Numb

Waking up is the worst, especially when you have school. This is what Darcy thinks, at least, as she hears the shrill sound of her alarm clock accompanied with the numbers 6:30 on it. Fucking 6:30 in the morning wake up times should be a crime, who the hell needs to really wake up this early for school? She rolls out of bed and steadies herself as she opens her computer that was neatly placed on her bedside table so she can blare music. This is a ritual at this point, her parents have both already left for work, Meredith is a nurse at a university hospital and her father, Marcus, works for a consulting firm. She opens Spotify, as usual and opts to shuffle her saved music, playing Float On by Modest Mouse.

It’s a bit more upbeat than her usual choices, but maybe this is a good thing. Maybe she needs to listen to happier music in the morning to take away from her sense of dread throughout the day. Her day is going to be stressful. She is trying out for the Higgs football team since it is her first year of eligibility. Higgs only allows Year 10 and up to try out and Darcy is a bit nervous about her chances even though she plays for a pretty reputable club in the off season. School sports are different, much more political, a higher chance for her to be cut or put on reserve even if she is better than the goalkeepers there.

Darcy packs her school bag with her laptop and headphones, knowing that she will need something to occupy her time in between everything. Both her school and Truham actually devoted an entire day to sports tryouts before the end of the fall term since both schools started to compete in the spring term. Everyone who opted to not try out for a sport found themselves looking at other options such as clubs or theatre or orchestra. Darcy was registering for orchestra as well as trying out for football today, football would be the main event of the day. She knew that all the orchestra signup would consist of was signing a paper saying she would continue in the class, something she was more than happy to do because she sat next to Tara in that class.

Honestly, that was the only reason that Darcy was staying in the class. Well, also the fact that her friends would beg her to join theatre and she had zero desire to act. She enjoyed playing music, but her parents only allowed her to play the trumpet since it was a “non-punk” instrument. She grabs her football bag and checks for her gear: boots, socks, shin guards, goalkeeper jersey, extra pair of pants, etc. Once she checks off her mental list, she looks for something to wear. She opted for a pair of black athletic shorts and the red t-shirt she was given that said “Higgs Grammar School Football.” This is the shirt that the Year 10 and 11s have to wear for tryouts, the older girls wearing yellow to try out. She slipped a pair of grey joggers on and pulled a red Truham jumper over her head. It was a bit oversized but it was perfect for the chilly December weather. She tightly pulled her long brown hair into a French braid and slipped on her black trainers. She looked at the alarm clock and the time, 7:00 seemed to glare back at her.

She ran downstairs, grabbing her water bottle and an apple on her way out so she could have a quick breakfast. She needed to hurry so she wouldn’t be late for the bus. She grabbed her house key and ran out the door, locking it frantically behind her. She ran down to the bus stop and was fortunate that she was just barely in time for the bus. She got on it and looked down the aisle. Shit, Tara’s on the bus today, I am about to make a fool out of myself. Darcy shook that thought out of her head and took the empty seat next to her.

“Darcy! Are you trying out for football today?” Tara beams, looking at the bag of gear in her hands. Darcy smiled back at Tara as she settled in, the bus started to move and Darcy needed to sit.

“Uh, yeah. Really nervous though. Also really strange coming to school in athletic gear instead of the uniform. Kinda comfy though.” Darcy laughed before she realised that Tara was also out of uniform, sporting a tight black quarter zip and some black leggings with her trainers. Tara’s hair was pulled back into a tight, neat bun which was out of character. Darcy preferred Tara’s natural hair compared to this look, this whole look honestly threw her a bit off.

“Oh! I never mentioned, I’m trying out for the dance troupe today! Mainly for ballet, but I'll take what I can get genre wise!” This made a lot more sense. Tara had briefly mentioned a few times that she had taken dance after school. The sport made sense for her, it was elegant and graceful, but also strong and intricate, just like Tara. Tara probably looked beautiful on stage, she probably has the ability to pull attention directly to her and. Wait. What the hell was that thought. Why is her brain racing about Tara and dance and how beautiful she would look? This isn't right. She can’t be fantasising about pretty and popular Tara Jones, she is way out of her league and certainly not in the place to reciprocate these feelings. There’s no damn way Tara would ever feel like this towards her and it is insane that she feels like this towards Tara over a little attention to detail.

“Darcy? Are you alright?!” That brought her back down to reality.

