Sway

Ashlyn didn’t see Ali when she finally made her way back to the party. She did a cursory look-around and then, not seeing the defender anywhere, decided that she should just go to bed and hope, magically, that everything would be ironed out in the morning.

As she arrived at the door to their room, Ashlyn hesitated slightly, wondering if Ali was already there. But as she opened the door she saw that the lights were out and the room was empty. Ashlyn changed into her old UNC shorts and a t-shirt and tucked herself into bed. In the dark, flashes of the day came back to her in vivid color. They kept replaying in her head, over and over, culminating with Ali’s horror-struck face and escape.

Ashlyn only felt relief when her mind finally wore itself out and she drifted into an equally fraught sleep.

The next day, she was awakened, feeling especially grumpy, by an unfamiliar alarm. Ashlyn rolled over to face Ali’s bed only to see a dirty-blonde head poke up out of the covers. Ashlyn sat up straight in her bed.

“Whit? What are you doing here? Where’s Ali?” Ashlyn asked. Whit rubbed her eyes and turned her alarm off, yawning all the while.

“She said she wanted to stay with HAO last night,” Whit said. “She looked pretty upset. Did something happen?”

Ashlyn watched her lean in even closer, the inches between them simply evaporating. Everything about Ali was intoxicating, from her smell, to her beautifully windswept hair, to the way her eyes were shining. When their lips met, Ashlyn’s heart began to run on overdrive.

The pang in Ashlyn’s chest contrasted strongly with such a sweet memory. Again, she saw Ali hurriedly standing, sand flying around her as she hurried away, leaving Ashlyn sitting on the beach by herself.

From the other bed — Ali’s bed — Whit was still staring at Ashlyn.

“She kissed me,” Ashlyn said quietly, her voice hoarse with pain. She saw Whit’s face contort with frustration and the ache deepened further.

“Oh, shit,” Whit said emphatically. “Shit. This is…not going to blow over so easily.” She stood. “Really, Ashlyn? Your roommate? Camp hasn't even finished yet. You said you wouldn’t do anything.”

“Did you even hear me, Whit? She kissed me. She initiated it…And then she fucking high-tailed it out of there like I was a fucking hag or something.” Ashlyn was standing as well, her pillow and half of her comforter making their way onto the floor.

“Alright, well that doesn’t change the fact that that is actually the most inconvenient thing to happen,” Whitney said. “And didn’t I just say — ”

“She kissed me,” Ashlyn reiterated. “But I guess everything is still my fault. I can’t seem to do fucking anything right anyway.” She pushed past Whitney and went straight into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind her. The sound of the shower spray hitting the tile was a heavy, monotonous drone, like white noise. So Ashlyn stood there with her forehead resting on the cold shower door while her back was scalded bright red from the hot water.

Ashlyn didn’t think it was possible to do in such close quarters, but Ali managed to avoid her for the entire day. That night, they’d even sat at opposite ends of the bench. Ali didn’t even glance at her when she was finally told to warm up and was subbed in to finish off the game in Mittsy’s stead.

Out on the practice field, the coaches lobbed a number of different shots at each keeper, getting them to dive every which way, jump up to punch the ball over the crossbar, and catch the ball firmly between their gloves. Ashlyn threw herself into the air with abandon, the feeling of her body hitting the grass so much better than the hurt inside her.

She met Paul’s gaze after a particularly acrobatic dive. She’d managed to get a hand to the ball and deflect it out of the net before her body had crumpled on her line. His eyes were narrowed. She shrugged it off as she got up quickly, pounding her gloves together. Alyssa stepped up and took the next shot. She waited for her turn to come again, pacing all the while.

She and Ali had avoided each other all morning. At breakfast, Ashlyn’s cursory look-around told her that Ali wasn’t yet down there. She grabbed a cup of coffee and a couple bagels and didn’t stick around long enough to see if Ali would ever come down

As the trainers and coaches all called for a quick water break, Ashlyn saw Whitney jogging towards her, worry written clearly on her face. Ashlyn squirted water into her mouth from one of the bottles by the goal and reached out to offer the bottle to Whitney.

