Murphy and Me: Sophomore Fall

October: Physics Tests, Car Keys, Facebook Status, and the Proverbial Elephant

"Stay calm. You have an hour."

Pat tucked his hands into his yellow cardigan and rocked back on his heels.

Great. An hour to prove I couldn't do physics. Deep breath. Don't panic. I flipped the test over to the front and looked at the first question. Vectors. Vectors and force. I had a formula for that. I think.

Oh, I absolutely despise physics. Even if I was allowed a calculator and one side of a three by five notecard, covered in formulas. All of which was starting to look like a language other than English. Didn't really matter which, honestly, but holy hell this didn't make much sense.

And I had fifty-five more minutes to make it resemble something coherent. Just to answer the damn question, too. Why, exactly, was I a science major again? Because, for some odd reason, I enjoyed torturing myself. Mentally, at least. Did that classify me as a masochist?

Dear God, I was so going to fail miserably.

"Don't even friggin' ask because I do not want to talk about it," I snapped at Sasha as I sat heavily on my stool in the locker room. She looked at me blankly, waving away the other girls. Sasha knew how to deal with me in a snit - ignore me and give me something to use as an outlet.

Like soccer practice.

First day back to full contact and I was volatile as hell. I pitied whichever teammate I slide tackled first.

There was more than a hint of violence in the way I pulled on my socks; the way the electrical tape snapped like it couldn't handle the aggression after it wound around my shinguards.

Taking a shit day out on others wasn't right. Taking it out on a ball with black hexagons? Perfectly acceptable. Anything else could be classified as collateral damage.

"Have you seen Murph today?" Sasha asked when she knew I'd calmed down enough not to rip her head off.

"Nope." Focused on winding the laces under the flattened arch of my cleats, cinching them tightly. Did the same to the other and thumped my right heel against my brace. It wasn't fair of me, but I wanted my starting spot back with minimal effort.

Not likely to happen, but a girl could hope.

Sasha tried a few more times to get me to talk to her with limited success. By limited, I mean none. Simply not in the mood. She finally gave up as we headed toward the field, clacking along the floor in tight silence. We weren't supposed to wear spiked shoes inside. Our theory was that if the boys could do it, so could we.

That philosophy actually got us more flack than anything else, really.

Which always brought me back to a card I'd seen at CVS one time while looking for a birthday card for my sister. It very succinctly stated the obvious: We learned it all in kindergarten; Boys are stupid.

Considering our boys listened to techno, I'd be inclined to agree with that line of reasoning.

I needed another day like that much like I needed a hole in my head. Casey hadn't said who was starting Saturday as the other central defender now that I was back, and I could handle that. Would drive me nuts for the next day and a half, but I'd deal.

What might make me certifiable would be waiting for the results of my first physics test. After taking a few moments to look back at my notes while trying to unwind with Glee playing in the background, I could see it quite plainly scrawled across the top of my notebook. Congratulations, you're utterly useless at vectors and have failed. Do not pass physics 150, do not graduate. Little more significant than missing out on two hundred dollars by not passing go.