“Yeah, just in my own head. Tryouts are stressful, this isn’t like a club tryout where they pick you based on skill. It usually winds up turning into a popularity contest. I could be cut or only be a reserve.”

“I know you’ll do amazing, I’ve seen you play in PE, you could literally make the team for any spot. They would be so lucky to have you!” Tara’s smile was warm and genuine, she was practically radiating positivity towards Darcy. It was refreshing but it sent Darcy’s stomach into knots as she thought about her own feelings just moments ago. If Darcy would actually come to terms with her identity and embrace it, she would probably be melting at this point in time by the rather kind nature of Tara Jones.

Darcy needed to respond, she felt like a shell of a person, sitting on this bus and taking up space with no human reaction or emotion. She did not know how to speak without her brain jumbling and the words coming out all wrong. Why couldn't she just be normal for once?

“Thanks. I know you’ll do great too.” Darcy stumbled a bit on her delivery but it was short and to the point. There was no emotion behind what she was saying though, she couldn't really help that. She wanted there to be emotion. She wanted to feel things in a normal way without feeling insane about having typical human reactions and feelings.

She fished the earbuds out of her messy school bag and pulled her phone from the pocket of the jumper she had on, shuffling her music as usual. She by Tyler, The Creator started to play as she looked out the foggy window of the bus. She needed to focus on the tryouts today, this stupid onslaught of feelings can be dealt with at a later time, if Darcy even decided to acknowledge it at all.

Before Darcy knew it, they arrived at the bus stop for both Truham and Higgs, students of both schools in various dress got off, some ready for sport tryouts, others going out for choir and the few who were going for some random clubs, just happy that they had a rare no uniform day. She got up to allow Tara to get out of her seat, they both certainly had places to be and shit to get done and it wasn’t the time to sit around anymore. She shuffled down the aisle way of the bus and nearly stumbled down the steps of the bus, she cringed at her own clumsiness.

It was going to be a strange day, especially since she had to report to Truham for tryouts since the athletic facility was located at that school. She still had to run over to Higgs first as she was expected to turn in all of her assignments, just like every other student partaking in the day's activities. She practically ran to Higgs, wanting to get this over with so she could focus on the main event for the day: football tryouts. It was all that was on her mind, she even got (most) of her homework done earlier in the week so she could have pure focus for the day. Obviously this excluded the maths work, but she was fortunate that Tara fixed that issue for her before it even started.

Turning in the assignments was uneventful, it was all a quick exchange of homework for a short ‘thank you’ or ‘good luck’ from her teachers. Darcy made her way to Higgs and looked down at the slip of paper her form teacher handed her with information about the day's tryouts:

Report Time: 8:00
Pre-tryout meeting: 8:10
Workout section: 9:00-11:00
Skills section: 11:15-12:00
Lunch: 12:10-13:00
Position section: 13:00-14:00
Results Posted: Between 15:00 and 16:00

This day was going to be borderline torture. She forgot all about the workout section of tryouts, which is legitimately going to look like tryouts for track and field or cross country. Luckily, Kent United made sure that workouts were a regular occurrence for her team, meaning Darcy would at least be decently fit. Skills would just be basic ball skills drills and position is likely a scrimmage or shooting drill, nonetheless, she will be in goal by then. That will be her time to make it or break it.

She found her way to the maths block where she had to report for the pre-tryout meeting and walked into the classroom filled with other hopefuls for the Higgs team. What did surprise her was Lena, Macie and Robin sitting in the corner of the classroom with an empty desk next to them, definitely meant for Darcy, She sighed and walked over to her friend group and plopped down into the desk. Lena cleared her throat and Darcy already wanted to roll her eyes at whatever stupidity Lena was about to say.

“So… wasn’t expecting us to come to tryouts, I take it?” Lena smirked at this comment.

Darcy shook her head and shrugged, not really wanting to interact with them. She knew that interacting would just stress her out.

“Well. We are, I know we quit United last year but if you can try out, so can we. We’re just as good as you.”

Macie’s voice oozes confidence that she certainly shouldn't have. The three of them were on a Preparatory team at Kent, one of the lowest classifications while Darcy happened to be on their Elite team. Darcy wasn’t usually one to point this out but it was a fact, she is better than they are and their cockiness is out of line. It literally feels like they are here to psych her out. Some friends they are.

