Awkward

~PILOT /PART 3/~

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3:38 (P.M)

I haven't always wanted to play football professionally. It's been complicated but I feel like Kavi's made me so sure of it. It's just in me now. It is a little bizarre that it is though because I'm not sure what my father thinks of sports and I've never seen my mum run anywhere in her life.

Starting off, Kavi had it way worse compared to me. He had to keep trying when everyone said he would amount to nothing, even me. He had to do it from street tournaments and paid trials while I get to start here, Redwood.

But the worst thing about Redwood is that here, and in this club we call Boys' Football Leagues, we have sidelines.
And sitting on the sidelines can be very demoralising, especially if it's something you do every week.

My long socks clip my knees, forcing the chilly draughts to nibble at my thighs, and my head. My backpack is snuggled between my calves as I perch on the bench. The bench: that's what we call the sideline, where all the substitutes go.

Today, the sun is just an asymmetric lump of ice in the sky. It's not a hot thing, it's just a spot of white muffled by a cloud.

I roll down my sleeves and look out onto the playing field. My team is losing. We have colour-coded teams and mine is 4-0 down to the Reds in the second half.
I don't feel bad though. I'm rather detached from the game. It's like I'm a ghost observing the mortals who killed me.

I can't help but wonder if it would have been different if I was playing, but I'm not playing. Callum was right. I think sometimes I just have to remind myself that I'm not Kavi. Kavi is something else. Everything I have right now is everything I didn't have last year just like how he said it would be. Last year we were dirt poor and now my parents don't even have jobs, don't even need jobs.

To make it better, I don't feel like Kavi's shadow is something I have to 'get out of', it's more like something I want to emulate. The only thing is, I just don't know how he did it.

Redwood's sports complex seems to blend smoothly into a green grassland that stretches into the horizon with huge white telephone poles—No. Never mind. That's just the rugby pitch. Some people are even over there playing rugby right now.

The whole idea of clubs is that we get a recreational afternoon every Thursday to build non-academic skills in a club. There is a whole buffet of options but here I am in Boys' Football Leagues sitting on the bench, which is really just a row of plastic seats on the sideline.

I kick my boots together to keep my thighs alive and that's when my team get the ball in a danger zone to the opposing team.
The ball is passed to Alastair and just before the Reds can get a man to mark him, he belts it into the net.

I stand up and applaud him and so do the players on the pitch, 4-1.

Great goal, but we're still three down.

A drop of rain falls on my shirt- the game should be almost over and if it isn't, the rain will end it. Getting my school blazer out of my bag, I wear it over my shirt. I also grab Alastair's bag from the adjacent seat and slap it over my thighs.

Later, a player from my team walks off the pitch and sinks into the chair next to me, leaving the game at a relaxing pause.

Wait.

Am I-?
Is it my—?

"They're waiting for you," he says, to the wind - but I am the wind. It defibrillates me and I'm back to life. With one hundred percent battery life, I jog onto the pitch, doing all I can to suppress my excitement: