Noticed
"Okay but listen to me..." Kate says, tying her hair up into a tight ponytail as we step out onto the field. "If you play, who would I talk to? I won't have anybody to hang out with while on the bench."
"You'll be fine, Katie. I can't keep sticking to the sidelines, I want to do more." Following her lead, I tie my dark curls back in a sleek ponytail that would rival any cheerleader's. I want it as out of the way as possible for practice, last thing I needed was to be blinded by my own hair. "Besides, this may finally get Wanda to notice I exist." I whisper the last part, glancing around nervously. I did not want Vision, Captain of the lacrosse team, to hear me say that I wanted his girlfriend to notice me.
"Yeah, right." Bishop scoffs.
"Or maybe the new girl, Yelena, will notice me. She could be noticing you, too, if you weren't content to sit on the sidelines." I narrow my eyes at my friend, watching as a blush rises in her cheeks.
"You know, that's not the worst idea I've ever heard come out of your mouth." She lets out slowly. "Maybe you do have a brain."
Smacking Kate upside the head for that comment, I take off at a jog towards Coach Finnstock. I look behind me to make she's following me when I make eye contact with Yelena. She's sitting next to Wanda up in the bleachers, who is looking effortlessly beautiful as always. Wanda, per usual, doesn't even notice me as I smile and wave. Yelena does, though. She grins, sending a small wave back at me as she huddles into her jacket for warmth.
Oof. I let out an undignified noise as something smacks into me.
"McCall, you're on goal." Coach says, breaking me from the moment I was having. I look at what smacked into me, and it's goalie gear. "Uh, I've never played..." I look at Coach incredulously.
"I know. Scoring some shots will help everyone get a good confidence boost." He says with a smile. "It's a first day back thing. Get them energized, fired up!"
"What about me?"
He pauses for a second, glancing at me before looking away quickly. "Try not to take any to the face." He walks away towards the rest of the team, cheering them on to get them pumped up.
Groaning, I put my helmet on and head for the goal, stick in hand. Here I was hoping to maybe make first line this year, and Coach has me on goal to help boost morale because he thinks I suck. Whatever chance I thought I had is starting to lower, my dream crumbling just a bit more.
"Who is that?" I hear Yelena say, and my eyes drift towards where she sits.
"Her?" Wanda responds softly, tilting her head a bit. "I'm not sure who she is. Why?" Her eyes lock with mine for a second before she blinks and turns towards Yelena. Ouch... It's not like I didn't know she had no clue I existed, but to hear her say she had no idea who I was after we've been going to school together in a relatively smaller town for years now? Ouch.
"She's in my English class. She let me borrow a pencil from her."
There's a piercing noise, and it feels like my head is going to explode because of it. My hands shoot up to either side of my face and I groan in pain as I try to take deep breaths and block out the sound. The noise has stopped now, but my head still rings - the sound reverberating through my mind and the lingering pain making me want to vomit.
Thunk. Something hits me in the face, hard, and I fall backwards into the net. Looking around, I see that it was a ball. The noise must have been Coach blowing the whistle, signaling for practice to start.
"Nice way to catch with your face, McCall!" I hear laughter from the rest of the team, even Coach joining in. Letting out a low growl, I stand up and roll my shoulders to get ready for the next pass. There's no way I am going to let Yelena and Wanda see me this bad.
The next player in line comes running down the field, lining up his shot. I stare him down, waiting. He shoots...
He doesn't score. The second he made the shot, my body moved as if of its own accord and effortlessly followed the ball to catch it with the pocket of my stick. Slowly, I turn to look at it, blinking in shock. I did it, I caught it.
"Holy - Yeah, nice one, Dee!" I hear Kate cheer. My eyes snap to hers with a smile breaking out on my face before I look at the next person in line and get ready. Everyone in line seems a bit shocked that I could catch something.
I adjust my grip as the next player comes running at me, looking a little bit more determined than the last guy. He shoots, and once again he doesn't score. I catch the ball again, as well as the next one... And the next one, and the one after that... Until I see Vision make his way to the front of the line, pushing the others back so he can skip to his turn.
Gulping, I readjust the grip on my stick as I lock eyes with him. He doesn't look happy, and don't see this ending well for me. Vision scoops up the ball as he begins charging down the field directly at me, and I bounce on the balls of my feet. Watching him line up his shot as if it's in slow motion, adrenaline courses through my body as I prepare to try to make the catch of my life. I know he wouldn't go easy on me. He shoots...
And my body twists into position as I catch the ball.
"YEAH!!!" I hear Kate yelling as I stare at the ball in disbelief. "THAT'S MY BEST FRIEND!"
