Prove Them Wrong: part one

was written, but not submitted for the: 2011 Will McDonough Writing Contest: Stand Strong

“So Cara, you’re trying out for track this year?” Amelia Armstrong asked me, her eyes just bulging with sarcasm. She turned and giggled with her loyal posse of followers. I knew from the moment I signed up that this would be an issue.

“Well, I was thinking about it,” I hesitated, nonchalantly glancing around our homeroom class, wanting with all my heart to be anywhere but here, being made fun of.

“What do you mean you’re thinking about it?” Amelia glared, her eyes like spears going right through me, making me feel a whole lot smaller than I was. “Your name was on the sign ups list, so obviously you thought about it pretty hard..”

“Okay, yeah, I thought about it, so what’s the big deal?” I was getting irritated at this point. But, still, I regretted saying that two seconds after it flew out of my mouth because I knew Amelia Armstrong could take me down with her cold words in a blink of an eye, and that her friends would giggle about it, taking every word I said and twisting them words into something totally different.

“Nothing at all,” She smirked and walked away slowly. “I just hope you don’t fall over two seconds into your first race,” I heard her chuckle under her breath, knowing well that I could hear every word she was saying. “

Alright, alright class settle down. We’re going to begin the day…” Our homeroom teacher begun. Thank God, I thought. I could really use a good distraction. I needed to get my mind off track, and especially the track team who would do anything to see me try just to fall on my face. I had never in my life been the athletic type, so to speak. I was average height with short, stumpy legs, that just kind of hung there, not meant for running, or even walking I thought sometimes. My feet turned inward when I walked because of the lack of an arch in my feet, and I was perpetually and in my mind forever overweight. I was not made to be an athlete, but rather something else; probably something to do with school work, since I was always a straight A student. School work was my thing. It came naturally to me. Although, I didn’t have too many friends, I enjoyed school. I was good at it. Plus, it took my mind off all my insecurities I had to deal with on a daily basis; one of them being the fact that I would forever fail on the basketball court, in the swimming pool, and the saddest of all, on the track course. But, this year, I was feeling a little more confident than usual. I was a sophomore now and had gone through a whole year of embarrassment in gym class freshman year. I wanted to achieve something great. I wanted to show those girls who expected nothing of me that I could do it, that I could overcome my weaknesses. I wanted so badly to prove everyone wrong! But, even more than that, I wanted to prove myself wrong.

“Cara, you all ready for the firs day of track?” My best friend Abigail asked me when the end of the day came.