Something Like Fate (editing)

Chapter 7 - Internet Explorer Is Faster Than Me

Drew could have labelled me as ‘a girl who serenaded me with her angelic voice’ or ‘this girl I trusted enough to help with my brother’ or ‘this really awesome girl who’s so deep and alluring with her presence.’ But no, that was too much to ask. He had to describe me as ‘no-one important’. It was like I was just some random girl who just so happened to be sitting across the table from him for no apparent reason. There was a thing called being rude and then there was Drew Harries.

My mood was made worse by Lucy roping Dina, Finn and me into signing up for her football team to raise money for charity. I mean I love helping people but couldn’t I do something that didn’t require me to fall flat on my face or wearing a pair of shorts that exposed my skinny, chicken legs.

“Do I have to do it?” I asked, utterly horrified by the thought. To say I was bad at sports was an understatement – I would much rather watch Bend It Like Beckham and drool over Jonathon Rhys Meyers.

“Yes,” Lucy exclaimed while finishing off her Skittles that she refused to share. “It’s for children in Malawi. People pay to watch us play and the money raised goes to a good cause so suck it up. Jennifer told me they were short on players for her team so I thought it would be fun – remember what fun is Sophia?”

I narrowed my eyes at her remembering that her version of ‘fun’ ended in Drew kissing me last time. “Fine but we best raise a hell of a lot of money if I’m going to be making a fool of myself.”

Dina seemed unaffected it by it all if her doing jumping jacks to warm up was any indication. I, on the other hand, was hyperventilating. I was about to embarrass myself in front of my peers, and all of the 100 people who had crowded the field of our college including the students who had just showed up to ditch class and enjoy the rare bit of sunshine that decided to grace us.

“Dear God, this is way worse than that time I couldn’t do swimming in P.E because Mother Nature decided to make me feel like I was dying and I had to tell pervy old Miller. He actually told me he expected me to be able to do it next week because he knows that a ‘girl only gets her special package delivered once a month’,’ I said shuddering at the memory.

‘Please don’t talk about your girly problems around me!” Finn shrieked from next to me where he was tying his red trainers that clashed with our team’s green and white stripped uniform. All he needed was a jingle bell hat to complete his look as an Elf.

“Girls have periods, Finn. Get over it,” I said rolling my eyes at his childishness.

“Really? I just thought that you sporadically decided to act like a character out of a horror movie once a month,” he said straightening up and pushing his black rimmed glasses back.

I was stopped from having to tell Finn that I didn’t appreciate his input by the image of Drew strolling onto the field with confidence that would have put Kayne West to shame.  He strutted onto the field wearing the opposition’s uniform of blue and white stripes and that did nothing to relieve my despair about the game ahead.

Of course he would be playing! I remember when I was scrolling through his Facebook that one time (only because I was bored!) and I found that picture of him playing football and rugby for the county team where the caption stated that he had won the under 20 player of the year award. He wore the same expression of determination and arrogance as he did in the picture of him shooting into the goal and I had no doubt he would revel in my crap ball-handling skills *snigger* Great, this is just what I needed right now. I doubted Drew would even notice me since he did claim I was ‘no-one important’ and that of course meant that I wasn’t even worthy of being blessed with his usual smirk and all around friendly demeanour.