Brute.

Six

I sat in class, working but floating through each period. Mondays couldn't come fast enough after each weekend at home. I love my mom and my brother, I mean they're my mom and my brother, but they make living life painful.

"Hey, you good? You seem out of it," Hannah whispered as I looked back down to the fetal pig we were dissecting.

"Yeah, I'm fine, just the usual," I sighed as I finished the cut to locate the epiglottis.

"You should move in with me," Hannah teased, "but I know you won't"

"They're my family Han," I replied as we continued working on the dissection.

"I know, but you're in pain. And I'm your family too."

"You are, and I love your family. We're close to graduation and I can make it until then. You're my best friend Hannah, I know I can come to you if I need to."

"Good," Hannah smiled, "as long as you know."

I made it through the rest of my classes. Calculus, Econ, English. They all seemed to be the same every day. They weren't, but they felt like they were. I've always been a good student, it kind of comes with the territory of trying to be the perfect daughter. I don't do much, I study and practice and work. But it's not enough.

Hannah and I walked into the locker room together after Econ had ended to get ready for practice. We changed and went out to the gym to wait for the rest of the team. Hannah helped me put the net up for practice so we could get started with practice as soon as everyone was here.

We were passing a volleyball back and forth when Haylie arrived, completing our team.

"Alright y'all we have some business to talk about first. Parent's night is this week, I have your forms, you need to have them filled out and back to me by Thursday morning please. Remember that for parent's night we dress up for the game like usual, and then while JV is playing we change into our track suits. After our warm-up Friday night, we will take off the track suits to walk out in uniforms. Any questions?" I asked as I looked at everyone, "perfect, let's do some warm-ups until coach gets here."

The girls and I each stood around in a circle to do our stretches, counting each of them down out loud like we always do with a clap in between each stretch. Left arm, right arm, left ankle, right ankle, left hamstring, right hamstring, neck, etc.

We each grabbed a volleyball and did our serving warm-up. I watched as the girls took their turns serving and waited for my turn. I walked up to the serving line, took a deep breath and felt the stitching of the soft matte volleyball between my fingers. I tossed the volleyball up and followed through a perfect overhand serve that landed right smack in the center of the other side of the court. Just like that, in the moment of serving nothing else is anywhere near me mind, everything is clear.

I retrieved the volleyball and rejoined the team, and just like that my mind isn't clear anymore.

"There's someone here to see you," Hannah said quietly to me when I rejoined the rest of the team.

I looked in the direction she was gesturing and saw Jimmy and Chandler sitting on the bleachers. I rolled my eyes at Hannah and watched Meredith serve. When we were done with the serving warm-up, coach once again still wasn't here.

"Alright, queen of the court," I instructed.

I grabbed the ball rack and stood just behind the net. Hannah, Haylie, and Addison started on the side of the court opposite of where I was standing to start as the queens. Meredith, Madison, and Christina started as the challengers. The way queen of the court works is usually coach will hit a volleyball onto the queen's side, if they don't hit it back or fail it hit it over in three, then the challengers take over as queens. If the queens hit it over and the challengers fail to return it back to the queens, then the queens stay the queens and the challengers are replaced with three new challengers.