The three girls realise that Darcy is straight up not going to respond and they get back to their conversation they must have started before she came in. They were practically ogling at photos of Ben Hope or Harry Greene, or some other “hot guy of the week” in their minds. It’s honestly disgusting, even if the boys that they do talk about are laddish, they are honestly just treated like pieces of meat in the mind of the three. Darcy is almost thankful when Coach Trace saunters into the room, clipboard in hand, followed by Coach Sarver, her nervous assistant coach.

The pre-tryout meeting was quick and rather ordinary, most of the time blocked out between the meeting and tryouts was for the girls to warm up or get dressed into their trainers. Darcy decides to ditch the sweatpants and jumper, knowing that once she warms up she will be practically burning.

The workout section comes and goes, and so does the skills section. Notably, Darcy was the second fastest Year 10, only beat by some girl by the name of Hanna. During the skills section, she was a standout comparable to the younger girls, especially for being a goalkeeper. The other goalkeeper trying out was a Year 13 named Madison who was decent but Darcy was worried that she would beat her out for the position based on age. She was moved over to the Year 12 and 13 skills group within ten minutes of the tryout section, during which Lena tripped over her ball while watching Darcy make the switch over. Her friends were not doing phenomenally, in fact they were honestly tanking tryouts, with the exception of Robin who honestly could be a decent addition to the reserve team.

Coach Trace calls for lunch and they all file into the Truham canteen, lunch bags in hand. Darcy is actually invited to sit with some of the returning players to the dismay of her friends who pout as she joins the table of mainly Year 12s and 13s. She sits next to Josie, the only Year 11 of the bunch who happens to be on a Kent United team as well. They chat about their respective teams, Josie being on the Premier team, just one level below Elite at the club. The table beams when they find out that Darcy plays on Elite, saying that it’s certainly impressive she isn’t at a better athletic school when she could make it anywhere she wanted. For once, Darcy actually enjoys her time at lunch and she silently hopes that she makes the team so she can continue to hang with this group.

Coach Sarver calls for lunch to be over as they make their way back out to the field to be separated for scrimmage teams. Darcy is put on a team with mostly girls from the lunch table, but also with Lena and Robin as her outside defenders. Luckily, Josie is one of her centre defenders with Mari, a returning reserve as the other. Kenzie is on the opposing team's offence and that is concerning. She is one of the best on the team and her shooting skills are impressive. The scrimmage starts and their team scores a goal within the first five minutes on Madison, who looks frustrated instantly.

It keeps going back and forth until Kenzie makes it past Lena who barely made an effort to defend in the first place, causing Josie to attempt to cover, leaving a massive hole in the defence with more than enough room for Kenzie to get past. Kenzie breaks away, this is it. This is the moment she has been waiting for and she cannot possibly fuck this up. This is where she proves her friends wrong. This is where her parents eat their words. She takes a risk by going for the 1v1, if it gets past her it is purely her fault since she left the goal. She watches Kenzie dribble and she goes for it, taking a leap of faith and diving to the ground as Kenzie tries to get around her.

She didn’t mean for Kenzie to trip over her and as soon as she felt the older girl topple over her a pang of guilt overcame Darcy. However, Kenzie got up without an issue and looked down at Darcy who had not realised that she had the ball in her hands. She grinned at the younger girl who clearly looked shocked.

“Nice save Darc.” Holy shit. The ball is in her hands, she won a 1v1 against a significantly good forward.

Darcy needed to shake this off, the scrimmage was still going on. Both teams paced back to set up for Darcy’s punt, sending the ball to the midline and back into play. Darcy was still in shock, even when Coach Sarver blew the whistle indicating the scrimmage was over and tryouts had concluded. She sighed with relief as she walked back to the locker room to change, being herded by the older girls who all congratulated her.

