Chapter 5
Nat and Travis start their training the next day at practice. Travis goes to shows Nat a bicycle kick, which requires her to kick the ball with the inside of her foot while she’s in the air doing a bicycle motion with her legs. This has Nat landing on her back multiple times, but she’s not one to give up so easily.
As the days go on, she starts getting up by at least 4:30am so that way she can shower in peace without worrying about the other guys in the dorm hall bothering her or possibly seeing her by accident. Then she heads out to the field to keep practicing different moves that Travis taught her. Nat’s getting better at keeping up with the other guys on the time as they go to run around and practice different drills in the stands and on the field. She even manages to score on the goalie once and she cheers along with the other guys. “Fuck yeah!” She shouts before looking behind her to see Coach Martinez with his eyebrows raised. “I mean uh good job guys, good practice.” She clears her throat awkwardly before exiting the field after that practice.
At one particular practice she was working on trying to get the ball from the other guys when Jeff tried passing to another teammate but ended up nailing Nat in the crotch instead. All the guys around her winced and gave her looks of sympathy and Nat was confused for a second before she remembered she was supposed to have a dick. “Oh uh.” She clears her throat before getting as dramatic as she possibly could and putting her hands down near her crotch. “Oh God, it hurts, it hurts so bad.” She looks around and the guys seemed to have bought it.
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Mari lays on her bed in her dorm talking beside a pillow that had a picture of Lottie’s smiling face. “It’s just not fair. I’ve waited for 3 years and then some transfer student comes in and suddenly she’s acting like some obsessive love-struck teenager.” Mari grits her teeth before continuing. “I’m not gonna take that lying down.” She gets up from her bed and walks towards her tarantula enclosure. “I know, I know you’re right. I’ll do some digging, find out what it is, and nip his chances with Lottie right in the bud!” Mari grins down at her pet tarantula, Bruce, before frowning. “Oh that’s right you need a walk. You know, you’re so smart.” She smiles as Bruce crawls up her arms.
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Nat’s relaxing back against the school when her phone rings. She lights up when she sees it’s Nathan calling. “Hey, what’s up?” She grins as she answers.
“Hey, what’s wrong with your voice.” Nathan laughs and she can her some noise going on in the background.
“Oh uh.” She had gotten so used to talking like Nathan while she was at Wiskayok that it was just habit at this point. Nat clears her throat before switching back to her normal voice. “I had a little bit of a cold, must be just some leftover phlegm or something.”
“Oh, did you call the school?” Nathan asks and Nat nods before she remembers that he can’t see her.
“Yup, it’s all taken care of just make sure you’re back by the 12th.”
“Nice, thank you. It’s been so cool out here Nat! We went on a couple days early and the crowd loved us, they even wanted an encore. So we did one of my songs acoustically and they loved the lyrics man.” Nat was scratching underneath of her wig while she was listening after double checking that no one was looking at first.
“That’s really cool Nathan, I’m really happy for you!” Nat smiles as she continues itching without thinking to check again.
“Also, you were right about Allie, she’s history now.” Nat felt relieved cause that whole scene in the Italian restaurant would be hard to explain.
“Good, she was nothing but trouble anyways man.” Nat laughed and Nathan agreed.
“Yeah well look I gotta go, I’ll talk to you later!”
“Ok, bye!” Nat ends the call and adjusts her wig after setting her phone down.
“Trouble with your wig, Scatorrcio?” Nat jumped and turned to see Headmaster Scott stood with his arms crossed staring at her.
“No uh, actually I have a scalp condition.” Nat makes up and hopes he buys it. Headmaster Scott shakes his head no. “No I really do, it’s really acting up-“ He cuts her off before she continue.
“No, you don’t. Your have male pattern baldness. Scoot over kiddo.” He takes a seat next to her. “I don’t know if you’ve realized but I’ve started thinning out myself. I’ve tried everything to stop Mother Nature’s vindictive fury and nothings worked and it looks like it’s happening to you too.” He puts a friendly hand on her shoulder. “There’s gonna be a time where you’re just gonna have to come out of the closet and accept yourself for who you are,” Headmaster Scott says and Nat laughs internally cause this man has no idea about her and accepting who she is. “Which is balding” he continues. “ and that’s ok because between you and me, chicks dig it.” He smiles at her. “Hang ten.” Nat gives him an awkward high five before he leaves her by herself once more.
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Nat and Lottie are working on dissecting a frog when a poster of a missing tarantula is shoved in their faces. “Excuse me Lottie, sorry to bother you but I wanted to let you know Bruce is missing.” Mari hands the poster over to Lottie and she reluctantly takes it.
“Oh no.” She says and Nat rolls her eyes at Mari.
“Now if you see him, don’t feed him. He has irritable bowel syndrome.” Mari states worriedly and Lottie nods.
“Yeah, cause my first instinct would be to feed the tarantula.” Lottie gives a little laugh at Nat and Nat smirks at her while holding in a laugh. Mari just walks away sulkingly to her own table and lab partner.
Nat turns and makes eye contact with Travis. He nods his head towards Lottie with his eyebrows raised. Right, they did have a deal and she needed to keep her end of it no matter how much it sucked for her. “Hey here’s a wild idea.” Lottie looks up at her with her eyebrows raised. “Have you ever thought about going out Travis Martinez? Because I think I see something there.” Nat points between Lottie and Travis.
“Travis?” Lottie asks with her eyebrows raised even further up.
