In Our Heads

Chapter 19

*****

"Cassian – on the right! The right!"

Cassian stopped running as the high-pitched whistle ran through his ears and let out an exhausted breath. He ran a hand through his dampened hair waiting to get chewed out about his performance as their coach approached him. He kept his eyes down as the man stopped in front of him.

"Cassian, are you even here right now?"

He nodded.

"Then why the hell are you playing like you're not?" the coach asked calmly.

"I'm sorry," Cassian mumbled.

"You said you were sorry the previous four times you messed up the play! It does not make a difference. It's actually becoming quite annoying."

He automatically opened his mouth to say 'sorry' again before realising what the coach had said and immediately shut it. God, he could barely even pay attention to the man in front of him. Cassian looked up uncertain of what to say because he was too tired to really think of anything and did not trust whatever he could come up with.

The coach sighed through his grit teeth.

"Go wash your face and take a few laps."

Cassian nodded and jogged off the field towards the tap.

After splashing some cold water on his face in an attempt to wake up, he began running as the rest of the team resumed their practice. When he was halfway around the field, he looked up surprised at catching up to someone. It was Lance jogging around the field in no apparent hurry to finish the lap because Cassian had to slow his speed drastically to match Lance's pace.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Seriously?" Lance seemed surprised that he was asking, and Cassian nodded slowly. "Wow, you really aren't here today," Lance chuckled. "Did you sleep at all last night?"

"Yeah," for about thirty minutes. "Why are you running?" he added because he still did not know why Lance was not on the field.

"I threw the ball into Oscar's face."

Cassian coughed in shock.

"What?! Why would you do that?" And how had he failed to notice that happen?

"You're seriously asking that? Did you not hear what he said about Amber?"

Cassian smiled as Lance frowned.

"Oh, you still have that crush?" he asked.

"Shut up."

The snappy reply made Cassian laugh.

A while back, Lance had begun acting weird around Amber and Cassian picked up easily that he had started to like her. Lance made Cassian swear never to tell anyone and had not asked her out because he was too afraid to. Though, he kept using the excuse that he did not want to 'ruin their friendship'.

Cassian looked over at the field, his eyes searching until they landed on Oscar, the side of his face was red. That must have been one forceful throw from Lance. It made him furrow his brows because it was hard to make Lance angry enough to shout, let alone throw a soccer ball at someone's face.

"What did he say?" Cassian asked.

"I'd rather you not know, or he may just end up with the other side of his face looking the same way." They chuckled. "Really though, what's going on with you, Man? How could you not have noticed Coach lose his mind at me? I thought he was going to kill me; his face was redder than Oscar's."