Chapter 1
Dance music and a chorus of voices filter out through the girls’ locker room, audible even to Natalie Scatorccio—who’s admittedly a little late because she stopped for a smoke after last period—from down the hall. The noise gets louder as she flings open the door and steps inside.
The rest of the WHS Yellowjackets Varsity and JV soccer teams loiter around the space in various states of undress, belting out the words to “Gangsta’s Paradise” while Coolio can barely be heard underneath the mostly off-key voices that bounce around the white walls.
“Fool, I'm the kinda G the little homies wanna be like
On my knees in the night, sayin' prayers in the streetlight!”
The shit she puts up with.
Nat rounds the corner of her locker row as the chorus starts, leaning against the blue metal to observe the disjointed dancing occurring before her eyes.
Van stands on the bench, using a brush as a microphone with one hand while her other one grips a cleat-tying Taissa’s shoulder for balance. Jackie is bouncing around, swinging a reluctant Shauna’s arms. Then, there’s Lottie and Mari, who are basically scream-singing in each other’s faces, Laura Lee swaying like she’s the star of a Disney princess movie, and the freshman, Allie, fixing her makeup even though they’re about to run around on the field for an hour and a half in the end of summer heat.
If she weren’t in a decent mood for the first time in a couple of weeks, Nat might’ve interrupted the performance by pointing out the irony of the majority of the team singing along to a song about growing up on the streets and gang violence when most of them have never faced true hardship in their cushy lives.
But the cigarette did its job and she’s a little more relaxed, so instead of shitting on them, Nat just shakes her head and deposits her bag on the tile floor.
“Scatorccio!” Van, the first to see her, points the brush at Nat and hops down from her makeshift stage. “Thought you were gonna bail on us!”
The singing quiets down as the focus turns to her.
Uncomfortable with the unwanted attention, Nat turns to her locker—the one at the end of the row she’d conveniently chosen at the end of last season because it was out of the way and she wouldn't be crowded—and starts putting in her combination.
“Who else would put up with your sorry ass?” Nat fires back with one side of her mouth curled up, but there’s no bite in her voice. There are a couple of ‘oooo's' from the girls behind them, though.
Van clutches at her chest. “You wound me.”
“You'll live,” Nat says with an eye roll.
The song changes to something too bubblegum pop to be in Nat’s album rotation. However, it elicits a few squeals of glee from the surrounding group, who dissolve into another round of off-key singing—if you could call it that.
Nat returns to her locker, pulling out her soccer stuff and shoving her bag inside before starting to change while everyone else acts like they’re at a Friday night party and not the Wiskayok High School’s girl’s locker room.
She's pulling her shirt down past her eyes when the gray fabric gives way to a smiling girl with large, round glasses and blonde curls.
“Jesus-fucking-Christ, Misty!” she bumps back into her open locker.
With the loud music, Misty had managed to sneak up without Nat noticing. A hard feat considering Nat feels like she’s on edge most—if not all —of the time. She’s kind of had to be to survive this long. But she’s been on this team with these girls for almost four years now. Maybe she’s let her guard down a bit, so sue her.
“Natalie!” Misty’s wide smile doesn’t so much as flicker as Nat glares at her for her abrupt appearance without so much as a customary noise of some kind to announce her presence. They should definitely put a bell on her. ”Coach Martinez wants to see you in his office before practice!”
And fuck he must’ve seen her smoking in the parking lot—a major violation of Coach’s rules during the soccer season.
“I won’t have players that sound like my chain-smoking mother-in-law after a single lap!” he’d told them after catching a senior Varsity player lighting up behind the equipment shed in Nat’s freshman year. It’s a rule she usually, begrudgingly at least, follows. But she’d found the lone cigarette in the bottom of her locker after the final bell and just thought, fuck it. Who knew one smoke would put her at the top of Coach Martinez’s shit list?
She’ll probably be running suicides till she pukes today.
Fan-freaking-tastic
“Oh, and Lottie, too!” Misty continues when Nat doesn’t give her a verbal response,
Lottie’s in the middle of blowing a decently large Hubba Bubba bubble when Nat finds her among the group. Her thumb points back at herself in a who me? gesture as the bubble pops, sticking to the tip of her nose. While the sight is enough to draw a snort from Nat, she can’t help thinking along the same lines as the tall brunette. What could Lottie Matthews have done to get called into the coach's office with a repeat offender such as herself?
