how Cam likes…”

Camila hurried to silence her friends by placing her hands over the taller boy’s mouth and tried to look as calm as possible.

“It’s not important”

“Are you sure?” Ava asked with justifiable doubts.

“Of course” said Camila. “Anyway, what took you so long?”

“Oh, Bea and I were just talking about some things for our project”

“I’m sorry, it was my fault” added Beatrice.

“Don’t’ worry, it’s fine” Camila replied with a carefree smile. “I just thought it was strange that Ava didn’t run out of class as soon as she had the chance”

“I can be responsible too” Ava complained.

“Looks like they’ve been waiting for me too” Beatrice commented as she saw her friends a few meters behinds JC. “I have to go or the trainer will punish us all for being late for training”

“Sure, yeah, of course. I’ll see you in class tomorrow”

“Bye, Ava”

“Bye, Bea”

Camila tried to hold her smile for the fond glances the pair of girls in front of her were giving each other as they said their goodbyes.

Ava watched Beatrice walk away, still with a smile on her face and didn’t bother to disguise either of those two actions.

“They’re so cute” Camila mentioned.

“It’s starting to get repetitive” JC opined. “She should ask her out by now”

“Don’t push it” Camila scolded, giving ger friend a light smack before turning around to see if Beatrice turned hallway around to see Ava.

However, Camila did not meet the gaze she expected; she was surprised to notice that Lilith was already watching her and could do nothing more than return her gaze with a nervous smile.

Contrary to any reaction Camila expected to get, including being ignored, Lilith’s response was to start walking towards her, passing by Beatrice and ignoring her friend’s presence.

JC quickly abandoned her and stepped aside to give Camila room for her next big public embarrassment.

Lilith stopped less than two passed away, still not taking her gaze from Camila’s for a second, and seemed to think od something before she spoke.

“Hi”

“HI!” Camila replied with a nervousness that she hoped was not too noticeable. “I’m Camila, Ava’s friend” she added, extending her hand to greet the other girl, “although most people just call me Cam”

The smile that formed on Lilith’s lips suggested that she had noticed that nervousness. “I’m Lilith, a pleasure” she replied as she shook hands with Camila. “I want to apologize for what happened yesterday, it was rude of me to return to the game without making sure you were okay”

“It’s okay, I understand”

“Are you sure? Didn’t I hit you by accident?”

“No, of course not, you’re good at what you do” Camila had the insistence to mover her hands to release some of her unsettling nerves and that’s when she noticed she was still holding Lilith’s hand, so she quickly let go and brought both her hands behind her back. “If I had known a ball could be this close to hitting me, I wouldn’t have let Ava choose those seats”

“It’s not something that happens regularly, it was just a bit of bad luck, an unfortunate coincidence” Lilith assured. “I hope it doesn’t keep you from watching the games”

“If you say it’s safe, I think I might risk it again”

Camila didn’t know where that sudden assurance in her last answer had come form, but she was grateful for it when she saw Lilith’s smile grow a little wider.

“Well, then I guess I’ll see you again”

“I Hope under better circumstances than last time”

“That’s not a very high standard to meet, it will be easy” Lilith gave a last smile to Camila before taking a second to look at Ava and put on an expression of complete seriousness. “You’d better think carefully about what you do with Beatrice because I can assure you, Silva, that mercy is not one of my virtues and I won’t hesitate to make you unable to lift a finger if you hurt her, understood?”

“Yes, ma’am”

Camila had never seen her best friend bullied so quickly; in fact, she had never seen her so scared of another person as she was at thar moment.

If Lilith’s found Ava’s response funny and wanted to make fun of her, she hid it perfectly and walked away gracefully, walking back to where her friends were waiting for her.

“Wow, that girl sure is scary” JC opined.

“I think it’s hot” Camila declared, earning a look of confusion from her friends. “Did I say that out loud?”

|||||||||||||||

“What the hell was that?” Mary asked once Lilith rejoined them.

“It was me being nice”

“Why?”

“Don’t you complain all the time that I should try to be friendlier?”

“Well, yes, but I didn’t think you ever would”

“I don’t think you were nice to Ava” Shannon commented. “She seemed scared”

“I can only be nice to one person at a time” said Lilith. “Take the win and don’t push anymore”