“So I heard Krieger talking with HAO a bit during drills…” Whitney started as she reached for the bottle. Ashlyn swallowed, her throat suddenly feeling tight.

“Oh…yeah?” she said.

“Yeah, um, I know I shouldn’t get in the middle of this —”

“Then don’t, Whitney,” Ashlyn said. She snatched the bottle out of Whitney’s hand and turned to head back to the goal. Ali’s words echoed in her head, now tainted with bitterness at what Ashlyn saw as a blatant lie. There was no way Ali could’ve been telling the truth if that was what she did afterwards.

Ashlyn had assumed that she and Ali would be forced to see each other after that day’s training, but that wasn’t the case. They took separate vans back to the hotel, Ali had taken her sweet time chatting with Mittsy in the lobby, and then while Ashlyn was in the shower, HAO had been sent into the room to grab a few of Ali’s things. Ashlyn only knew because HAO had loudly announced her presence as a precaution.

As she dried her hair, Ashlyn wondered if she should have listened to whatever Whitney had to say. She had no idea what Ali could possibly be telling HAO anyway. Ashlyn tried to bury her curiosity and hurt with anger…at herself, at Ali. How could she have allowed herself to grow to care so deeply for a girl who showed no indication of being gay…up until she had kissed Ashlyn of course.

Anyway, it was easy to be angry with Ali. She was the one who started it all. She was the one who’d ran away. She was the one who was been insanely immature by devising crazy schemes to simply avoid being in Ashlyn’s presence.

Ashlyn had dealt with heartbreak before, though she was loathe to call this instance that, even in her own head. Pulling on a fresh UNC t-shirt and Nike sweats, she resolved to forget about the defender. After all, camp would be over in a couple days and Ali would go back to Germany while Ashlyn was destined for an uneventful offseason back in Florida. When the next day went much the same way as the previous, Ashlyn wasn’t surprised. The day after that, and Ashlyn felt her anger grow an edge to it, a sharp glint in her eyes every time they found Ali in a room.

Joke’s on Ali, Ashlyn thought to herself as the team meeting drew to a close. With all the business taken care of, the players were tasked with a team-building exercise…And they were paired up with their roommates. Across the room, Ali looked like she’d just seen a ghost. Color dropped out of cheeks and her eyes widened. Leaning her chair back on two legs, Ashlyn watched her with mild amusement.

The players broke off into their pairs, Ashlyn heading over to Ali once she realized that the defender was resolutely remaining in her seat. Ashlyn plopped down next to her, wondering vaguely whether she had planned on keeping the harsh distance between them for the rest of camp. Anyway, her plan was ruined now.

“Are you okay working with me, Ali?” Ashlyn asked, breaking the silence. Her voice dripped with sarcasm. Ali looked at her quickly before turning her gaze to the back of the chair in front of her again.

“Yeah, of course,” she mumbled. Ashlyn rolled her eyes and looked away to catch the pack of cards that Dawn tossed in her direction. Each pair was given a pack and they were tasked with the challenge of building the most creative house of cards they could in five minutes.

As Dawn explained the rules of the competition, Ashlyn felt the box of cards being plucked from her hand. She turned to see Ali ripping through the plastic wrap around it and opening up the top.

“What?” she said, noticing Ashlyn’s scrutiny. “I want to win, so we better be prepared for when they start the timer.” Ashlyn shook her head, watching as Ali took out the cards and began to spread them out between her hands, her eyes fixated on Dawn.

The timer began and Ali’s eyes darted to Ash. “Come on,” she said, and pushed back her chair and the empty one next to it to create a nice, clear area for their house of cards. Ashlyn, who had never attempted to build one in her entire life, was content to let Ali take charge for at least a little while. She pushed away her own chair and joined Ali on the floor.

Ali bit her lip in thought as she looked first at the cards in her hand and then at the empty space between her and Ashlyn.

