𝖋𝖑𝖔𝖜𝖊𝖗 𝖕𝖔𝖜𝖊𝖗 ⋆ 𝕶𝖊𝖛𝖎𝖓 𝖉𝖆𝖞

𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖊

╔═══°∴,*⋅✲══〖✰〗══✲⋅*,∴°═══╗

"Don't be so fucking stupid," Daisy yells across the court as she makes her third shot of the morning. Renee stands in goal, racquet in hand, and shrugs.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

The girl stalks over, racquet slung over her shoulder and stops within the goal area. The play has come to a short stop, everyone interested in the two girls. "You're letting me score goals that I wouldn't score otherwise. There's no point letting me get the satisfaction if I'm not learning anything."

"Daisy, I'm not going easy on you, if that's what you're suggesting."

Daisy wants to rip her hair out. She wants to smack the head of her racquet against her helmet until it breaks through and buries itself in her skull. She hates being a striker. She hates offence. The only thing she envies about Seth right now is that he could starts fights with Kevin without consequence. Instead, when he approaches from his spot nearby, she just glares at him and stalks away. The new kid is sidelined for now, and he's been watching intently from the subs bench. She shoots him an evil look too, for good measure.

Kevin has followed her back to her spot on the first-fourth line. Her racquet spins in her hands, ready to smack itself into any un-armoured skin she can find on his body. Backs of knees are always a good option, or the spot between the neck guard and the shoulder armour.

"Renee's letting you get more goals that she should," he says. Daisy nods. "But you're not doing bad."

It's as close as she's going to get for a compliment from him. Her fingers tingle at the words. A year ago, she would have cried at the thought of Kevin Day complimenting her game. Her heart would have fluttered, she would have gotten flustered and flushed and potentially a little wet. Now, she wants to sucker punch the motherfucker.

          "Shut up," she replies, and she means it. He keeps approaching her, giving her little nuggets of Boy Wonder wisdom. He keeps analysing her play and offering her improvements. Worst of all, he keeps being nice to her.

          What the fuck is going on?

          Morning practise is over in the blink of an eye. It's Thursday, which means she has an afternoon class. This morning, however, she's got an appointment at Reddin with her physiotherapist.

          The story Wymack fed to the press was only half of a lie. Daisy Cohen really did suffer a traumatic injury to her already-weakened ankle in her first year, one that kept getting worse as the seasons progressed. It was the drugs they prescribed her for the pain that really kicked off her addiction, the opioid pills becoming less effective until she started taking more, and more, and then the pills didn't work anymore and she moved to the harder stuff. Half of her rehab process was a course of physical therapy, getting her ankle back into the shape it should be for a twenty-year-old college athlete. This is her first check-in since she's been back, and a phone call to Reddin Medical Centre made an easy switch for her to get her NCAA-mandated drug test done on the same day.

          It also happens to be on the morning of Andrew's visit to Betsy Dobson, the team's psychologist.

          Nicky offers her a ride, and she almost refuses. Reddin is on the other side of campus and, while Daisy doesn't mind the walk, the sky looms cloudy with the threat of a late summer storm. So she climbs into the back seat, directly behind Andrew, who cranks his chair all the way back to squash her long legs into her shoulders. Her brow doesn't ease from a deep scowl until they pull up outside of the centre.