Waking up to the sounds of "The Sound of Silence" playing from my phone, I groaned as I quickly disabled the alarm and tiptoed to my parents' room to make sure they hadn't woken up yet. Slipping inside, I disabled their alarm too before quickly getting ready and grabbing my car keys. There was no need for them to ruin their sleep just because I had to leave early.
I headed to the city's sports office, looking around happily at the familiar sights around town which would be forever etched in my memory. Today I was going to be spending the day in a soccer coaches meeting, which was mandatory for anyone who wanted to coach a team for the summer's recreational soccer season. As I walked into the room, I was immediately greeted by Alisha and Sue, the ones in charge of soccer here.
"Hey you two, long time no see," I grinned at them. "Did you miss your best referee during the year?"
Alisha laughed, "Hell yeah! You have no idea, these new refs are gonna need some real practice out in the fields, we've only had them doing the young kids games so far and they've been a disaster... to put it mildly." She grimaced to show the full extent of the tragedy.
I frowned and shook my head. "Why are you making them ref the young ones? Those are the toughest to do! Let them start with reffing games from their own age group, and then move them around to other ages. It worked for me."
Alisha looked sceptical, but Sue pointed at her and laughed. "HA! That's exactly what I said to her, but she wouldn't listen," She said in triumph. "See? Even the head ref backs me up! Alright, bud. Since you said it, we'll give it a try."
I nodded and looked around, not too many coaches were here. "Is this actually gonna be all day? It looks like it'll get real boring, real fast," I muttered to Alisha. She chuckled and shook her head.
"It should only be for about 4 hours. But if you cause any trouble, I'm keeping you here all day and you're cleaning out the main office, you hear?" She grinned evilly as I faked shock.
"Let's get this show on the road then."
* * *
I jerked awake as I felt my pocket vibrate. I had been in a half-asleep state since the coaches meeting had started, but no one really cared. I whipped out my phone, expecting to see a message from my parents about how it was going. But to my surprise, it was a text from my friend Kadie: 'Hello there, welcome back home! You gonna drop by sometime?' I just stared, confused. As far as I knew, no one except my family knew that I was back in town. How did she find out?
I quickly shook myself out of it, however, and couldn't stop a smile spreading across my face as I replied, telling her I would be free in an hour or so. I was so happy someone actually remembered that I would be home by today, it wasn't something I was used to.
We made arrangements that I would drive over to her place, where she and a group of her friends were busy with preparations for the annual banquet they were organizing at my old high school. I made a mental note to drop by Wal-Mart on the way there to pick up some more supplies for the preparations.
As soon as the meeting finished, I hurried out to my car, still grinning. I must have broken a few speed limits but within 20 minutes I had stopped at the store and reached her house. As soon as I stepped in, she gave me a hug that made me lose my balance. "Did you get hugging lessons from my mom?" I joked, and we both laughed as we went to her living room. Most of her friends gave me vaguely curious but otherwise uninterested looks, which I was accustomed to. One face however, caused me to stop in my tracks.
I recognized her as Tracy, one of Kadie's closest friends. She was looking at me too, but not like everyone else. There was a twinkle in her eyes, and a warm smile on her face. I didn't quite know how to respond to that look, it had been too long since the last time I had actually received a smile from someone I didn't know. I just gave a small smile back in her direction and forced myself to turn to Kadie, who was introducing me to each of her friends in turn.