There’s no time to sit on the question because Jackie’s clapping her hands together in that annoying way she does any time she wants to get the group’s attention. Like they're all a bunch of five-year-olds, and she's that wackadoodle woman from The Big Comfy Couch.
“Alright, Yellowjackets! Let’s get out there and practice!” She perches her hands on her hips and directs them toward the doors leading out to the soccer fields. She glances back at Nat and Lottie, a curious expression in her big eyes. Probably interested in the potential of juicy gossip if Nat had to guess. “We’ll see you guys out there, ‘kay?”
Without waiting for a response, she flounces off with the rest of the team trailing after her. Nat doesn’t miss the way Tai lingers behind, watching Jackie with narrowed eyes until Van gently nudges her in the side, and they leave, too. Again, Nat’s gonna guess that Tai may still be bitter about being passed over for the position of captain, which… fair because Nat would’ve wagered money on it going to Tai over Jackie. It's a good thing she didn’t, though.
“What do you think he wants?” Lottie asks when it’s just the two of them, moving down the aisle to stand in front of Nat. Her brown eyes are wide like that deer Kevyn Tan nearly hit last year when they were driving back from seeing Pulp Fiction at the drive-in.
“He’s probably not going to give us an award,” Nat says. She watches as Lottie nervously pulls her bottom lip between her teeth and feels a pang of sympathy. Lottie’s always been pretty cool despite being a rich, popular kid. She's shared a few joints with Nat at parties over the years and has never talked shit about her—that she knows of anyway. Which is why when Nat gets the strange urge to lighten the mood a bit, she does.
“Unless… you’re the one who drew a huge dick on the baseball field in spray paint last May?”
It works. Lottie lets out a breathy laugh. “Unfortunately, I can’t claim credit for that one.” She pauses for a beat, then bumps Nat’s shoulder playfully as she passes by, the scent of vanilla and lilac following her. ”I guess we’d better go find out what Coach wants.”
Nat trails after her, shutting her locker as she goes.
“Matthews, Scatorccio.” Coach Martinez says—pretty fucking ominously if you ask Nat. “I’m sure you’re both wondering why you’re here.”
No duh.
Nat bites her tongue to keep from blurting that out. Clearly, she's still getting back into the habit of watching what she says after a summer of having no teachers or coaches to answer to. It's not like her mom was around or sober enough to care during the break. Thankfully, Lottie has more tact out of the two of them and gives Coach one of her patented adult schmoozing smiles. Nat’s seen it used plenty of times on parents and teachers alike, and maybe it’s just the fact that Mr. Matthews donates a lot of money to the team, but it works, and Nat envies her for it.
Adults usually see her for the burnout she is. Some piece of trailer trash that’ll be working at the local burger joint after graduation. A dreaded probability that creeps closer with each day passing, becoming less of a nightmare and more of a stark reality. One Nat prefers not to think about. One she'd like to ignore until she can't any longer. Luckily, Lottie’s soft voice drags Nat out from in front of this unwelcome train of thought.
“Is something wrong, Coach?”
“Not necessarily.” Coach removes his readers and stares at them from behind his desk. “As I have said many times in the past few weeks, we are going into this season with a winning mentality. That means we’ve got to look at the big picture: Nationals.” Nat still can’t see where this is going or what it has to do with the two of them, specifically. From the look of it, Lottie’s a little lost, too. Typically, a conversation like whatever this is would be more suited for, y'know, Jackie, the captain of the team. Not a random pair of midfielders. “And plane tickets, hotels, and meals for twenty or so players plus myself and Coach Scott won’t be cheap. Although the school allocates funds for these types events, it's not nearly enough.”
This is about….money? Nat’s even more confused because it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to deduce that she has none. Her second-hand cleats are so worn that she’s shocked they haven’t fallen off her feet during practice.
On the other hand, Lottie's being here actually does make sense on account of her family being loaded. No doubt they're the richest family in the tri-state area.
“If it’s money you’re worried about, I’m sure I could ask my dad to help,” Lottie volunteers immediately, clearly coming to the same conclusion as Nat.
“As generous as that offer is, Matthews, your father has donated a lot—to this program, especially—over the years with uniforms, equipment, et cetera,” Coach Martinez says. “I think it’s about time you girls put some legwork in on this one,” he looks between Lottie and Nat, “which is why I called you both in here: I want you to be in charge of running our team’s fundraiser.”
