Name of the Game

Chapter 6: Making Progress

It was soon 7:30am and practice was now over. The drills were pretty successful but the plays weren't. We weren't flowing as a team and a few players wanted to be the star of the show and the play wasn't going to work if everyone didn't so do their part. I grabbed my gym bag and headed to my truck which I quickly got dressed in making sure to check my surroundings to make sure no one was watching, like Harry. I soon hopped out of my truck and grabbed my school bag and made my way to Cynthia's locker which is where we were all meeting this morning.
"Hey Em!" Cynthia said very excitedly closing her locker door.
"Hey," I replied.
"How was football practice?"
"It was alright, how was cheerleading practice?"
"It was okkkkkk," she said with a huge smile on her face.
"What's going on? Why are you so happy?" I asked laughing a little raising my eyebrows.
"Nothing, nothing. Nothing special happened," she said with a smile from ear to ear.
"Mmmmhhhhh."
"If talking to Zayn Malik is nothing, then yes, nothing happened," Andrea said turning around the corner to face us.
"Shhhhhh keep your voice down," Cynthia quickly replies blushing and looking towards the ground.
"Oooooo does someone have a little crushy crush," I said puckering my lips and raising my eyebrows.
"No I do not," Cynthia said turning a ever brighter shade of red.
"Yeah you do. You have had one for awhile but you're too much of a chicken to talk to him," Andrea replied.
"Well can you blame me? He's a popular sexy football player. Like have you seen him? He's so hot and cool and I don't wanna get played."
"Cyn, he talked to you, he seemed interested, you should ask him out."
"Andrea, I know you've known him for a long time but I honestly think he was just being nice, or he was just flirting to get me into bed. I don't wanna have that kind of relationship so I'm just gonna stay where I am and admire him from afar."
"Alright, alright. I'm just sayin-"
"Yeah I know, I know. If I ever get the feeling that he genuinely likes me then I'll pursue it, but till then, I'm happy like this." Cynthia said with a pretty weak smile, I gave her one back.
The bell then rang, but I heard loud footsteps running down the halls and an out-of-breath Mitchie and Beth appeared in front of us.
"Sorry we're late, my alarm didn't go off this morning..." Mitchie breathed out.
"...and my car didn't feel like starting this morning." Beth breathed out as well.
The three of us let out little chuckles.
"Well you're technically not late cause we still have four minutes to get to class, so we better get moving," I said nodding me head to class.
We went our separate ways while we made our way to class. Mitchie and I were walking side by side and I looked over at her and she was still out of breathe.

The first half of the day went by pretty good, yoga was really relaxing while we mainly went through the stretches we were going to do every morning, history and pre-calculus we just took notes, and then in photography we got our cameras we'll be using and Miss. Carmichael showed us how to operate the cameras. Lunch was pretty fun too, we were talking about football and cheerleading but mainly boys. We were having so much fun and so many laughs that before we knew it the bell had rang and we had to get to our next class. So Cynthia and I made our way towards Chemistry. When we got to class Mr. Spencer was standing outside the door handing everyone a piece of paper.
"Find the number that corresponds with the number on this piece of paper with a number on a desk and that's where you'll be sitting this semester," he said handing me a piece of paper with the number 19 on it. Cynthia got the number 6, so we weren't sitting together, unfortunately. I found my seat and sat at it taking out my pencil, highlighters, and notebook getting ready to take notes. I started to doodle in the back of my notebook when I saw Niall and Harry enter the classroom. I saw them looking at their pieces of paper and then at the desks, they started making their way towards me. Oh no they better not sit by me, please please don't sit by me, especially Harry. Harry then sat at the seat diagonally behind me, number 28, while Niall walked behind me and took the seat directly next to me, number 20. Of course, he had to sit right next to me. He didn't say anything. He just took out a notebook and a pencil and waited for the teacher to enter the room.
"Alright everyone, now that you're most likely sitting by someone new, I would like you to state your first and last name and name your favorite color. You can start a conversation over that, you'll have 5 minutes to talk, and you are getting points for participation so I recommend you do it."
"Alright I'll start then, my name's Niall Horan and my favorite color is green," Niall said tapping his pencil on the desk, clearly not wanting to do this.
"Alright, my name is Emma Bermingham and my favorite color is wine red," I said picking up my pencil and going back to doodling.
"Bermingham, is that Irish?" Niall suddenly asked.
"Yeah it is, my dad, Coach B, is Irish. He moved to America when he was three so you can't really hear his accent. You can sometimes hear it though when he says certain words or when he's tired," I replied looking at him with a smile. It was so cool to talk to someone on my team.
"I'm not sure if you noticed but I'm Irish too," he said with a smile.
"Oh no I had no idea," I replied sarcastically, making Niall let out some chuckles. I then saw through the corner of my eye Harry's eyes dart over to us.
"I moved here when I was 12, and you can always hear my accent." I then let out a few chuckles. "I can't believe you're Irish!"
"Well technically I'm American, but I do have Irish in me."
"Yeah well... you know what I mean." We were now both chuckling when Mr. Spencer walked by.
"Alright class thank you for participating, but now it's time for notes," you heard groaning through out the whole class. Mr. Spencer let out a little laugh. "Hey hey hey, don't worry, we're only doing notes for about half the class because the other half we're going over lab safety because we're doing a lab on Friday. And tomorrow we're going to do all the calculations so Friday can just be full of fun."
You now saw smiles throughout the classroom. We all opened our notebooks to our next clean page and waited for Mr. Spencer to get the projection of the notes on the board.