“What are you thinking?” Ashlyn pressed. “You’ve got to let me know or I can’t help.”

“A castle, I think,” Ali said. “Four towers and something in the middle.”

“Okay,” Ashlyn said. Wordlessly, Ali split the deck and passed Ashlyn half of it.

Ashlyn stared at the cards in her hand and decided her best bet was to watch what Ali was doing and then follow her lead. The defender had her head down, picking out cards and building what was going to become the base of a tower — two cards on their sides, a card on top, two cards positioned in the opposite direction, another card on top. Easy enough, Ashlyn though, and began to start on her towers.

With the time half gone, they’d finished their towers easily and found themselves looking at the remaining cards, stumped. Ali was moving little things, repositioning cards, but they still only had four towers with nothing connecting them. Sure, they’d built something, but it wasn’t a real structure and Ashlyn still had no idea what Ali wanted. She scoffed out loud at that, thinking back to Ali’s excellent display of juvenile tactics.

“What?” Ali asked, her eyes narrowed.

“You’re so bad at communication,” Ashlyn replied, shaking her head with resignation. “We’re never going to be able to finish this thing if we don’t start to actually talk. I’m fine following your lead, but you have to tell me what you want.” Ali stared back at her, affronted, and Ashlyn sighed heavily again.

“Okay,” she said. “Here, let’s do a ring around the bottom to connect all the towers — look, save one of each of the royals. We can put them in the castle, you know, as the actual king and queen.”

To Ashlyn’s surprise, Ali actually listened without causing a fuss. After connecting their towers and standing up the king, queen, and joker of hearts inside, they still had a few cards left to create large palace doors. They sat back, careful to not jostle their creation as the last few seconds ran out. The timer sounded loudly and Ashlyn grinned easily at Ali. Ali looked back at her but finally relented and let a proud smile show.

“Another minute, just one more!” Kelley was pleading from behind them. She and Tobin were freaking out about their half-destroyed card creation. It was difficult to even see that there had been anything there in the first place. Ali hid her laughter behind her hand, but couldn’t help breaking out in giggles as she and Ashlyn met eyes again.

As it turned out, they didn’t win the competition. That honor went to Rachel and Barnie and their extremely structurally-sound playing card tribute to Stanford. Ashlyn and Ali’s castle got an honorable mention for clever use of the royals, as did Christie and Boxxy’s neighborhood of houses. Pinoe and Lori argued that theirs should’ve gotten an award, but they’d only put together a messy pile of cards they called “abstract art”.

“Come on, this could be in a museum!” Pinoe cried, pointing at the pile. Next to it, Lori rolled backwards with laughter.

“Give it up, Pin,” Ashlyn called back, standing. “You’re just jealous you can’t get on this level.” She pointed proudly at the castle. Pinoe stuck her tongue out in Ashlyn’s direction in response and the two cracked up.

Everyone went around snapping pictures of their favorite card creations before they all packed them away in the packs. Dawn waved them off as they tried to return the packs to her, saying that they could use them to keep themselves occupied and out of trouble that night.

“Double deck ‘Hearts’?” Alyssa suggested to Barnie and Rachel as the team members began to file out of the room. She looked around to find a group to play with, nabbing Alex, Kelley, Tobin, and Amy quickly.

“So…” Ashlyn started. She and Ali walked out of the conference room together and were heading towards the elevators, but Ashlyn didn’t know exactly when Ali was planning on escaping to the safety of HAO’s company again. “Are we ever going to talk about what happened?”

“Can you wait until we’re up in the room?” Ali hissed. Ashlyn held up her hands in surrender and followed Ali and a group of other teammates into an elevator in silence. Ali looked tense the entire time, arms wrapped around herself as though for warmth, staring straight at the spot where the two doors met. As soon as they opened, Ali let out a breath and strode from the metal box quickly.