This was a new feeling for Darcy. Sure, she got support from her club team and she had obviously been congratulated before, but this is the first bit of recognition in school. She usually fell under the radar and stayed with her friend group. Lena, Robin, Macie and Darcy had been an exclusive group since Year 7 and it was honestly all Darcy knew. This was a good change, she knew she wanted to break away from the group and this was hopefully her chance. Once girls started to make it into clubs or teams, those usually became friend groups. Sure, you usually stayed friends with whoever you ran with before Year 10, but it was never the same. This was the safest option in Darcy’s mind, she was able to separate with a real reason instead of ghosting her friends like she had contemplated since the beginning of fall term.
It wasn’t anything personal, Darcy just knew that they weren’t the same nerdy little girls that came together in Year 7. People change and friendships drift, it was just a fact of life. She just wanted to be free to actually speak to others, something that had been against Lena’s “rules” for the group that she laid out in Year 9. That should have been the first sign that maybe, this wasn’t the group for her, but at the time Darcy did not know how to socialise well with new people. She felt bad for the way she had already started to ignore her long time friends, but she couldn’t see herself being friends with them for much longer anyways. Unfortunately, Lena picked up on this, probably causing her to force the other two to try out even though they had quit the sport a year prior. Darcy found this rather insane now that she was able to actually think without tryouts taking over her mind. Why couldn’t they just let her go?

Before anyone realised, it was nearly 16:00 and the coaches came in with a set of clipboards, ready to announce the two squads. There were three options: being cut, making reserves and making the squad. The reserve team would be less work, she would only practise twice a week since half the schools did not have a reserve squad. This meant less playing time and less practice. Her eyes were set on the main squad, she wanted to be at that level and she was sure of it.

Coach Trace gave a little speech thanking everyone for their hard work and then it was the moment of truth. They taped both lists of names up front, one for the reserve squad and the other for the main. The coaches were nearly trampled as everyone got up at once to hopefully find their name on one of these lists.

Darcy was stuck towards the back, but she did hear a rather loud wail from Lena who instantly grabbed her stuff and ran out of the room, followed by Macie who was likely trying to console her. Darcy rolled her eyes until she realised that Robin was still there with a small smile on her face. Robin walked over to Darcy to tell her the news.

“I made reserves! The other two weren't so lucky…” Robin trailed off, fidgeting with her thick grey glasses.

Darcy smiled back at her. “Hey, good job. Reserves is better than nothing, especially since you haven’t played in a year! If you stay around, I’ll let you know what I made.”

This earned an enthusiastic nod from Robin, who moved to the side to allow Darcy to make her way through. Oddly, a path cleared for Darcy as the girls on both sides watched her make her way to the lists with anticipation. This was it. Darcy took a deep breath as she made it to both of the lists. She read through reserves first and saw that Madison was their goalkeeper. Darcy felt a slight tinge of sadness for the Year 13 but that quickly dissipated when Darcy saw her name at the top of the main squads lineup with ‘starting goalkeeper’ in bold letters next to it.

The next moments felt like a blur of handshakes and high fives and hugs as her new team welcomed her and congratulated her. It was rare for a Year 10 to go right to the main squad but starting is a whole different story. Year 10s were usually just on the bench for the bulk of games. Darcy was grinning from ear to ear as she made her way back to Robin who nodded to her knowingly. Darcy was really proud of Robin and was honestly glad that she made the team. Robin wasn’t a bad person, she just allowed herself to be roped into the other two’s antics. Hopefully this will lead to her breaking apart from the two as well.

They were all handed a practice schedule and their warmups and practice gear and they all left for home. Most of the girls separated for different buses or cars, leaving Darcy to herself.

She zoned out until a hand reached her shoulder, a hand that happened to be connected to Tara Jones. Darcy smiled at her, ready to share the good news and judging by Tara’s face, she had some good news as well.

“I’m starting on the main squad!”
“I’m in the competition troupe!”

They both blurted the news at the same time and Tara pulled Darcy in for an unexpected hug. Yeah, she was friends with Tara, but really only just school friends. Darcy wasn’t complaining though, this felt right, like Tara Jones and her were both puzzle pieces that connected together perfectly. The hug lingered a bit longer than expected and when the girls pulled apart, Darcy was blushing.

There was an awkward lapse in conversation until Tara broke the silence between them.

“Hey, what are you up to this weekend?”

This took Darcy off guard and she didn’t know why she was so nervous to answer back with a simple, “nothing, why?”

Tara giggled, “Well, I was wondering if you wanted to come round mine to hang out?”
In the worst choice of words ever, Darcy replies back. “Yeah sure, it’s a date.”

She immediately wants to curl up into a ball and scream. Why the hell would she call it a date? Nobody says that unless it is a date. This certainly isn't a date, she doesn’t have feelings for pretty, smart, popular Tara Jones. Or does she?

“Yeah Darc, it’s a date.” She smiles back, leaving Darcy’s mind in shambles.