Chapter 3
Nat is standing along a row of guys, along with Travis, Jeff, and Randy that are all trying out for soccer. After she humiliated herself earlier, Nat is more determined than ever to prove herself on the field.
“Alright men. I want to start the season how we ended the last. SHARP!” Coach Martinez states as he walks down eyeing the line of guys. Turns out Travis is the son of the coach, but even he doesn’t get any any special treatment as Coach Martinez just stares him down as he passes by. “Ok, shirts versus skins, let’s move it men!” He blows his whistle and Nat panics.
“Uh excuse me sir, I have to be a shirt. I’m uh allergic to the sun.” Nat cringed at her own excuse but it was all she could think of on the spot.
“You’re allergic to the sun?” Coach Martinez is staring blankly at her now and Nat starts nodding rapidly.
“Yes sir.” She stops nodding to stare straight ahead of her and pray to whoever will listen that the excuse works. “Highly allergic.”
Coach Martinez just sighs and shakes his head. “Whatever I don’t have time to argue with you kid. You can be a shirt since you’re ‘allergic to the sun’ or whatever.” He turns to everybody else now “Ok guys, lets go!” He blows the whistle and that starts the longest and hardest tryout of Nat’s young life. They dribbled, passed, and headbutted the ball and there was so. Much. Running. Don’t get her wrong, Nat is in shape but this is the most that she’s ran in a while so by the time they got to the push ups she all but face planted into the grass after attempting 5.
“Alright that’s enough gentleman. I’ve seen a lot of energy and commitment out on the field today and that makes me proud. Now its time to decide who will be playing second-string and first-string. Second-stringers, you are still apart of this team just from the sidelines. When I call your name you are a second-string.” Nat had zoned hoping she wouldn’t hear her name, plus she was trying to catch her breath from all the exercise she just did. “…and Scatorrcio you are all second-string, the rest of you are first-string. Congrats now hit the showers.” Nat starts to panic for the second time today because she hadn’t thought through having to spend time in the guy's locker room after tryouts, let alone the rest of the 2 weeks she was going to be here. “Except you Scatorrcio, the Headmaster wants to see you in his office now.” Nat nodded quickly before all but sprinting off the field.
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Oh god they know and it’s over Nat thinks to herself as she’s sitting in the Headmaster’s office waiting for him to arrive. Nat’s leg starts bouncing up and down as she waits anxiously and starts thinking of any excuses that could get her out of trouble.
“Mr. Scatorrcio.” The Headmaster finally pops in with a wide smile. “Ben Scott, Headmaster. Very pleased to meet you!” He does a little bow towards Nat and Nat would laugh if she wasn’t trying to figure out why she was here in the first place.
She stands up and starts to shake his hand since it seems like she’s not in trouble, at least not yet. “Hello Headmaster Scott, I heard you wanted to see me. Was there any particular reason?” Nat was never one to really beat around the bush. Headmaster Scott looked at her and smiled again while shaking his head.
“Just wanted to welcome you to Wiskayok! How are you settling in?” He motions for Nat to sit in his chair, so Nat awkwardly settles down in the Headmaster chair while he crouches in a chair across from her.
“Oh everything’s going good.” Nat was hoping this interaction would go by quick so she could literally be anywhere else.
“Good, good. How are you liking the campus?” He continues to grin at Nat and waits for her to answer.
“It’s a beautiful campus sir.” She wasn’t lying, it really was beautiful and she could be exploring it if she could find a way out of this conversation.
“It really is! You know I was a transfer student once myself! I like to keep an eye on the other transfers and check in on them from time to time so don’t be surprised if I just pop up!” He grins at Nat and Nat just awkwardly smiles at him in return. “I know you wanna get out of here and see more of our beautiful campus so go! Get out of here and explore!” He points to the door still smiling and Nat doesn’t hesitate to book it out of there.
Too bad she wasn’t looking where she was going as she was exiting the office because the next thing she knows she’s colliding with another body. “Oh shit.” She says before dropping down to help the person pick up their books and handing them over to them. “I’m so sorry.”
When Nat looks up she finds a pair of dark chocolate eyes looking back at her and she feels her face start to heat up. The eyes belong to a girl who is probably the most beautiful person that Nat has ever seen in her life. “It’s ok. Are you alright?” Before Nat could try to answer the beautiful mystery girl they get interrupted by Headmaster Scott bursting through the door.
“What is- ohhh I see” Headmaster Scott starts smiling and looking between Nat and mystery girl. “Getting to know the opposite sex are we? Sexual tension? It’s all a part of the high school experience.” Nat knows she’s blushing and cringing at the same time because of Headmaster Scott’s wording. “Continue, continue please. Abstinence is key and the best way to not… to not yes…” Headmaster Scott trails off awkwardly before he rushes back into his office.
Mystery girl starts laughing after the door closes and Nat looks towards her with an eyebrow raised. “Is he always that friendly?” They start getting off the floor finally and stand to face each other.
“Are you kidding, that’s him being rude.” Mystery girl laughs again and Nat is beginning to think she wouldn’t mind hearing that sound everyday.
“Huh” Nat was wracking her brain trying to think of anything to say to keep the conversation then she looked down at mystery girl’s blue converse. They were the same shade of blue as the school’s uniform so they were nothing special but “I uh like your shoes.”
