The Silence Between Us ✓

[27] Happy Family

NOAH

"Ok guys today is the day!" Coach looks up at the squad excitedly, his eyes landing on mine. I wish I could say that I was in the same state of mind but that would definitely be lying. Instead, I was coming up with an emergency plan to either sabotage myself or deal with Harrison if I won the spot. Unfortunately, I had nothing in the form of any plan at this point.

"It's on Rosenworth." Speak of the devil. He
said it in a low voice and had that small fraction of menace to it that scared me to this day. What would he do if I won? I had no idea, a fact that terrified me. I looked back at Coach.

"So, I know that Harrison and Noah are definitely looking to try out for the captain position – is there anyone else that wants to join them?" He paused, scanning the team of and they all collectively stared at the ground. Just him and I then. "Ok then. This is how it's going to work:"

I looked down at my boots in the soft mud of the pitch and thought about Via. She'd been in my head constantly from basically when I met her, but obviously now we were dating, she has a sort of area of my brain dedicated to her. I know that sounds really weird – not to mention creepy – but whenever I think about her, I'm immediately put at ease.

"We'll play a game – with each of you a captain of half the team – whoever wins will obviously get bonus points but won't necessarily fit the position. I'll judge that on this game, of course, but also on what I've seen of you from your time on the squad. Is that clear?"

Shit. Coach loved me – too much sometimes. He was always looking for me to help out somewhere or do some job for him. This was not looking good.

"You're going down!" He smirked and I attempted to give the same expression. For some reason every word that came out of his mouth made me feel sick and that was yet another thing I was trying to hide from him and the rest of the team.

XXX

We played the first half fairly quickly after picking players – I was playing ok but definitely not at my best by quite a bit. It consisted of me half-trying to get the ball off of the other team's players and then not really giving one if I didn't make it. As a result I was trailing behind Harrison which I thought I was absolutely fine with.

That was the point right? For me to lose so that Harrison wouldn't get aggravated, work out that I was dating Via and then hurt any more. I'd always wanted to be captain ever since I joined the squad in year 7, but sometimes you just had to make sacrifices I guessed. Having Harrison as team captain was never going to be great, but it was far better than knowing that he would hurt Via in the same way as he has been doing for the past year.

But at the same time, it frustrated me so much. I wasn't annoyed at Via – I could never be – I was annoyed at Harrison for thinking that he could get away with what he did. I wished that he would finally grow a conscience and realise he wasn't really as great as he thought he was. I wished that Via would have told Mrs Porter about it, and still didn't quite understand her reasoning on not doing, but that wouldn't be necessary if Harrison just didn't exist. It made me so angry.

Usually both of these sentiments are in balance. Today the latter was winning.

What was a try-out if not a football match between the two alpha males? I came back into the second half feeling more and more aggravated - every one of Via's words kept popping into my head, her explanations on Harrison making me more and more so.

Letting Harrison win would just be saying that what he did was ok wouldn't it? It would be showing that I was scared of him, that I couldn't protect Via, that I'd given up. I hadn't given up by a long way.