Sera pulled into school and parked in the senior lot. She was so excited about her new car she didn't even notice Jamie running up to her until she felt someone jump straight onto her back. A sharp streak of pain ran through her leg as Jamie's thigh clashed with hers. She quickly pushed Jamie off, trying not to wince as she smiled at the girl's excitement.
"You finally got a car! I'm so happy for you! You should have texted me when you got it!"
"My mother surprised me with it ten minutes ago, I didn't have time to think about anything else," Sera laughed as she spoke, still giddy over her new car.
"It's so beautiful!" Jamie screamed as she ran her hand along the body of the car. "And I absolutely adore the colour." Sera looked at the glossy pearl white color, which shimmered in the sunlight and silently agreed.
Sera locked her car and the two girls headed inside to get their things before class, chatting as they walked. Sera's mood had done a complete 180, she was no longer shivering in fear, instead she couldn't stop giggling. She still couldn't believe the events of this morning transpired. She definitely couldn't believe her mother had been so nice to her. It was a welcomed change, but one that Sera was completely blind sided by.
Thankfully Sera's mood managed to remain high straight through the school day. She spent most of it with Jamie, and all her remaining classes seemed to pass in seconds. The events of the night stayed in her mind, but she was able to distract herself from bringing any negative thoughts to the forefront of her mind. The final bell rang and sera headed to her locker, ecstatic to be going home before she realised there was practice tonight. And that's the moment her panic resumed. She had no idea what to do, there was no way in hell her spandex would be long enough to cover the gash running down her leg. Even if it did, all it would take is one dive for her to write with pain. But she also knew she would be unable to just ditch. As appealing as the idea was, coach would murder her the second she showed her face at the next practice. With games coming up soon enough, she couldn't afford to be benched. She needed to work her butt off if she wanted any type of recognition from scouts come recruiting time. So, as painful as it was, sera headed to practice, silently wishing there was someway she could get out of letting anyone find out what she did.
Sera made it to the gym three minutes later, and immediately became confused. Instead if rushing to change, she was met by her entire team sitting in their everyday clothes. She looked around the room and noticed the varsity, junior varsity, and freshman teams all sitting in the gym with the all three coaches standing in a corner quietly talking. Not wanting to make her entrance obvious, Sera quickly crouched down near a few girls on her team and asked them what was going on. At first they looked at her with a bit of attitude, but thankfully answered her anyway.
"The coaches decided to do a team bonding day since we haven't gotten a lot of practice time in, so we're all going to be talking for a bit and call it a day." Sera had never felt so lucky in her entire life. A major part of her wanted to run up and hug each and every one of the coaches, thankfully the reasonable side of her kept her in her place. She listened to the coaches talk about teamwork and the need to bond, and after a good forty minutes they released the team and started packing up. Sera booked it out of the gym like she was on fire, not bothering to hang around any longer than that. She stopped by her locker to swap her sports bag for her backpack and headed outside. She started waking away before she remembered why she was so happy all morning and rerouted to the car park, hopping into her new baby and starting the car up. She started to drive off before she noticed a note stuck into her windshield. She quickly parked in the closest spot before tentatively getting out and reaching for the note. It was a small slip of paper, and when she opened it the colour drained from her face.
