"She cheated on me. He cheated on you. What do you say? Want to settle the score?"
***
Kate Wilson, a hot-headed Dragon striker, and Rosie Connelly, an uncredited behind the scenes Sea Lion captain; witness Kate's...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Excitement, adrenaline, a cheering crowd, and manicured grass: these were all things that came to mind when imagining a playing field. Chesterfield High's grounds didn't live up to those expectations.
The groundskeeper didn't have incentive to keep the field in good shape for use after the important sports in our school like football and soccer season had finished in the fall. The students didn't show interest in lacrosse right now either. It's not like the school had enough money to fund a team, anyway. We only had a team because we'd spent every summer raising money for ourselves.
The field remained a disaster even though months had gone by and it was the second month of Spring. Weeds sprouted out of control and the white paint lines coating the grass were like needles in a haystack. Hence why we loved playing at the Ridgeway Institute's pristine field so much.
The groundskeeper only focused on trimming the field's borders and keeping the messy grass from invading the running track. The track only needed little maintenance, since it was made from synthetic rubber. It was fine for the runners to use. They ran the circumference of the field while our team headed to set up practice.
Our current captain led a warm up after school inside the goalkeeper's box as we waited for Coach Connelly to arrive. We gave up on him coming after fifteen minutes into practice. He must've forgotten about us because we got no notice he wouldn't be showing up.
Eduardo, donning a black baseball cap, led us in our training. He stuck two lines of multicolored disc cones on the mucky ground. There was more mud than there was grass, and even the grass that grew was yellow and gross looking. There wasn't much for the groundskeeper to mow.
Liza occupied one line of cones and Eoghan used the other. They zigzagged between them and raced against each other.
Eduardo led Izzy, Dan and me a few yards toward the rusted goal post that had gigantic holes in the net. He assigned me as the goalkeeper and ordered for Izzy to get by Dan and score against me and Dan was to defend against her attacks.
Eduardo tossed the ball between them before returning to Eoghan and Liza to time their movement between the discs.
"I can't believe it's April already. Senior year's going to be over before we know it," Izzy said, scooping the ball behind Dan only for him to block and gain possession, ending the attack.
"Got to do better than that," Dan taunted, passing the ball to me to throw back into play.
"I'm just warming up, Danny," Izzy defended.
"Ready to blow this popsicle stand?" I asked, throwing the ball between the pair.
"Hell yes! We'll both be in New York at the end of summer, Kate. Can you believe that? Starving art students in the Big Apple? I can't wait. You got to learn to walk faster, though," Izzy said through gritted teeth, bumping her shoulder against Dan's and knocking the ball from his foot.
