Stay

3

EVIE

Sweaty. Absolutely sweaty. To the point where pieces of hair began to stick up in unfortunate and absolutely unattractive places. My grey shirt clung to my body in the most uncomfortable way. The result of a successful soccer practice, I suppose. Either way, I felt gross and was mentally counting down the minutes until I could go home and shower.

Friday afternoon soccer practices were never my favourite things to do. It cut into my studying time and Friends marathons. Even though it was only held bi-monthly (Friday practices), I would rather do without. I was fine with the weekly Tuesday morning ones since I had a class later that afternoon making it easy to go home and shower and come back. But with Friday afternoons, I had that awkward limbo of time where my morning class ends at ten and I have too much time before field time. It was evident that the coaches didn’t care if you had lives or awkward class schedules. Nope, those types of things never came into account. That would be madness. Unheard of. Ludicrous. 

I think I was slowly becoming bitter with age. This was definitely not a good look. No wonder very few men found me attractive. At this point, I was going to become a bitter old cat woman. I liked cats. They weren’t too terrible. I could probably manage with that lifestyle, since that was probably my destiny. 

Turning away from the field, I grab my bag and begin the long journey across campus and towards my car. The quicker I walked, the quicker I’d get to my car, the quicker I’d be home. 

“Evie, wait up!” I ignore whoever calls my name, not wanting to stop walking. People should know by now that I hated the post-practice chit chat. I was not about that whats so ever. “Evie!” The voice calls out once more. 

I stop, knowing who that voice belonged to. A blur of two brunettes hair rush over to me; blonde following close behind. Leah, Maggie and Presley - best friends, pizza eating buddies, partners in crime. The Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte to my Carrie Bradshaw. The only three people that I would ever tell my deepest darkest secrets to and give my kidney to if needed. 

“It’s the end of practice.” I tell them blankly. 

“Thank you Captain Obvious.” Leah retorts, flicking her blonde hair behind her shoulder. “Where are you going?”

“Well there’s this thing called a shower. I don’t know if you’ve heard of them before, but it’s this magical invention that washes bodies. A preferable invention to be used after long soccer practices. Was going to go see one.” I pull onto my hoodie, tightening the strings. 

“Sounds magical. I’ll have to try one of those things sometime.” Presley rolls her eyes, crossing her arms against her chest. 

“When did you get here?” I ask her, not realizing she was still on campus. 

“Well, we were thinking about going out. There’s a frat party and figured we could all go out after your practice. Plus, I had a group lab I needed to finish.” She quickly explains. 

As darling as my friends were, they had this incessant need to always go out. Have a drink, dance, wear something that you wouldn’t be caught dead in at church. Even Leah, who was the most conservative one of us all - she had grown up in a Protestant home, enjoyed a frequent night out. I wasn’t necessarily opposed to having a drink here or there, but it was my constant need for control that stopped me from going out with them on the regular. 

“I have a shit ton of books to study.” I tell them carefully, hoping they will drop the idea and study with me. “And I’m not exactly one for fraternity shindigs.” 

“Evie, it’s been ages since we’ve last gone to one of these. Don’t back out.” It was now Maggie’s turn to pipe in. She was the more “wild” one of the group. Her female James Dean persona giving her away. “Banks class has been balls and I need to blow off some steam. I need this. We need this. The team needs this.”