Ashlyn shut the door behind them softly and turned to see Ali sitting on her bed, facing Ashlyn. After the short period of separation, it seemed a little strange to see Ali there. Ashlyn buried her hands in her pockets, simply waiting for Ali to talk. She was silent.

“Did you want to explain?” Ashlyn pushed after awhile.

“I don’t know what to say, really.”

“You can always start with an apology for being pretty shitty these past couple days.”

“Right…” Ali blushed. “I’m sorry for ignoring you and forcing Whitney to switch rooms with me.” Ashlyn raised an eyebrow at Ali.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Ali’s eyes widened and she shrunk back as Ashlyn strode further in the room. Her blood was racing. Control. “I mean, yeah, it was pretty childish for you to ignore me for two days after running away from me. Like, I haven’t experienced that shit since high school. But do you even remember what you said to me before you kissed me?”

Ashlyn’s anger only grew more pronounced as she saw Ali flinch at the mention of the kiss. She was resolutely looking at her sneakers, her brow furrowed as though she was about to cry. Worked up as she was, the image hardly did anything to Ashlyn.

“I told you that people care about you,” Ali murmured. Her voice was so soft, Ashlyn almost didn’t catch her

“Yeah,” Ashlyn said resignedly. She nodded in acknowledgment and sat down on her bed, facing Ali. As her pounding blood slowed, the aching set in again. Burrowed there deep in her chest, it was difficult to hide it for too long. She pulled a pillow into her lap and wrapped her arms around it, as though it were a satisfactory replacement for a real body, and waited to see if Ali would continue.

“Why’d you leave?” Ashlyn asked, finding that she could no longer sit in the silence. “I didn’t expect us to magically be together — and I still don’t — but I thought we at least had…I don’t know, a connection? An understanding?”

“I’m straight,” Ali blurted out. Ashlyn recoiled as though slapped. Then she let out a breath and nodded, not meeting Ali’s eyes. Of course she knew that that was a distinct possibility, but the admission still seemed like another betrayal. After what she remembered as such an intimate conversation, the gentle touches, the looks, the way Ali seemed to draw her in with her kiss, Ashlyn couldn’t help but resent Ali’s confession.

“That came out wrong…” she heard Ali mutter to herself. She said something in German under her breath that sounded to Ashlyn like a curse. In spite of herself, Ashlyn leaned forward with interest. She had never heard Ali speak German before — hadn’t even realized that she could — and she thought it was…cute…in a way that the language was never stereotypically said to be.

“I, um, I talked to HAO about what happened…and everything I’d been feeling. I don’t know what to tell you, Ashlyn, other than that I am so confused. I thought it would be better if I stayed away from you while I was trying to figure it out, but I know that that hurt you.”

Ashlyn’s eyes widened. She watched as Ali let out a shaky breath. Her face was a little red and her eyes were growing bright with unshed tears. Conflicted, Ashlyn gripped the pillow tighter, trying to keep herself from reaching out to Ali.

“Did you…” Ashlyn cleared her throat, noticing how strained she sounded. “Did you figure anything out?”

“I don’t know. I really like you, Ash. I just have never felt this way about a girl before.”

Ashlyn felt her heart jolt a little. So Ali did like her. At least that was something. Still, she didn’t know what Ali wanted. The girl was a mystery.

“Did you really want to kiss me back there?” The question left Ashlyn’s lips before she could even think about it.

“I still want to kiss you.”

“Ali…” Ashlyn breathed. Unbidden, her heart began to stutter and thump again. Blood rushed for an entirely different reason. Her voice had been so soft, like a caress. It made Ashlyn want to respond in kind, the space between them far too great. She wondered vaguely what the rest of Ali felt like. Ashlyn swallowed thickly and looked into Ali’s eyes. She seemed earnest, but Ashlyn could see the fear there and wondered how she could ever make that disappear. And, lord, did she want it to disappear.