Mystery girl looked down at her shoes before looking back up at Nat with a little smile. “Thanks, it’s kind of dorky but I made them on the converse website so they would match the uniform.” She has a little blush on her face as she says this and Nat thinks she couldn’t get any cuter.
“That’s not dorky at all.” She looks down at mystery girl’s books still in her hands. “Oh, um your books.” Nat goes to hand over the books to mystery girl and their hands brush slightly causing Nat to blush. “Well I better get going, guy stuff ya know.” Nat shrugs and starts walking away before she can embarrass herself further after getting a little nod and laugh from mystery girl. As Nat is walking away it finally hits her that she never asked mystery girl for her name. Idiot.
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Headmaster Scott is handing over some food to Nat as she holds up her lunch tray. “Enjoy your apple and sandwich!” He grins at Nat while she gives a small awkward smile before walking off to find a table to sit at.
She spots a table with Travis, Jeff, and Randy walks over to them since they’re really the only other students she actually knows. “Mind if I sit here?” Travis shrugs and she sits down beside him and Jeff. “So those soccer tryouts were fucked huh? I mean second-string is ridiculous am I right?” when she gets no reaction from the guys she tries another topic after clearing her throat. “So, the game against Cornwall should be interesting huh?” She looks around the table one more time and this time Travis speaks up.
“Um why would that be interesting?” He asks as he puts a grape into his mouth before chewing.
“Well my cousin goes there and she used to date that douchebag Bobby Farleigh.” The guys around her start laughing and before Nat can ask Travis smirks and starts explaining.
“I know him, I made him cry once during a game.” He says proudly.
“Wait that was you?” Nat asks in disbelief. She never would’ve guessed that her new roommate for the next two weeks was the one that made her ex cry. She had tried for weeks to get Bobby to tell her who it was and he wouldn’t say anything, just kept tearing up whenever he thought about it and said it was too painful.
“Absolutely.” Travis smiled at the memory while Jeff got this curious look on his face.
“Is your cousin hot?” He looked at her with an eyebrow raised. Nat didn’t really know how to answer that one.
“I don’t know dude she’s my cousin, I don’t tend to check out family members.” She laughs a little and the other guys surprisingly laugh too.
“Fair enough.” Jeff shrugs and goes to move on with his lunch until he looks up and something catches his eyes. “Incoming.”
“What, what’s happening?” Nat was confused until she looked up and saw mystery girl with a friend in the lunch line. “Oh, I bumped into the taller girl earlier. I never caught her name.”
“The tall one is Lottie Matthews and her friend is Akilah Smith. Travis has been crushing on Matthews since freshman year.” Randy starts explaining. “Until recently she was dating this college guy but he dumped her. I hear she’s a total mess right now. Like really vulnerable, confidence sucks, self esteem way down.” Nat accidentally made eye contact with Lottie and quickly looked away trying to fight a blush.
“In man words, it’s time to pounce!” Jeff laughs as he gives Randy a high five.
Just then another girl comes walking by and smirks at the table before going to sit with Lottie and Akilah. “God, I hate that girl.” Travis rolls his eyes.
Nat notices that the girl is flirting with Lottie as she picks up her sandwich and starts talking to her. “Uh oh, looks like you got competition.” She says jokingly.
“Please it’s just Mari.” Travis says like that explains everything.
“Total geek.” Jeff laughs.
Nat looks over and makes eye contact with Lottie again. “She looks so sad. It sucks, I know what she’s going through.” She looks at the other guys when they give her questioning looks. “I just got out of a shitty relationship too.” Travis awkwardly pats her on the back. She clears her throat awkwardly “Anyways, I’m gonna go now. See you guys later.” As she goes to head back to her dorm she feels a pair of eyes on her.
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She’s on the sidelines of a game that’s going on. It’s Cornwall versus Wiskayok. Bodies are flying everywhere across the field fighting for the ball.
“Ok Scatorrcio, you’re up!” Coach Martinez yells. Nat looks around confused before looking down and realizing that she’s in a pink and frilly debutant dress. “Scatorrcio are you deaf?! Come on let’s go! Get your butt out there! Come on!” Coach throws his hat on the ground and Nat finally gets her legs to work.
She runs only to trip in the stupid dress that she’s in. She gets back up and somehow gets control of the ball. Nat is dodging people left and right, There’s also the Wiskayok team blocking the Cornwall team from touching her.
Bobby is there at the goal mocking her. “Come on baby, come on.” He claps his hands and gets in a ready position to block her shot. As she goes to shoot she ends up flying backwards and flat on her back. All of the guys are laughing and then there’s water coming down on her. Wait, what?
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Nat is woken up by water being splashed on her and a group of guys in masks surrounding her. “What the fuck?” Her first instinct is to start swinging but before she can her arms and legs are grabbed by the guys surrounding her. “Let me go you fuckers!”
Her and a bunch of the second-string players were taken to the men’s bathroom for initiation it turns out. “Welcome to Hell!” Travis yells with a grin behind his mask. They were all stood in a circle and food was thrown at them. The first-string players were all yelling and making a bunch of noise. “Gentlemen, may I present this year’s soccer newbies!” They start hollering again.
Jeff walks forward with a book in his hands “But first, you must remove your clothes!” Oh fuck. Nat starts looking around for a way out as the other newbies start stripping and she sees a fire alarm off to the side of the wall. She quickly ducks down and starts army crawling her way over to the wall and pulls the alarm. She breathes a sigh of relief as everybody runs out of the building and her secret’s safe for another night.