TALIA
Match day.
I could feel the electric energy of the crowd surging through the atmosphere.
Football was one of the greatest points of pride in Britain, if not the greatest.
Being amongst the stands, people cheered, screamed and threw all sorts of random things they were holding just to celebrate.
I found myself cheering along with everyone too, the girls being painfully loud and knowing every traditional Leland chant.
Watching the game made me realise how advanced Leland was.
How on earth have I possibly missed out on this level of school sport?
In fact, the stands were all full that the girls and I were lucky enough to even get a seat. Well, it's not like we sat down to use the seats at any point of the game.
Wrapped in coats and earmuffs, we all watched the game with full intrigue that I never expected to have.
I didn't spend the rest of my week looking forward to this particular Friday for all the events but needless to say, I wasn't let down.
I became a witness to Reece Kennedy playing football, which gave me far beyond handfuls of proof to support the city-known claim that he was the star.
All the fuss about him made complete sense when he scored two insane goals within the first half of the game and another during the second half. These were three out of the four goals that had been scored by Leland, in fact.
The other goal was from Eli Ferguson with a lucky corner, but with all due respect, he didn't get half the amount of celebratory screams that Reece got when he whacked the ball in the net.
Reece was quick, agile, and absolutely terrifying on the pitch with his size and muscle capacity.
If a complete newbie watching football saw Reece on the pitch, I'd fully bet it would send them into a full-blown spiral.
He had skills that I'd never seen in grown men in all the matches I'd been watching for years with Max.
Reece was a seventeen-year-old star.
A bullet on the pitch.
A fucking prodigy.
I loved it.
This game was against one of the toughest schools to beat in the whole school league, Saint David's Private School from Bath, who followed behind with a tight score of three.
The crowd was tense with time running out, showing loud encouragements that Leland's defence would hold strong to get themselves at the top of the league's table.
"Shit!" Maeve exclaimed as Saint David's scored a goal, putting both teams in a disappointing draw.
"We have ten minutes left," I told as I clasped my hands in anticipation. "We'll get a goal."
Camilla leaned over from sitting behind us with Delilah and grabbed my shoulder. "Let's be glad Scotty isn't there to foul us."
Maeve spun her head around. "Shit, yeah— I didn't even notice."
I looked back to the pitch, inspecting the players after only really paying attention to Reece, realising Scotty was gone.
"Where is Scotty?" I added to the weird realisation we all had.
That was until the intense aroma of several drugstore body sprays wafted into my presence.
"Are you talking about Scotty Weissman?" A pretentious high-pitched female voice welcomed itself into the conversation while standing up from the seat beside me.
I turned myself around just to be greeted with more floral scents and a tall puckered blonde.
Bleach blonde.
With her lip gloss glinting and her face buffed with makeup, I immediately recognised her from seeing her constantly with Reece.
She was the one that I was itching to be in the position of since she always seemed to be within proximity of him.
I gulped as I looked at her, glaring at me and the girls for an answer as she blinked her false eyelashes.
She was beside me this whole time and I didn't see?
"Yeah, we are," Maeve answered back to the blonde who had appeared beside me, putting a slight grit in her voice as she added another question. "What would you know about it?"
The girl chuckled with a scoff. "Fucking hell, Diallo, calm down." She looked Maeve up and down with a dirty look as she popped a pink bubble of gum. "I was only going to tell you that Scotty's been booted off the team."
"How'd you find that out?" Camilla queried as she ducked down for better hearing through the noisy surroundings.
"Liam told Emma about it after the team's last practice," The blonde grumbled out with her whiney tone. "It all because of some girl— That fucking cousin that Felix told god-all was coming to Leland."
She's talking about me.
I found my words choked up in my throat as the girl twirled her hair around her finger and continued to speak.
"God, what's her name— Oh, Natalie."
Without even thinking, I shook my head and corrected the wrong she put on my name. "It's Natalia."
The girl looked at me and widened her eyes. "I didn't even notice you were there!" She poked her head out forcibly. "I've never met you before. Do you know Natalie— Oh, oops, I mean, Natalia?"
Her tone was noticeably more snobbish and drawn out when she spoke to me.
She thought she was better than me.
Funny joke.
"I am Natalia." I plastered a smile.
Like she had just seen a ghost, the girl's eyebrows raised. "Oh, you?" She slithered her arms to cross over her chest.
For some reason, I had an awful feeling that this girl did not like me for reasons I couldn't even think of.
Sure, I'd seen her around but we had never spoken a word.
What could I have done?
"Got a problem with that, Lexie?" Delilah interrupted the glare the girl had, learning Lexie was her name.
"Oh, no, of course not." Lexie denied with an unsettling smirk at me. "Just surprised to meet you in the flesh."
"GOAL!"
The crowd of uniformed students cheering reminded me of the atmosphere I was in before bumping into this girl.
"Kennedy scored last fucking minute!" Camilla grabbed my shoulders from behind, still fixated on the game. "Your boyfriend's fucking winning it for Leland tonight!"
My attention drew back to the field, watching Reece stand still while being run after by his teammates from the other side of the pitch.
Then he looked up to the stands.
Right at me.
Even as the swarm of the team surrounded him in a group hug, our eyes remained locked.
The same feeling of severe heart-rattling fluster hit me as always with the eye contact of his wonderous eyes.
Is he actually looking at me right now?
