What Harm Could I Cause?
Another year. Another letdown. I sat with the other members of my team in a defeated heap around our robot. I was a member of the robotics club, and once again we had not raised enough money to travel to finals. Every year we had countless advertisements and fundraisers to try and raise money for our ultimate goal. Not once had we reached it.
A girl named Roxy sat next to me, tears threatening to stream from her eyes. “We were so close this year.” She whispered, looking down at the floor. “Ro-Lal, it’s fine, we’ll try again next year.” A guy named Dirk said, trying to console Roxy. His hair swept back into a point behind his anime shades. Roxy’s hair was dyed a vibrant pink, contrasting with her tanned skin.
On my other side were two guys named Equius and Sollux. Equius was large and strong looking, while Sollux stood out with his twig like body. We were a bit of a ragtag bunch. Roxy and Sollux programmed the robots, the drunk and the nerd. For it was no secret their obsessions, Roxy had a liking for booze and Sollux for coding and gaming.
Equius and Dirk built the robots. Dirk designed them mostly and Equius was the one who took the crudely sketched blueprints and turned them into tough metal contraptions. Dirk was involved with the more detailed, aesthetic pieces while Equius made sure the robot didn’t get blown smithereens.
I was a bit of an oddball, I didn’t know a lick about programming, and I was too clumsy with a hammer to be considered safe, so I had the special job. I was the driver. Most teams we knew alternated drivers to make it fair and give everyone an equal turn. My team was a bit different, we had tried that once, it didn’t work so well with everyone.
Equius had underestimated his strength and was repeatedly breaking the controls, so used to working with tough pieces of metal. Roxy was so uncoordinated the robot spent more time bumping into walls than it did completing tasks. Sollux downright refused to try driving, preferring to stick to his programming. Dirk tried once, but he tried to make another robot to do the driving for him and then nobody let him drive again.
I was drafted out of nowhere, and only because I knew Sollux. We had been childhood friends, and apparently I had been hired because of my ultimate skill driving rc cars when Sollux and I had raced them. I was perfect for the job, so I stayed.
So we five formed the most forgotten club in school. The most we did was bring out a t-shirt shooter at pep rallies. “What are we going to do?” Roxy moaned, blinking to try and keep her tears back. “I don’t know.” I answered quietly, leaning back against this year’s robot. We were all set to go to finals, we were qualified in everything except the financial category, we didn’t have enough money to transport the team, let alone the robot to the site of the finals.
In the middle of our moping, the bell rang for school to begin, for we had all arrived there before the school had officially opened for our meeting. We scrambled for our things and went off to start off the school day with heavy hearts.
I reached my first hour a bit early, sliding into a seat and plopping my bag unceremoniously beside me. Kids started to filter in, most walked in to drop off their things, and then quickly left to mingle with their friends. I was alone in the room, absentmindedly twiddling my thumbs. After a little bit, a girl hopped into the room.
Her skin was the darkest I had ever seen, and her hair was on that fine line between black and brown. It lay in massive fluffy curls, clouding around her head. She was dressed in as much neon as she could, and they stood out boldly against the darkness of her skin.
She bounded over to me, standing over my desk. “Hey, it’s Aradia, right?” She questioned, earning a disinterested nod. “I’m Feferi, I sit right up in the front. I was wondering if you consider attending the swim meet this weekend, its state finals and the team needs all the support we can get!” She piped, waving a colorful flyer in my face.
I looked at the dates, if the team had managed to scrape together money for the travel, this would be the same days as the Robotics state finals. But we had not, so I had planned a weekend of moping and seclusion. “I guess, I’m free?” I said uncertainly, looking up at her beaming face. “So come to the meet! It’s really great!” She said, bouncing with giddiness. She then skipped away, probably to hand out more flyers.
