The Psychology Project

Eight: Late Night Practice †

Ruby's full lips twitched upwards in a scarlet smirk as she marched next to Coach Kate. We went through about fifteen minutes full of stretches and small warm up exercises before Coach Kate got us to line up on the track and since it was on a bend, others were a head of others and Verity was right at the end given that she was on the inside lane.

Coach Kate blew her whistle and I noticed out of the corner of my eye as I began jogging that Ruby was a couple of rows to the right of me in the lead as she had already started sprinting too early. Noticing her mistake already, I kept my jog up and already in the first lap I had overtaken everyone nearly except a red-headed girl. She was attaining a perfect jog.

It was only in the second lap where I managed to come first and keep that status. The final third lap came and I sprinted on the home run, feeling the proverbial placate from my trainers. It always brought a sick feeling in my stomach whenever I thought about my trainers properly. I missed my parents dearly so I'd call them tomorrow. It would be too late now; London is five hours ahead and they'd be asleep now. They had to work early: constantly an inconvenience when I was living there and went to school.

Then again, I did always bring friends and the odd boy to the house when they weren't there. But nothing happened. There had always been something inside of me telling me that it was never the right time.

I had already crossed the finishing line and I didn't even realise, too caught up in my own recollections to even hear Coach Kate's hollering. I stopped abruptly, bowing my head and ambling slowly back to her, a hand pinned at my side to try and ease the stitch forming there. By the time I made it back to Coach Kate, Ruby was coming up on the home run, jogging painfully slow as she didn't have much stamina or endurance left.

"Should have saved it, Willows," Coach Kate mumbled, scrawling down on her clipboard and checking the time on her stopwatch as soon as Ruby passed the finishing line.

Ruby panted profoundly, clutching her wobbling knees, in the way of Verity who came third and had to quickly dive out of the way, plunging to the floor to miss running into Ruby and knocking them both over. Verity lay on the floor, a gash forming on her scraped knee.

"Willows, it may be an intelligent idea to move your body out of the way of oncoming runners. Stand next to Smith on the side by me. Evans, your knee needs cleaning."

There was something strange about how Coach Kate always called us by our surnames but Kate sounded like her forename. It was probably a bad time to speculate it.

Verity struggled to stand and began to limp slightly to the sidelines. I rushed up to her, hitching her arm over my shoulder and letting her lean her weight on me so we could get off the track quicker as another runner was finishing. Verity perched on the edge of the track and when everyone had finished, we all sat by her.

"Smith finished first, the same time as before, little over three minutes. Willows, you were second and Evans, you were third. In competitions, they will only do the top three, although the top five will all get some sort of medal," Coach Kate elucidated. "There is going to be an autumn competition of all sports: athletics, gymnastics, soccer etc. That will be later in the fall and in this time, I will be selecting the top five long-distance runners to partake. This will happen for every season and especially more in the spring and summer."

Her words continued and we did another run before more mini exercises and before we knew it, it was half eight nearly.

I had to help Verity to the nurse in another building before I could get changed and pick up my stuff. Instead, I had to drop Verity off in the office and go back to collect her stuff to give them to her. From there on, the nurse would clean her up and then get someone to help her get back to her room.

For me, conversely, I had to go back to the changing rooms and acquire my stuff before ambling to back to my room. I didn't see Jason at all in my journey today and in fact, I hadn't seen him all day. But when I got back to my room, I had another chapter of The Art of Psychology to read. Or start, anyway. I had double track tomorrow and in the morning, it was written work.

When I did get back to my room, it was already passed nine and Johanna was doing her evening reading of non-fiction science books. I rolled my eyes slightly, already feeling somewhat exasperated by how much science was around me.

After a shower, I collapsed into bed and got my psychology book out. It was an hour or so later when a note was pushed under my door. Johanna was already deep asleep, soft snores being emitted from her as I pushed the duvet off me, trudging to the door and picking up the note.

This note wasn't about extra track curriculum, like the preceding.

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Author's Note:

What do you guys think the note is about? Let me know in the comments! You'll find out in the next chapter!

Thank you :) x