On a cloudy day, I sat at the diner near school with my friends, who were crowded around two tables. It was rare to get all of us together on a Saturday morning, and this was one of the few chances we got. Next to me sat Jasmine's older brother, Drake. He went to university in Willowridge, a town not too far from Port Meadow, and had driven back this morning for reading week. "It's good having you here, man," Andrew said to Drake.

Drake had been on the soccer team before he graduated from our high school two years ago. "Tournament time, right?" Drake asked.

"And we're going to win," Austin promised.

The boys chorused their agreement and I turned to Drake. "Where's your sister?"

"She needs to hurry up." Jacob's knee bounced up and down next to me, his eyes leering at the bright screen listing all the food. "I'm starving."

"You're always starving," Brandon said. "Just order."

"I'm here," Jasmine announced, plopping down next to her brother and hugging him. "Sorry, my alarm didn't go off. Was your drive here okay?" Before Drake could answer, Jasmine's eyes caught a figure at the door, and she frowned. All of our eyes turned to see Beatrice, her big group of friends surrounding her.

"Look away," Jacob warned, and our eyes went back to each other before any of them could catch us looking.

"Ignore them and Beatrice." Andrew sighed.

"Are you guys going to postsecondary? Working?" Drake asked.

A few days ago, I'd flicked through pictures of all of us— knowing that I wasn't going to be in the same place as my friends next year at this time had made my stomach twist.

"Mace, did you pick a university yet?"

"I've still got time. I'm waiting to see what happens with soccer later this season."

Beatrice slowed down to greet the boys before shooting Jasmine and me a dirty look. Her face contorted into a conceited smile that I wanted to wipe off her face.

She could put that smile up her—

"I hate her," Jasmine muttered.

"You and me both," I added as my phone buzzed in my pocket. Opening it up as Jacob told the server what he would be ordering, I read:

Cedric: Next Friday there's a party. I better see you there

Jasmine seized my phone. "He wants you to go to the party?"

"Cahill?" Jon Ming leaned in, intrigued.

Drake looked taken aback by the last name rather than being confused about what was going on. "Cahill?"

"Cedric," Andrew informed him, turning back to me. "Answer back."

"You answer back," I retorted. Jasmine took charge, typing on the screen of my phone. I read her response as she clicked Send.

Me: Pick me up then

"Jasmine."

"If he wants you there, he should do it himself." Three floating dots appeared on my phone. He was responding.

Cedric: Count on it

My phone was snatched out of my hand and Jon Ming and Austin read the text. "Count on it," Austin mocked in a deeper voice. The two proceeded to make kissy faces, which was highly annoying. A lot of things could change regarding our lives, but the way they all acted definitely wouldn't.

~

Later that day, I stood by the side of the indoor soccer field at the rec center, watching the kids on the field doing the drills I'd assigned to them. I volunteered here every Saturday as a house league coach.

Glancing down at my phone, I saw that Cedric had texted me again, which he'd been doing nonstop throughout the day.

I blew the whistle to end the drill and let everyone know they'd done a great job. As the kids were getting ready to head home to their parents, I was in the middle of typing a reply to his message when I spotted Sam with Phillip, one of the kids I coached.

"How did I do?" Phillip asked.

Sam gave him a smile I had never seen before. No arrogance. Sam ruffled his hair. Phillip swatted his hand off but didn't appear vexed. "You did great, buddy."

"Really?" Philip glowed.

"Yes." Sam's eyes zeroed in on me. Phillip turned around, the dimples deepening on his cheeks. I gave him a little wave as Sam stood, handing Phillip a coat to wear. "Change into your shoes, you don't want to stretch out your cleats."

"I didn't know you volunteered here," Sam said to me.

"Every Saturday. What are you doing here?"

Sam gestured at Phillip. The kid had brown hair and brown eyes that resembled the boy I was texting. I couldn't believe I never noticed before.

"You're Phillip's cousin too. He's Cedric's brother," I said.

"Look who's finally using their eyes," Sam mocked. Jerk.

Phillip looked at Sam and me in confusion. "You two know each other?"

"We're friends," Sam said.

"We go to school together," I corrected.

But Phillip didn't care for our conversation anymore, his eyes darting over to the water fountain next to the change rooms. "I'll be back," he yelled, running over to fill up his water bottle.

"Small world," Sam said.

"I guess so. Second time I've seen you here."

"I'm here usually the hours others aren't."

"I would have noticed if you were here." The rec center was huge—with a gym, indoor soccer field, basketball courts, and different rooms for various activities—but generally you could see everyone coming and going in the lobby or would run into them in the change rooms.

"You would have?" A smirk crept onto his face in a suggestive manner.

"Not in that way," I said as Phillip came back.

Sam patted his cousin on the shoulder. "Let's go."

Phillip was making his way to the door when Sam reached toward me. I stilled, his hand holding the top of my whistle as he adjusted the string. My face was heating up. "Hazel, we've got to stop bumping into each other like this."

"Why do you keep calling me that?"

Phillip yelled his name from the exit of the indoor field.

"I'll see you at school," he said. He didn't answer my question.

~

The following Monday I found Jasmine near her locker talking to a girl. "Mace, this is Stevie. She was on the volleyball team with me."

"You're on the soccer team, right?" Stevie asked me.

"Yeah," I said. Beatrice stared at us from down the hall, a distasteful look on her face.

Oh God.

"I haven't seen you around," I said to Stevie, trying to ignore Beatrice.