The rest of the day went by good and fast. Chemistry we took notes and talked about lab safety, English we read some short stories about satire, in Foods we talked about flavor combinations, and then in gym we just did laps and wall sits. After school I did my normal thing and went home with Cynthia and Andrea and we ate and got dressed to head back to the school for practice.
When I got to the field I changed into my cleats and started with stretches with the rest of the players till the coaches came onto the field.
"Okay everyone, I know you have your statures, offense and defense, but if something happens you guys might need to make a change so today everyone will be practicing together, both offense and defense," Coach B said. "We're gonna start off with offense, so everyone grab a partner and get a ball and just throw it back in forth for awhile."
Ah shit, grab a partner, no one is going to what to be partners wi-
"Hey Emma," Niall said jogging over to me.
"Hey Niall."
"I was wondering if you wanted to be my partner?"
Did Niall just ask me to be his partner? With all these boys he could be partnered with, he chose the only girl.
"Sure if you want to."
"I really do." He said with a smile.
"Alrighty then."
We then made our way over to the ball bag and grabbed a football and made our way onto the field.
We weren't doing real well, he was having trouble throwing and I was having trouble catching his wacky throws.
"I'm sorry about my throws, this is why I'm on defense," he said laughing throwing the ball.
"It's all good," I said gripping the ball. "I could show you some pointers if you want."
"I'll take all the help I can get."
"Ok so you just hold the football with your ring and little fingers crossing the laces and your thumb underneath. Your index finger should be over the seam, and your thumb and index fingers should make an "L" shape. Then when throwing the football it should be behind you and the bottom of the football should line up with the top of your head, and your arm should make a 90° angle, you then throw it a half-circular motion and then release the ball with your fingertips," I said while throwing the ball.
Niall then takes the ball trying to put his fingers in the right spots and then throwing it, it was better but not great.
"Crap," he mumbled.
"Hey it's ok, at least it went in a straight line this time," we both laughed. I walked over to him with the ball and put his fingers in the right spots and then bent his arm in the right spot. "Alright, now throw." He threw it with power and it went straight and the ball spun. "Hey nice," I said giving him a fist bump, which he gladly accepted.
The rest of practice went by so good. Niall and I were having a blast, we were having fun and having fun competitions, especially when it came time to practicing defense. We were walking towards our bags to drink some water and change our shoes when Harry made his way over. I was sitting on the bench changing shoes when Harry started talking to Niall.
"Bro what's wrong with you?" Harry brutally asked.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"You chose to be partner with her, when you could have chosen any one of these guys!" Harry said gesturing to the rest of the team.
"You know Harry, you don't have to treat her like shit just cause she's a girl football player. She's actually really fun and very talented, she could probably teach you a few things," Niall said patting Harry's back and walking away. "Goodnight Emma, drive safe."
"Night, you too," I replied. I saw Harry's face and he was so pissed, but I didn't care, I had a great day and he couldn't bring me down.
"You know Harry," I said standing up. "Not everyone has to hate me, you can but Niall doesn't have to if he doesn't want to," I said grabbing my bag, and then walking away. "Night Harry," I said raising my hand to give him a 'wave' while I was still walking.

I got in my truck and drove home. Once I got home I ate something quickly and went up to shower, and did my nightly routine and within an hour I was lying in my bed, staring at the ceiling, with a smile on my face. I was so happy with today and how I made some progress with a teammate, and hopefully more would follow and eventually maybe even Harry would accept me. I was so happy, and I was hoping that since I was happy I won't have any nightmares tonight, but there's only one way to find out.

I'm soooooo sorryyyyyyy about this late update, but I'm done with my exams so I should be updating more often now. But I'm pretty sure its longer than normal so I hope you enjoy that. I really hope you like it and don't forget to comment and vote!! 😁😘