“Yeah.” Nat shrugs and Lottie shakes her head.
“No.”
“Yeah.” Nat tries again smiling a little just because Lottie looks cute.
“No.” Lottie smiles back.
“Yeah.” Nat tries one more time.
“No.” Lottie laughs and Nat decides to drop it their back and forth. “I mean he’s good looking and everything but he’s just not the one for me.” Nat cheers a little internally but she knows she has to try again to keep up her end of the deal.
“I don’t know, I mean I think there’s more there than you think there is.” Nat shrugs looking at her with her eyebrows raised as if challenging her.
“Ok, so you’re telling me he’s not just another dumb jock that wants to hookup with me so he can tell all his friends but-“
“He’s too insecure to treat you as an equal?” Nat finishes for Lottie and Lottie looks at her shocked before nodding.
“Exactly.”
“Tell me about it.” Nat looks away thinking about Bobby as she says this.
“You know, you’re the first guy at this school that hasn’t tried anything with me.” Lottie smiles and Nat smiles shyly back.
“Well, you’re one of the few people that I actually feel comfortable around here and I don’t want to ruin that.” Which is true. Over the past couple of classes, they bonded over different things like music, shows, movies, etc. Lottie just had a warmth to her and it didn’t help with Nat’s growing feelings at all.
“I feel the same way about you.” Lottie says earnestly while smiling at Nat and Nat gives a small smile back.
“Good. Then just take my advice and go out with Travis.” Nat hates herself right now but she keeps reminding herself of the deal.
Lottie looks at her for a moment before nodding. “I’ll consider it.” And they leave it at that. “Hey do you wanna come over to my dorm later and work on the bio homework together?”
“Sure.” Nat smiles before they get back to work dissecting.
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Nat walked up to Lottie’s dorm and knocked. Akilah appeared at the door. “Hey Nat, Lottie’s inside. I was just heading out. See you later!” She smiles at Nat before heading out.
Lottie was sitting at her desk looking like she was working on homework already so Nat cleared her throat as to try not to scare her. “Hey Lottie.” Lottie looked up and smiled while putting her pencil down and standing up to greet Nat.
“Hey. Ready to work on some homework?” She asks softly and Nat nods before pulling out her book and taking a seat in the extra seat beside Lottie.
About 30 minutes in Lottie sighs and looks at Nat. Nat looks at her with an eyebrow raised. “Can I be honest?” Nat just nods at her. “I didn’t invite you here just so we could do homework.”
Nat starts blushing because her thoughts went negative for a second before she gets herself together. “Ok what else were you planning Ms. Matthews?” Nat smiled while raising an eyebrow at her and Lottie grins.
“Well Mr. Scatorrcio, I actually just wanted to get to know you better and figured this was a good way to do it.” Lottie shrugs.
“What do you want to know?”
“Tell me more about the song lyrics I read, like what’s the story behind them.” Lottie pauses. “If you’re comfortable sharing that.”
Nat’s never really told anybody else besides Nathan and his folks what happened to her at the trailer when she lived with her parents. She finds that she doesn’t mind telling Lottie though, plus if all else fails Nat will be gone after another week anyways so what could it really hurt?
“I used to be an alcoholic, like my old man. Except I never hit anyone.” Lottie’s eyes widen at that part and Nat looks down at her shoes before continuing. “I used to drink to forget and be free from everything even if it was only for a little bit. It got so bad I was showing up to school drunk off my ass. One day I met up with my cousin after my dad hit me and he took me in to live with him and his folks. I decided to clean up my act after they took me in because I didn’t want them to see me acting like my dad. I’ve been sober ever since.” Nat shrugged looking back at Lottie. “I wrote the song because it’s always tempting to take a drink but I like the version of the person I am too much and the song reminds me of that. I’m 3 years sober now.”
“That’s incredible Nat.” Lottie puts her hand over Nat’s and lets it rest there.
“Thank you.” Nat blushes and looks down but as she does she notices something moving. “Hey-HOLY SHIT!” Nat jumps moving her hand from Lottie’s unintentionally.
“What?!” Lottie frowns and spots what’s been moving and screams before jumping in her desk chair. “Oh my god, get it. Get it. Get it.” She freaks out from her position in the chair.
Nat panics and looks around for literally anything that can contain the tarantula that’s currently moving across the floor. She spots an empty cup on Lottie’s desk and grabs it taking the lid off. She crouches down and gently but quickly scoops the creature into the cup before placing the lid back on it. “I guess we found Bruce.” Nat laughs while looking at Lottie and holding the cup still in her hands.
“Sorry I freaked out, me and bugs don’t exactly get along.” Lottie blushes while getting down from her chair and standing close to Nat. Nat blushes while smiling and shakes her head.
“It’s not big deal I won’t tell anybody what happened.” Lottie steps closer to Nat and smiles shyly.
“I guess I should thank you for saving me.” Lottie looks like she’s leaning in and Nat’s meeting her halfway when her phone rings. They both jump away from each other blushing.
“I should, I should get going. You know return Bruce to Mari.” Nat grabs her stuff before rushing to the door. “I’ll see you in class!” She leaves after hearing Lottie saying bye softly.
Nat checks her phone to see that her aunt had left her a voicemail. “Hello Natalie honey, this is your aunt Lisa. I’m just calling to remind you of the carnival tomorrow. You and your cousin promised you’d both be there. Bye bye.” Shit she completely forgot about the carnival.