"I moved here in September." As she was explaining to me where she had lived prior to moving to the city, Jasmine tensed up. "I have to head to class," Stevie said as she waved good-bye.

Jasmine leaned in to me, scowling back at Beatrice. "She's pissing me off and she's not even saying anything."

"She's honestly not even worth it—"

My sentence was left unheard as Jasmine moved down the hallway toward Beatrice and her group of friends.

I followed, ready to back her up in whatever she was going to say. Jasmine stood in front of Beatrice, the two of them nearly the same height, each unwilling to back down. "What do you want?" Jasmine's voice was strong as she glowered at Beatrice.

Beatrice rolled her eyes. "Trust me, I have no reason to waste my time on you."

"Are you sure?" Jasmine's voice was steady. "Because you obviously don't know what you're saying."

"Shut up."

"No." People were listening to the interaction, sensing the obvious tension. This tension didn't involve me. "You look like a complete idiot staring at people like that. I'm doing you a favor."

"Seems to me a favor was done when Sean dumped you."

That wasn't public knowledge—Beatrice put that out there knowing the people listening didn't know, wanting to embarrass Jasmine.

I stepped up to Beatrice, getting in her face, and using my height to my advantage. "Stop talking."

Beatrice wasn't done. "And he moved on so fast. I heard he went out with a girl on Saturday."

Jasmine pulled me back. "I don't care who he's with. He can go back to dating you of all people if he wants to."

"What is that supposed to mean, Oreo?"

I froze. While I didn't understand what Beatrice meant, I knew there was a negative weight behind that word. Jasmine lunged at Beatrice, her arm bent to hit the other girl in the face with her fist. I pulled Jasmine back as loud profanities came out of her mouth. Choruses of encouragement for a fight broke out around us. Andrew appeared next to me, and he also held Jasmine tight.

"What is going on here?" An authoritative voice boomed through the crowd, and my physics teacher, Ms. Dawson, walked up to us, eyes on Beatrice, whose friends surrounded her.

Beatrice pointed at Jasmine, whom Andrew was still holding on to. "This psycho attacked me in the middle of the hallway."

"Bullshit." Jasmine broke free from Andrew's grip. "She was being a racist."

"I was not," Beatrice spat. Ms. Dawson told Beatrice to head to the principal's office and gestured for Jasmine to come along.

"You okay?" I asked Jasmine.

"I'm fine." As she walked down the hall, she muttered, "I have to be, don't I?"

~

"Get up and go, Mace," Drake reassured me later that day. We were at the rec center and people were filling in the stands as the soccer game was about to start. Jasmine wasn't here—she was currently serving detention for the altercation with Beatrice that morning, which seemed so unfair. Even though Beatrice was serving detention, too, something should have been done for what she had said to Jasmine.

I fist bumped Drake as the ref called for captains. I went over to the center of the field as the captain from Crenshaw Hills approached the middle too.

Michael.

"Anderson!" he smirked. "You're captain this year? Team decided to go with the girl as a joke?"

"Shut up."

Michael scowled. "Watch out."

It took everything in me to focus on the game and not on the words and potential threats from the sexist pig I'd encountered over the years. After deciding who got the first ball with the coin toss, I shook Michael's hand and walked off the field.

Justin was up in the bleachers with my camera in his hand. At the bottom of the bleachers near the bench, sat Sam. He gave me a two-fingered wave as Coach approached me. Once I told Coach that we had the first ball and he blew his whistle to tell my teammates to stop drills and head over to where I stood by the side, Sam said from where he sat, "Caleb says good luck. He had to do some errands so he sent me."

"He sent you? You sure you didn't send yourself?"

"Why did it look like the Crenshaw captain was giving you a hard time?"

Michael was frowning at Sam. "Why's he looking at you like you dumped his sister?" I asked.

"I didn't," Sam said. "I had a thing with a girl I thought was his ex-girlfriend, then stopped it when I found out the other guy was still involved."

"Trouble seems to follow you."

"Good luck out there, Hazel." He leaned back and I joined my teammates in the starting huddle.

~

My legs burned as I sprinted for the ball near the end of the game. Michael was right behind me as I ran, getting the ball from the other defender. The score was 2–2, with seven minutes left on the clock. I could feel Sam's eyes on me, like they had been the entire game, and I had a feeling that he was anticipating my every move, and every move the other team made.

Michael's foot connected with my ankle. With a whomp, I hit the ground and pain flared. As I turned on my back, Michael was shoved to the side.

"Hazel, can you get up?" I reached for the large hand in front of me and pulled myself up, shaking off the subsiding pain in my foot.

I steadied myself. "I'm fine, go back to the bleachers."

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm good, Sam," I assured him. "Go before you get in trouble."

Sam nodded and headed back to the bleachers as Andrew came up to my side. The ref and Michael were in a heated argument, and soon a red card was pulled out. He sent me a dirty look, and walked over to his team as the ref blew the whistle. "Penalty at the box."

Shrugging off all my nervous energy, I waited as the ball was set up. When the whistle blew, I ran, my foot connecting with the ball. The goalie reached for the corner of the post as the ball passed the line and hit the back of the net in a fluid motion. Relief filled my chest as I exhaled. After high-fiving my teammates, we set up again and as if on impulse, my eyes went to Sam, who mouthed Nice goal. His praise added to my excitement before my focus went back on the game for the remainder of the half.

Michael stood at a distance. Despite him writing me off as "just a girl," I would challenge him for the rest of this game, and every other game I would play against him.