Stuck in a trance, I was about to raise my hand to wave when a voice barged in at the same time as a whistle signalling the end of the match.
"Reece Kennedy is your boyfriend?" Lexie loudly questioned in response to Camilla's exclamation at me.
Readjusting myself, I took a breath while looking down at my feet to split the stare on the pitch I was now forced to let go. "No."
Lexie's expression shifted within a second. A look of disgust.
"Alright, good." She pursed her lips and hissed through her teeth. "Keep off him."
Alarmed by the possessiveness, I felt my eyes narrow. "What?"
Lexie tutted. "I know you're new and whatnot but you should know you can't just shove your way into places you don't belong."
Am I hearing things right?
"I'm right where I belong as far as I know." My blinks quickened. I couldn't believe how serious she was.
Continuing with complete nonsense, Lexie scoffed again. "Shit, you're not even sixteen, aren't you?" Her aggravating laugh sounded. "Don't get your hopes up with a boy like Reece. He doesn't go for girls like you."
For some sickly reason, my heart started racing. It felt like a smack in the face; faced to face with something I knew was so irrational but made me feel so...insecure?
"You don't know anything." I gulped, trying to stand my ground.
But then, slowly, Lexie leaned from her height so she was face to face with me, close enough to hear each agitating smack of gum there was when she chewed.
Something about her presence intimidated me. Perhaps the fact she was older, brazen and from a far different world of people.
But she knew how to get into my head. She'd made her own little cave in my mind. A really fucking dark one.
Her gloss-lathered lips parted with a burning breath, which I stood firmly against. "I actually do know and I know that I'm the one for Reece," Then she proceeded with three sharp whispers. "So keep off."
I kept still, deadpanned and unwilling to reply to any order from this stranger.
Regardless, I was stunned.
Right away, I felt conned and completely torn apart by a facade I was literally just entertaining.
Staring at the girl I'd only seen from a distance by the boy I'd fallen for, I pieced together the drop in my chest.
Have Reece and Lexie been a thing...this whole time?
"Jesus Christ, Lexie? Do you know anything about personal fucking space?" Maeve scolded from beside me causing Lexie to take a step back.
"I was just leaving." Lexie bellowed with snark as she turned around and shoved her way through the row of people until she was out of sight.
"I hate that bitch." Delilah scoffed as she stepped over so she was standing where Lexie just was.
"What did she say to you, Tals?" Maeve asked me.
However, on my end, time stood still in my mind and I was thinking about Reece and where exactly I stood in his life.
Why else would Lexie be so bothered about Reece if they weren't something?
What if Delilah was wrong? What if I wasn't 'the only one'?
Am I a joke to him?
A toy. A throwaway. A temporary mess-about.
Or worse. Just a friend.
I could hear the girls asking me what happened but I wasn't listening.
Until I spilt out the words spinning in my head.
"Just Reece." I enunciated with minimal enthusiasm as my eyes remained glued to the number seven on the pitch— Reece. "She told me to 'keep off him'."
"Seriously?" Maeve gasped instantly. "Where's she bloody gone?"
I knew where she went.
I was watching her.
As if it was for my own bloody pain, she turned out to be footsteps away from Reece on the pitch, walking towards him with her head held high, legs strutting.
I watched her speak.
I watched him answer.
Yet, I couldn't string together a single sentence to say that the pair I was pained over was right there.
"Oh, Tals, pay no attention," Delilah took my arms and spun me around so I no longer had a view of the pair I dreaded to see. "She tries to be mint— She's just a bloody bitch."
"And her and Reece are not together," Maeve firmly stated. "And they never were— Lexie's just been obsessed with him for too long." She looked at me with full reassurance. "I promise you, Reece does not want her— He never could— Christ, nobody could."
"But they're talking right now." I babbled, twisting my fingers agitatedly at the strange shame Lexie had put on me. "At this rate, the party really isn't a good idea anymore."
"Gosh, no, don't be like that," Camilla butted in. "Lexie is just one of Reece's stupid fans— A really fucking crazy one and everyone at Leland knows it." She stepped closer as she took my arm. "She— Of all bloody people— should not stop you from going to the party."
"Yeah, Tals, we're all going to dress up and have fun— Not for the boys." Delilah explained. "We can cheer you up."
Listening to what they said, I paused, finding myself looking at Reece again from the side of my eye.
He was walking away from Lexie, irritation seeping out with each step that he took away.
Then his eyes travelled back up the stands and of course, back to mine.
He abused every opportunity there was to look at me and I looked like the idiot for already staring.
It played with my heart— yet, so did Lexie's words.
It was the first time I really cared about something someone else has said to me. I was embarrassed by it but I was raised in a family exposed to the life of gossip and constant talk of bollocks. Of course I was taught to never show that I cared for such bloody nonsense. Lexie's nonsense.
"We should start heading out now so we can get ready, then," I suggested as they all nodded like happy little children as they excitedly took my arms and began walking.
At the same time, I made sure to look ahead, not back to the grass of the pitch– you know, because I'm terrible with grudges.
The crowds were still loud to applaud, even though a handful were filing out to leave, many crying out Reece's name.
By 'many' I mean students from all years, his coaches, some teachers, several reporters and parents of the team.
He was hailed.
So there and then, Reece remained the relentless star of the school and I felt like I was constantly in trouble for watching him shine.
I wish I knew it.
But it was like he was so fucking bright that it blinded me from the fact he was messing with my head.