Chapter 26
AKASH’S P. O. V.
Sid was still sleeping when it was time for me to leave for work the next morning, and since he had specially made the effort to go and watch my game last night I decided to let him be. Dad would only be going to work for the latter half of the day because he had been working from home yesterday, so I didn’t have to worry about dropping him at his office right now. Not wanting to wake anyone I left the house silently and drove to the YMCA. I walked into the building recalling last night’s success in my mind, and thinking somewhat ruefully about how much my friends would have enjoyed it had they been there. But I stopped dead as I approached within earshot of the guard office and heard some voices.
“… and it seemed like his team was gonna get raped!” Ben was saying, and I could make out that most, if not all of the other guards for morning lessons were already there and listening. Brianna chimed in.
“And then Akash got flipped by the goalie, and the asshole started laughing at him cuz the ref never gave Akash the penalty,” she said in a shrill voice. “Ben was suggesting that Akash should have knocked the guy out.” Ben made a noise of assent.
“Why didn’t he hit him or something?” Alexis said. “I would have too!”
Kelly began to laugh. “Oh he did way better than that!” she assured Alexis. “In the next quarter of an hour he got a hatty as if it was kid’s play, and shit you should have seen those goals!” I listened with a faint smile as she began to describe my first two goals in detail to the rest of the guards, but then Adam intervened.
“And wow, his third one was the best. Easily,” he exclaimed, and went on for a good two minutes reliving the build-up and celebrations surrounding my tenth goal of the season. At the end of it I could see Alexis and Janet hanging on to his every word, but then Alexis spoke up again.
“I don’t get it though,” she said in a confused tone. “I mean it’s awesome he scored three, but was that the revenge that he got against that goalie?”
“OH!” Ben exclaimed. “No, we forgot that! That was hilarious. After scoring the first one he went up to the keeper, stood right in front of him and had, like, a completely blank face. Then he starts pounding the air to celebrate, while he’s standing a foot from the goalie!” He was going to go on but then started laughing uncontrollably, and the others joined in too. I smiled slightly as I walked in; it felt gratifying to be genuinely commended for my soccer for once. A couple of heads turned as I came within clear sight of the guards and entered the office.
“There’s the man,” Janet said with a grin as I set my bag down. “We were just being told all about your game last night. It seems like you were quite the hero.” I stared; sure, I liked to think I did my part for the game, but this seemed like a very high-and-mighty description. Exactly what had Ben and the others been telling them before I reached?
“It was just one game,” I said slowly. “And the chances were kind of begging to be scored so I just did, it wasn’t anything really.” Adam shook his head with a snort and Alexis scoffed in disbelief.
“Oh come on,” she said. “Definitely not your last goal, Adam’s been raving over it. We thought he was gonna pee himself right now while telling us about it.” She smirked as the others laughed loudly and Adam flushed. I shrugged and dug my whistle out of my bag; as I did, something else vibrated beside my hand and I pulled out my phone to see a reminder that had been set sometime in the past. ‘Driving test, 1:45 pm.’ it read. I started suddenly and was glad that I had set that reminder; I had booked that test so long ago that I completely forgot about it, and on reflection I think it would have been unlikely that I would have remembered on my own until it was too late.