I smile, looking up at the cheers. Yelena is standing and clapping, smiling in my direction, and beside her... Beside her is Wanda, who lets out a loud cheer while looking directly at me. Our eyes lock, and my breath catches as I realize she's cheering for me. She noticed me. Her gorgeous mossy green eyes are staring right into my own from across the field, the intensity in them startling. It's as if she can see right into my mind and soul, and I can't decide if I should blink, look away, or never look at anything else again. She gives me a soft, crooked smile before she glances away.
The second her eyes are off me, it feels like I can breathe again. My body feels like it's buzzing with electricity, or maybe like I've just been given my own personal version of cocaine or something. My face feels like it's about to split in half with the way I'm grinning, but I don't want it to stop. All I can think about is how the girl I've had a crush on since forever has finally noticed me... And how I plan on getting her to look at me like that again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"You have to tell me how you did that!" Kate squeals. We're walking through the woods after school, searching for my inhaler. In my mad dash to safety the other night, I had left it behind. Considering how expensive they are and how necessary it was to have it on me at all times, I really needed to find it. So here we are, searching for the spot I was attacked to see if we can find the stupid little lifesaving thing hidden amongst the leaves.
"I don't know how! It's just like suddenly, I had all of the time in the world to catch the ball. And I did!" I exclaim, happily kicking up leaves in my path. "But, that's not the only weird thing that's been happening today." I frown, slowing my pace.
"Like what?"
"Well, I hear things I shouldn't be able to hear. Like Yelena outside on a phone call before she even came into the school." A glance thrown at Kate to see if she thinks I'm crazy before I continue. "I can smell things..."
"Smell things?" Kate chuckles, frowning slightly. She definitely thinks I'm crazy. "Like the cinnamon gum in your pocket." I say seriously, stopping to stare at her.
"I don't have any cinnamon gum in my -" She's digging through her pockets while telling me this, abruptly stopping when she finds something and slowly reveals it. "It burns so good..." She whispers, putting it back in her pocket while avoiding eye contact with me.
Rolling my eyes, I continue walking and talking. "So what if whatever bit me was sick, and now I'm sick too? Like some sort of infection?"
"You mean like what if you have rabies or something?"
I stop walking again to stare at her. "That's not how rabies works, Katie."
"You know what. I actually think I've heard of this. It's a specific kind of infection." Kate continues with a serious look on her face, ignoring me. "It's really bad."
"Really? What is it?" I ask, concerned. If I'm dying from something, I want to know about it, obviously. But it seems I underestimated my best friend's ability to screw with me, with the next words out of her mouth. "It's called lycanthropy. It's the worst, but only once a month."
My pace slows as I look at her, my brow furrowed in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"On the night of the full moon." She turns to me, serious look still on her face as she lets out a quiet howl. "Awoooo!!!"
I instantly shove her, I can't believe she'd mess with me like this. Her face breaks into a huge smile as she busts out with laughter, regaining her balance as we continue on. "You're too gullible, Dianna. You totally believed me for a second there!"
"Yes, excuse me for believing that my best friend was actually trying to help me figure out what's wrong with me after I got bitten by some sort of wild animal after she left me out in the woods by myself because she got caught while we were trying to find a dead body." I deadpanned back.
It's quiet for a moment between us, and then she lets out a small chuckle. "Touche'."
We keep walking for a bit and I see the familiar trees where I would have dropped my inhaler. Only, I don't see it anywhere. "It should be over here. The deer came running, I saw the body, and then..." I trail off, moving leaves around in the hopes of a glimpse of my inhaler.
"Maybe the killer came back and moved the body?" Kate suggests, shrugging her shoulders as she helps search through the leaves littering the forest floor. "If he did, I hope he left my inhaler. Those things are expensive as fuck." I grimace, not looking forward to likely having to tell my mom that I needed a new one.
We keep searching for a little while longer, and still nothing. We're about to call it quits when we hear a twig snap not far from us. Flinching, we both look at where the noise came from, only to fall back in surprise to find a very muscular man watching us.
"What the hell?" I squeal, clutching Kate's arm as we move to stand up fully.
"What are you doing here?" The man says, walking closer to us. He's rather tall, with pale skin and light brown hair in a neat combover. With the muscles stretching his grey long sleeved cotton shirt, and the piercing blue eyes, I can't deny that he would be rather attractive if I were straight. "This is private property." He says, putting his hands into the pockets of his tight blue jeans.
"Sorry, we didn't know. We were just looking for something." Kate says, shifting her weight from side to side. "Forget it, we'll go."
It's quiet for a second, the man just looking at each of us. It's creepy, and we start to slowly edge away from him. Then, he suddenly brings one of his hands out of his pockets. He's holding something, and he inclines his head to me before tossing it over and then turning to leave.
I look at the item in my hand... It's my inhaler. I look at Kate, who looks just as creeped out as I feel, and we quickly start making our way out of the woods. Whoever that man was, it's clear that sticking around would not be good for us.