chapter 29

I stood at my locker after the last bell of the day, trying in vain to ignore the nervous rumbling in my stomach. The hallway behind me was emptying quickly; I’d probably be late if I didn’t get going soon.

My phone chimed with an incoming text. Welcoming the disruption, I dug it out of my backpack and checked the screen, smiling when I saw the message from Emmett.

 

Good luck today!

 

I texted back a quick thanks, but that was all the conversation I had time for. I’d see him tomorrow, anyway, when he arrived for our first Saturday visit. We were both looking forward to it, even though at first, he’d been reluctant to leave home. His mom had filed for divorce earlier in the week, a move he feared might send his dad into another rage, but he calmed down when my dads suggested that his mom spend the day in Weldon, too, a solution that pleased us all. Mrs. Reese would hang out with my dads while I escorted Emmett around the city, showing him all my favorite spots.

Planning our first post-summer day together had been a great distraction during those first three weeks of school, when loneliness almost crushed me. My old friends weren’t acting hostile toward me, but they weren’t exactly friendly, either. Evidently, school hadn’t been in session long enough for them to recognize the changes in me that I’d struggled so hard to make.

Oh well, I thought as I shut my locker and headed toward the stairs. Rise above.

Outside, the soccer field was overflowing with girls of various shapes and sizes, all wearing shorts and T-shirts. They gathered in clusters beneath the still-hot sun, stretching stiff muscles and waiting patiently for Mrs. Hyland, the coach. I took a deep breath and then joined them, staking out a vacant spot in which to loosen my own sluggish muscles.

“Kat?” said a familiar voice from behind me, jolting me out of my warm-up. “What are you doing here?”

I turned around and waited patiently while her dark brown eyes took me in from my tied-back hair right down to my brand new soccer cleats—pink ones, of course. Then I said, “Hi, Shay.”

“You’re trying out for the soccer team?” Her tone sounded more surprised than snotty, so I let myself relax a bit. Shay was aware of my athletic past and the reasons I’d quit sports, but like me, she’d assumed my resignation was permanent. Also like me, she was shocked to discover that it clearly wasn’t.

“Yeah,” I replied, and then went back to stretching my hamstrings.

I expected her to walk away then, return to wherever she’d been before she spotted me and settle right back into ignoring my existence. But instead, she fell in beside me on the grass and wordlessly copied my movements. When I glanced over at her, she looked back at me with the tiniest shadow of a smile. I responded with a bigger one of my own.

Mrs. Hyland showed up then with her clipboard and immediately started organizing the first warm-up drill, which involved directing a moving ball between two cones. “Okay, girls,” she bellowed after she’d set up the goal and had us form a line. “Let’s see what you can do.”

My nervousness had all but disappeared by the time I reached the front of the line. My turn. I tightened my ponytail and sprinted onto the field, my new cleats digging into the soft earth. Just like with boxing, my body seemed to fall back into the right rhythms all on its own. When the ball rolled in my direction, I didn’t even have to think. I just ran forward and kicked.