“And I don’t understand why,” Ali choked out. “It all happened so fast. You were here and so, so…you. And I kept wanting —”

The last of Ashlyn’s anger faded out of her as the first of Ali’s tears slipped down her cheeks. Once again, the turbulence inside her was calmed with Ali’s presence. Ashlyn threw the pillow back towards the head of the bed and slipped off to kneel beside Ali’s legs.

“Hey,” Ashlyn whispered to her, as Ali’s head dropped to rest in a hand. Ashlyn reached for her free hand. She was the one slightly trembling this time, Ashlyn noted, as she turned Ali’s hand over in hers. Her nails were painted bright pink. Ashlyn smiled at the color.

“Hey, you’re okay,” she repeated. Ali wiped at her cheeks with the back of her hand, trying to hide her face at the same time. Ashlyn decided that there was only one course of action. Shifting over on her knees, Ashlyn ducked her head so that she was in Ali’s line of sight and said, “You know, I thought you were supposed to be comforting me…Rude!”

Ali let out a watery laugh and Ashlyn knew that she was slowly bringing her back to a better place. Ashlyn sat back on her heels and waited, trying to be as patient as possible, as Ali dried the last of her tears and took a few long, calming breaths.

“My mascara must be horrible right now,” she mumbled. Ashlyn looked but, besides some slight smudging, she couldn’t find anything wrong with Ali’s makeup.

“Nah,” she said in disagreement. “You’re fine. You’re beautiful.” Ali smiled bashfully, her eyes finding their intertwined fingers.

“Ali,” Ashlyn started, taking a deep breath so that she could figure out exactly what she wanted to say. “I know you’re confused right now, but I don’t want you to ever be afraid of what you’re feeling. Lo —” Ashlyn stopped, reigned herself in, and started again.“Attraction isn’t always dictated by gender, and that’s okay. That’s something that you’ll have to explore and figure out.”

“Is that something I can figure out with you?”

That was the question. Ashlyn wanted to say yes without reservation. After all, what else had she wanted to get out of confronting Ali? Still, she knew that that was perhaps not the wisest choice. She had dated ‘confused girls’ before. Everyone had their share of stories from dating ‘straight girls’, none of which had ended prettily.

“Ali, this camp will be over soon and you’ll eventually go back to Germany.”

“I know,” she sighed. “I don’t want to lose you, Ash. I’m confused and a little bit scared, but I do know that I want to be near you. I want to try this.”

Ashlyn smiled wryly. If only Ali wouldn’t be a literal ocean away. “How about we try being friends first,” she suggested. “We can call and Skype and, whenever you find yourself in the states again, I want to take you on a date.”

“I’d like that,” Ali replied.

As they both got ready for bed, the two danced around each other like a pair of giddy teenagers. Ali snuck peeks at Ashlyn as they changed, but Ashlyn only knew because she was doing the same. They jostled elbows at the sink while they brushed their teeth, nearly choking on minty foam and their toothbrushes multiple times through the process. Cleaned up for the night, they made their way to their separate beds, Ashlyn stretching her beat-up shoulders, Ali with her head over her constantly dinging phone.

“Boyfriend?” Ashlyn teased as she literally jumped into bed. She kicked her legs out to stuff them under the covers.

“You’re hilarious,” Ali replied mockingly as she typed out a message on her phone. “No, um HAO wanted to know if I was going to stay in her room tonight.”

“You know, if you really can’t keep your hands off of me, you and Whit can switch again. I won’t be offended.” Ali gasped and lobbed one of her pillows at Ashlyn, hitting her square in the face.

“I cannot believe I told you I liked you. Obviously it was the wrong choice.” Huffing to herself at the injustice of the situation, Ali folded back the covers of her bed and situated herself under them methodically. Smoothing down the top of her comforter, Ali turned to face the opposite direction of Ashlyn and reached over to turn out the light.

Laying in the dark, Ashlyn held on to Ali’s pillow, staring at the ceiling with what she knew was an insane grin plastered on her face. The pillow didn’t smell like Ali at all, but she held it anyway.

“Goodnight, Princess,” she said into the darkness.

“Goodnight, Ash,” Ali replied.