The boys are sweaty and rough. There's a match against the school a few blocks away next week, and everyone feels threatened, like this practice determines who wins and who loses.
All Ali can think of is Alia, the way she'd slammed the door to his room and cornered him to confess what that text on Thursday was all about. He'd had to calm her down, especially when he'd accidentally called her a drama queen (she slammed the door, the sound rung in his ears for hours afterwards). It'd been rough, seeing her cross her arms over her chest, frown when he mentions their father. She's his sister, he thinks whatever she feels, he's responsible of it. If she's in pain, he blames himself. It's always been that way between them, he thinks. She'd walked out of his room calmly, that night, and Friday morning was tense around the breakfast table. He'd been glad to go to the mosque, then, more than he'd ever been glad to go to a mosque. Khalifa's right, he knows, when it comes to the great gender gap left unaddressed in their community. He hopes it all goes away soon, this blatant sexism. If not for Alia's case, then for everyone else.
The gym already smells like sweat. The soccer ball sails past him, he could've easily butt his head against it, stopping it from reaching the opposite team (red bibs, Khalifa among them). But he's not paying close attention, and Khalifa kicks the ball into the net.
"What the hell, Ali?" Salem hisses at him.
"I'm sorry, I was distracted."
The other boys don't seem any closer to forgiving him.
And Khalifa looks worried. Ali scoffs. He's gonna score a goal, whether they expect him to or not. He pushes thoughts of Alia to the back of his head and tries to forget about Khalifa's worry, or the way he keeps looking at him, or the way their lips brushed so quickly the other day and they haven't brought it up in a conversation since. Not that Ali's been thinking about that, since it's obviously something normal that happens to all men every day at any given time.
"Focus, Ali," Salem calls to him from behind a few boys.
Right.
Ali runs where he can, in between different players, hopping on his toes as he maneuvers around the other players. Coincidentally (or terrible luck, there's no difference in Ali's opinion), Khalifa's got the ball, arms balanced on his sides as he dribbles on his way to the goal post. Ali needs to get to that ball before Khalifa scores yet another win. He doesn't want Khalifa to think he can kick Ali's ass. Ali's ass is his ass, no one's allowed to kick it but himself.
Ali races towards Khalifa, trying to avoid bumping anyone, and manages to kick hard in the direction of the ball. It flies somewhere else, redirected to the other side of the court. Ali senses the moment Khalifa starts to run after the ball, but he runs faster, ducking between the others. He sees someone in blue kick the ball into the goal, and a rushed, scattered cheer spreads between a few players.
"Nice save," Khalifa says, breathless.
"I try."
"Try harder if you want to win," and he's off, jogging backwards, eyes on the prize.
Ali curses, following the ball with his eyes. He finds Salem, jogs over to him while he's still got the time.
"Better?" he asks.
"We could be winning. Don't you like beating Khalifa's ass?"
And more than that.
"This is the only thing I'm better at than he is. I think you know the answer to your own question."
Salem smiles before walking away, standing close to an opposing player.
"Defense. Right."
Ali's eyes search for Khalifa again, the game's slowed down a bit as tension rises among the two teams. Ali thinks they need to score twice before he can declare their team's victory, but everyone's careful now, no one's willing to make rash decisions and risk losing the game. There's only a few minutes left on the clock, and it blazes red and threatening in Ali's mind.