To be honest, the girl was way too peppy for my tastes, but for some reason, I slid my flyer into my bag, instead of crinkling it up and shooting it into the wastebasket sitting nearby. Students flooded in as the minute bell rang, sliding in before the teacher could classify them as tardy.
The teacher sauntered in a few minutes after the bell rang, as usual. Then took a boring round of attendance, shushed the class all through announcements, and reprimanded Feferi for bouncing in her seat a bit too much. The class droned on, slowly starting to wake me up for the day ahead, as well as making me progressively more bored.
Luckily, there was no homework so I got to dash out of class with the rest of my classmates when the bell rang. The day continued the same as it always did, but the flyer taunted me every time I opened my bag. I never planned on going; I just took it to get her out of my face. The bright colors of the flyer tripled my guilt every time I caught sight of the flyer.
The silent torment continued on the bus. Crammed up against the window on the rowdy, dirty bus, I held the flyer, now crumpled, on my lap. I kept thinking of it, and had finally surrendered to actually looking at it. Who knew such a small slip of paper could have such control over my life.
It was written in bold letters “COME SUPPORT THE SWIM TEAM AT STATE FINALS” complete with sketched pictures of swim team members, a time, and a place. It then struck me that Feferi had hand drawn these, and then probably spent a long making as many copies as she could. I barely noticed the bus had reached my house, and found myself scrambling to leave the crowded seats of the bus before the doors closed.
If I had to be honest, my house wasn’t very memorable. It was small, a simple door, the wood paneling was peeling paint, and the porch was broken in multiple places. If I had to say it, I would admit my family was a bit more on the poor side. My family could barely afford to send me to school, let alone send my older sister Damara to college she so desperately wanted to attend.
She wanted to major in language, travel the world, make money to send back home to the family. But none of that would ever happen if we never actually scrounged up the money to send Damara off to college. The most we could hope for was a scholarship, without that there was no way my mother could afford a college education for Damara.
To be frank, she was kind of pissed about it. She understood that we couldn’t afford it, but she still thought like she was missing out on something. At least that’s what she said when she confided in me late at night in our shared room.
I pushed the door open, stepping into my house. Even though it was rickety and run down, it was still home. I loved it, I knew where all the creaks and cracks were, and that familiar scent that didn’t smell like anything, just home, was just comforting.
What an eventful Friday, I had once again not gone to robotics team state finals, and at the same got invited to the state finals of the swim team. I had nothing better to do, I guess I’m going to a swim meet tomorrow.
Usually on this weekend I holed up in my room, sometimes with Damara, sometimes without. Either way, I spent a good forty eight hours wallowing in my own sadness. I was always plagued by dreams of going to state finals, of winning. I tossed and turned, no matter what happened at finals in those dreams, they were always happy, for I was actually AT finals.
One dream had our robot explode in fiery bits and pieces of defeat. In another I held the trophy and the prize money. In the same dream I would see Damara leaving for college, both of us achieving our dreams.
My bag lay in a pile by the door to my room, and I collapsed onto my bed, the swim team finals flyer clutched in my hands. I contemplated ripping it into tiny scraps, how dare they ask me to cheer for them when I could have had much more important things to do? I then consoled myself that they didn’t know my struggles; it was a harmless piece of paper looking for support.
Damara pushed open the door, slumping against the wall. Her fast food employee outfit was stained and wrinkled, but she still found the energy to talk. “Whatcha got there?” She asked, gesturing lazily to the flyer. “Swim team flyer, apparently state finals are this weekend for them.” I explained, forking over the flyer.
“Isn’t that robotics finals?” She asked, scanning the paper. “Didn’t get the money, again.” I said, dejected. She simply nodded, reading silently for a minute before handing the flyer back to me. “I was actually going to the swim meet.” She confessed. “Why?” I asked, interested in her reasons to be there.
“Got a job at the concession stand.” She admitted. Now it was my turn to nod. “You wanna come with, you can watch the meet?” She offered. I nodded once more, what harm could a simple swim meet cause?