The Girl in Cleats

⚽️Chapter 32⚽️

{Asher POV}

I find myself thinking about Kiera often. I wonder how she's doing, if she's ok. Sometimes my mind wanders to horrible things, like, what if Mr. Wesley has her in his disgusting, greasy hands? What if she hurt herself? I hate when I think about these things because I can't send her a quick text and ask her how she's doing, just to make sure. I usually think about different scenarios of what we'd be doing if I hadn't turned myself in. Would she be in my arms? Would she smile when she heard my name, instead of cry? I think about a million different ways I could've made the last phone call better. I should've called her back, told her that I love her. 

I wonder if I'll ever see her again.

"You think too much, stop it." Chase says, walking into the room.

"Tell me how to stop and I will." I look up at him. I'm sure I look terrible, I haven't slept in a couple days. I've ignored all hygiene, so my hair looks like a demon squirrel ran around and decided to have babies up there. I probably smell terrible, too. 

"Come on, I'm gonna go play soccer with some of the dudes. You need to be outside." He says, giving me a concerned look. 

"Alright, I will." I sigh and stand up.

Chase plugs his nose, "But uh, how about you take a shower real quick. You smell."

"Take a shower before I play soccer?" I say, raising an eyebrow.

"Yea just get yourself cleaned up. You'll feel better, I promise." He smiles at me.

I sigh, "Mkay. See you in like 15 minutes." 

"Alright, cool." He smiles again and walks out the door. 

I've only seen Scarlett for meal times, and we don't talk. There's a big lunch room with a bunch of tables. We go through the line and get our food, which, doesn't taste too bad, it's pretty decent. It's usually just the three of us at one table, though I'm sure Chase would rather sit with some of  "the dudes". We don't talk during those times either, so he tries to fill the silence with random things that pop in his head. It's not annoying, I'd rather hear him talk over silence. 

I walk down the hallway to get to the showers with my towel and shampoo bottle. As I open the door, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I look horrible. Much worse than I thought, and suddenly I'm surprised that Chase didn't scream and run away as fast as he could. I have dark purple bags under my eyes, and my eyes are so dark, you can hardly tell they're grey. My hair looks exactly what I thought it would look like, if not worse. I move on quickly, not wanting to see myself. I hop into the shower, making the water freezing cold so I don't lose track of time like I usually do for warm showers. I'm out in record time- 2 minutes. Nobody else is in here, so I shake my head like a wet dog, it's more effective that way for my long hair. After getting it mostly dry, I stand at the sink and stare at myself in the mirror. I look like I've aged a couple years. Is this what foster homes do to kids? 

No, it's what the kids are taken away from. 

I figure that my fifteen minutes is almost up so I run a hand through my hair and walk out the door. It takes about a minute to walk back to my room, so I decide to run, even though it's "strictly forbidden". As soon as I start to run, a voice shouts, "Whatcha doin?". I stop and turn around, making my facial expression as dull as possible. Not too hard. But as I make eye contact with this person, I realize that it's Scarlett, and I haven't heard her talk since we were on the bus. 

"Ah, so the depressed boy finally decides to face the real world." she says with a smirk. 

"You don't know what I've gone through." I say simply. 

"I do, actually. You told Chase all about it. You don't know what I've gone through." She keeps the smirk on her face and it makes me mad. 

Why is she being so rude?

"Eavesdropper." A drop of water drips from my hair and onto the floor. 

"I was never told not to listen."

She's frustrating me, and I'll start yelling if I don't get out of here quick. I turn to walk away. 

"You never asked for my story." she says, somewhat of a sad tone in her voice. 

I turn around, "Like you'd tell me."

"Who said I wouldn't?"

"Everybody."

"Well" she begins, "out of everybody, nobody ever asked me." 

I'm silent. 

"You see, my facial expressions and tough personality scare people away. I act like I don't want anybody to be around, but I do." She looks at the ground. 

"I... I didn't know- I'm sorry." I say slowly, tripping over my words. 

"Not your fault, it's mine. You should go outside, I think those guys are waiting for you." She points out the window to a small soccer field. 

"Yea. I'll talk to you later then." I say with a half smile. 

"I'd like that, bring Chase." She says, with, do my eyes deceive me? No, she definitely blushed. 

"Will do, ma'am." I tip my invisible hat and walk back to my room. 

Once outside, all "the dudes" high-five me, though I know none of them. We start playing soccer, and I'm put in goal because I don't think I'd be able to run. 

As I'm strapping the gloves on, I see a girl pushing a stroller with a dog walking down the street outside of the foster care fence. The girl has long brown hair that's up in a ponytail, she's short...like Kiera. The dog is a big german shepherd. Did she find me? Why is she here? 

"Hey Asher, you ready?" a guy named Matt says to me. 

"Uh, yea. One sec." I take off running to the fence and I call out her name. 

"Kiera!"

The girl turns around, it's definitely not Kiera. She's actually an adult, and she has a baby in the stroller. I stop dead in my tracks. "I- I'm sorry. I thought you were someone else." The "girl" gives me a sweet smile and says, "It's ok, that happens all the time. I'm Lauren. Oh and this is Catrina" She points to the baby. 

"Hey...Lauren. I'm Asher." I say awkwardly. 

"Nice to meet you." She smiles again and starts to walk away.

Well, that was embarrassing.

I jog back to the field and put the gloves back on. Everyone is quiet, but it's a respectful quiet. 

"Let's get this game going!" Chase says, clapping his hands. 

I'm currently in California, and Kiera is all the way in Ohio.

I have to find her. 

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Heyyo, let me know how you liked that chapter! :P Serious question here... Team Asher or Team Cameron? ;) 

Thanks for reading! :)

-KD