That One Moment...

Chapter 6

Day 26 - afternoon 

For how much she had dreaded gym, it went smoother than she had anticipated. Coach Bradford seemed to realize she might need a new team and was not completely bothered by her outburst. Maybe he had worked with teenagers long enough to realize our emotional instability and lack of control under stress...or maybe, it was my first offense and I should try to be a bit more careful.

Bradford shifted around teams at the start of class, moving us into an 8x8 squad with 2 subs. So, there were 3 teams that took turns playing a game or working on skills. I found myself on a team with Chris, Abby, and Ryan, as well as Anna from chem and Chris's ex girlfriend Kimberly. The tension was high, but mostly not from me. Abby had quickly pulled me aside as we were practicing skills and was trying to help me get better at holding my hands and wrists when the ball came to me. It wasn't working, but it was keeping me occupied and away from the rest of the team drama. Abby also told me she would look for me at the soccer game since Chris mentioned I agreed to go. When her team was up to play, Sarah luckily was subbed out pretty quickly and didn't have to do much. She noticed that her fellow classmates were tiptoeing around her a bit and Leo wouldn't really look her in the eye when they were across the net from each other. Hopefully she hadn't made herself an outcast in class.

After gym, Sarah didn't bother taking a shower. She hadn't really done much playing volleyball today, so she just changed and went to the library after swinging by her locker for what she would need to take home. Chris came in a few minutes later and they started working on their peer reviews for English before moving onto the computer activity tied to social media. Chris was surprised that she didn't have any accounts. There wasn't really any point when you didn't have any friends and didn't really get out of the house, but she wasn't going to tell him that. Instead, Sarah made up a story of how her parents had forbidden her setting up any when she was younger and she hadn't really thought about doing it now. He gave her some suggestions for where to start, "if she wanted," as well as his profile info.

They didn't quite get everything done before Chris had to leave to prep for his soccer home game.

"Hey. Don't forget you said you would come." He said as he left. They made plans to potentially meet up on Sunday to finish working through assignments.

Sarah took her time packing up, since the game wouldn't start for at least a half hour. As she left the school and went towards the fields out back, she noticed that there was more of a crowd than she had expected.

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Looking around the stands, Sarah saw Abby with some of her friends. Social anxiety got the better of her and Sarah started to head towards the back, away from the crowd a bit. Before she could get far, she heard her name called. A bit surprised, Sarah looked quickly back and saw Abby waving and moving towards her.

"Hey Sarah! Didn't Chris remind you to look for me? I said I would get you to sit with me since you hadn't come to a game before. Come on. Don't worry, you don't really need to talk with anyone."

"I don't want to interrupt."

"Ha. Look, they carry on just fine without me. Come on." Abby started walking back towards her friends, half dragging Sarah along. "So, have you thought about trying out for basketball again? We lost a lot of players last year graduating."

"What?" Sarah practically shouted. "I...huh?"

Just then they got to a slightly rowdy crowd of students that had grown since Abby had come over to claim Sarah. It was a mix of popular kids Sarah recognized from the "cool kid" lunch tables and others that likely played sports or were friends/dating players.