“Fundraiser?” It falls from Nat’s mouth before she can help it, coated in a healthy layer of disbelief and served in the form of a light scoff. Her eyes meet an equally surprised Lottie. “You want us —” Nat points to Lottie and then back at herself like there’s anyone else here, ”—to do it?”
“I don’t see anyone else in my office.”
Lottie shoots her an indecipherable look. “I think what Natalie means to say is that this seems like more of something that Jackie or Tai would be good at.”
So maybe it was more of a stop talking look than an indecipherable one.
“Unfortunately, it’s been proven that Jackie and Taissa are not a good fit for this kind of job—especially together. If you’ll remember the… incident during the bake sale the team did two years ago?” Now that he mentions it, Nat does recall Jackie and Taissa being so competitive about selling cupcakes that it ended with them scarring a freshman boy for life. Neither of them has spoken about it since. “But I think it’s the perfect opportunity for the two of you to step up.”
And Nat must just be suffering from foot-in-mouth syndrome today because she finds herself speaking again. “Uh, no offense, Coach, but why us?”
“Because it’s only the second week of preseason, and I’m already having some concerns about your commitment to this team.”
What the fuck? The Yellowjackets are probably the only thing Nat’s ever been committed to in her almost eighteen years of existence on this hellscape known as Wiskayok, New Jersey. She’s loath to admit it, but there’s no way she’d get up at 5 a.m. during the last few weeks of summer vacation for conditioning if she weren’t. Which is why she opens her mouth to protest at the same time as Lottie.
“I’ve been here all—”
“Coach, I’m one hundred percent—”
Coach Martinez holds up a hand, effectively silencing them both.
“I don’t want to hear any excuses. Scatorccio,” he turns his attention to Nat, “you were out chain-smoking in the parking lot less than thirty minutes ago, and Matthews,” Lottie shifts in her seat under his stare, “you missed the first week of conditioning because you were off galavanting who knows where. I need my starting lineup to be all in, not out of breath and absent. It’s this, or you ride the bench for the foreseeable future. You understand?”
Nat and Lottie may be night and day when it comes to their personalities, but they can agree on one thing: Neither of them are benchwarmers. So, their response comes after a quick shared glance in a two-word chorus.
“Yes, Coach.”
“Good,” he says. “I don’t care what kind of fundraiser you two decide on as long as it’s appropriate for school. Once you do, run it by Coach Scott. You can use the rest of the team and the J.V. girls as you see fit.” He shuffles a few things around on his desk. “Well, what are you waiting for? You don’t get to miss out on warm-up laps just because you’re a few minutes late to practice! Let’s see some hustle, you two!”
As if he’d blown his whistle, Nat shoots to her feet, seeing Lottie do the same in her peripheral. Without another word, they shuffle out of Coach’s office. Nat’s still not sure exactly how smoking one cigarette got her appointed the position of co-chair of the Yellowjackets’ newly established fundraising committee, but she’s not gonna stick around and face further punishment—potentially in the form of suicides—to find out.
“That was interesting,” Lottie comments as they start making their way out to the practice field.
Nat scoffs. “That’s not the word I’d use.”
“Oh, and what word would you use?”
“Fucked.”
“Fair,” Lottie says, pushing through the door in the gym that leads outside and holding it open for Nat. “We still have to come up with something good enough to appease Coach, though. Something other than a bake sale—if we want to actually raise any money, that is.”
If her starting spot didn’t rest on the outcome, Nat couldn’t give less of a shit if the fundraiser was successful. Case in point: she hadn’t even shown up for the bake sale. It happened less than two months after…that day, and Nat barely showed up—and never sober—to practice during that time, let alone extracurriculars. She’d only heard about Jackie and Tai’s fuck up way after the fact. Couldn’t even enjoy it because everything during that time was tainted with grief, guilt, and self-loathing.
“...does that work for you?”
“Uh, what?” Nat asks dumbly, tuning back in to see Lottie watching her curiously. However, the brown-eyed girl doesn’t call her out on zoning out.
“I said we should probably get together outside of school to brainstorm some ideas,” Lottie says. “Does Thursday after practice work for you? We can do it at mine?”
Nat can’t say she has plans other than loitering at the mall with Kevyn Tan.
“Sure,” she shrugs.
Might as well get it over with.
“Great!” Lottie grins at her, a crooked fang poking out over her lip. There’s a playful glint in her eye as she leans in closer to Nat, “Last one to the field is a rotten egg!” She sprints away with a laugh.
“What a loser,” Nat snorts but can’t help the amused smile that forms as she follows.