midnight rain | leighton murray

two | i wish you would

2021
Freshman Year | Semester One

Maya opened her locker and took off her practice jersey, neatly hanging it up. She looked over at Whitney who was smiling to herself, and Maya rolled her eyes.

"One good practice and she can't stop smiling," Maya teases, "Remember who set you up for those goals?"

"Nope, I did it all by myself," Whitney responds and Maya laughs as she rolls up her towel and hit Whitney on the arm with it.

"Aww look at the rookies laughing after a good practice."

Maya and Whitney both stop and look over to see Willow, one of the upperclassmen opening her locker. There was a rainbow sticker and Maya smiled at the sight of it.

"I really like your sticker," Whitney compliments.

"Oh, thanks. I don't know what it means but I saw it at a gas station and was like, that would be really cool in my locker," Willow tells them.

"Oh," Maya says, "I mean yeah rainbows are cool, and like so is equality. I actually love equality."

"Yeah," Whitney states, "Equality for all. Especially people who want to love whoever they want to love."

Willow chuckles, "I'm messing with y'all. I'm like super gay. Like I'm the LeBron James of being attracted to women. And I already know about you Maya, despite your super straight appearance your Instagram is gay as hell."

Maya frowns and grabs her phone out of her locker as she looks at her Instagram. Okay so she had a few pictures of her in snapbacks and there were her pictures from Pride in New York with her dad for like the past four years. And there was literally the picture of her kissing her ex-girlfriend, yeah okay Willow was right her Instagram was pretty gay.

Maya closes her phone and tosses it back into her locker as she mutters, "Whatever."

"So," Willow says, "Have either of you thought of your volunteer project?"

"What?" Whitney asks.

"Well, student-athletes at Essex are required to log volunteer hours. It's supposed to keep us humble but most of us just volunteer at the soup kitchen and lie about our hours," Willow tells them.

"Wait that sounds awesome," Maya says, "Not the lying part, but the volunteering. I used to do a lot of it back in California with at-risk youth. A lot of them were kids whose parents had kicked them out because they were gay." 

"Then you might want to try the women's center," Willow suggests, "They always need volunteers."

"Cool," Maya says with a smile, "Thanks, Willow."

"No problem," Willow tells her with a smile.

Maya goes back to grabbing things out of her locker when she hears some of the girls on the other side of the locker room.

"If I had a silver spoon like that, I'd run really fast too. She thinks she's hot shit. The only reason she gets playing time as a freshman is because of who her mom is. That goes for both of them."

Maya looks over at Whitney and she knows that she heard them as well.

"Hey," Maya says getting Whitney's attention, "Haters are motivators."

Willow snorts, "Where'd you get that from? Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign?"

"Uh, actually I got it from...your mom," Maya responds and Willow and Whitney both laugh loudly at the comment. Maya smiles to herself as she grabs her stuff and heads toward the locker room showers.