Stuck in the middle

chapter 16

Chapter 16

Melanie felt like crying. Nobody had ever talked to her like that. And worst she had never done anything to Mar, she never did anything wrong to anyone. Mar left for a drink of water and luckily coach called everyone into the next activity non partner related. She gulped but a huge knot was stuck in her throat and chest. For the rest of practice she avoided looking at Mar, if she did so the tears would for sure start to come out. She tried to stay concentrated on what she was doing and luckily she did just fine. At around 6:00 coach called practice to be over and congratulated everyone on a first great practice and then everyone left the field. Mel rushed to the locker room, changed lightning quick on an urge to get out of there as soon as possible. Thankfully Mel's mom said she would pick her up as she had left work early due to weekend plans that she had organized for Mel and her. When Mel was done she hurried out of the locker room so that she could go wait for her mom by the parking lot but she bumped into Samy on her way out. "Mel! Hey you good? You did great out there today. Also, are you and Mar good?" He told me you guys just had a misunderstanding." Mel gulped then cleared her throat. "Um no yeah we're fine don't worry about it" "cool" he beamed at her. "Riding with us? I can take you home or if you want you can hangout with us at Mar's house" "um no My mom's picking me up today, we have to go pack because we're spending the weekend in Toronto we're going to see some family." "oh that's cool we know a lot of people from Toronto, Malcolm himself is from Toronto." "nice" "okay well uh I guess I'll see you on Monday kay? I'll take you to school like usual." "Sounds good" Samy gave her a hug then out of nowhere Mariano showed up. He gave her a rough glare but then he just told Samy they could leave. "Cya M" "bye" Mel walked to the front of the school and leaned against the wall waiting for her mom to go get her. She thought about what happened earlier and Mar's words kept replaying in her head "ever since you got here you've been acting like if you were some type of stupid princess, making everyone praise you..... I don't like you and I never will." For some reason the words hit her hard. Why did she care so much about Mariano's opinion?

On Monday Mel woke up earlier than usual, hit by the nerves of how she would deal with Mar at school since she did see him pretty much everywhere. She sat still in bed creating scenarios of what she could say or what she could do so that Mariano would change his mind. "Oh my god this is so stupid" she huffed rubbing her eyes. She got up and walked to her closet trying to find clothes to wear. I didn't do anything to him or to anyone he's just a bitter jerk whos always grumpy and on his stupid phone I dont need to please him. I haven't hurt anyone i'm going to keep being me and i dont give a fuck if hes mad. He can stay mad. And with that new train of thought Mel sighed satisfied and went to take a shower.

3 weeks went by really fast. Each day came to be more chilly and windy but it was beautiful outside. Red, orange, brown and yellow slowly began to take over the bright green outside. Autumn was arriving. It was also time for the first game of the season. Everyone was equally excited and hyped up especially since it was a home game. Mel stretched next to Maraceli who unlike her brother she really liked, And even though Mariano seemed to really hate the idea of being friends with his sister she didn't care. It was kinda fun to mess with him anyways. The two had sorta created this game where they tried to piss each other off, enjoying watching one another push each other to the limit even though they couldn't break the somehow silent compromise of displaying their dislike for each other to the public. All behind Samy's back of course. When Samy was around they pretended like nothing happened and like they didn't have a disturbance for each other in common.

The coach gathered everyone in a huddle and went over the strategies they had covered again. "Mar, Mel and Malcom you guys are my goal scorers, chu ha and bassi stay put for any assists or in case the scorers can't score. Defenses make sure that doesn't happen though." the huddle was over and everyone set into position as the game was about to start.