The first day of lessons was a blacked out blur.
I felt like I was automatically sauntering around the college, knowing I'd left my map back in my room which I could have cursed myself for. Gratefully, I did have the buildings and rooms on my timetable which I had with me, but for the morning, I had athletics first so I couldn't have been more elated and apprehensive at the same time.
I was following a group of rowdy boys before we came to the changing rooms and they diverted their direction to the boys' side while I entered the girls' changing room. When I got in, opposite me were metal, dented lockers. To the right of me on the wall was a huge long line of wooden hooks along the stained-white walls and small benches beneath them with the door to the athletic grounds and to the left were the showers and such.
I scurried to the lockers before picking one at random which still had the key in it. I managed to pick locker 38. I retracted the key and put all my stuff on the benches by the hooks. I changed into my black gym shorts (seeing as it was quite pleasant outside) and waited for the arrival of the new tops while other girls began to file their way into the room.
"Right, my name is Coach Kate and I have all of your tops here," a female coach proclaimed, burst her way through the doors with authority as the mindless chatter between the girls ceased at once. "And your sizes since you ordered them in advance so when I call out your name, come and collect them from me." She held a huge cardboard box which was pressed against her chest.
The coach was very young – she had to be in her twenties with her long, ginger hair which was tied up messily in a bun. She was quite short- shorter than me, any way and she wore gym shorts and a polo top which had KATE written across the back of it and the number 02 under it. Obviously, she had been in a team at some point. She wore bright blue trainers which just so happened to fit with her blue polo top and grey shorts. She also wore a piece of material around her neck which attached to a clip board which various sheets on and also a stop watch.
"Verity Evans," she called out at once, holding up a folded up top in a sealed bag in prior to passing it to the girl who first stumbled up to her. This continued for quite some time until she called out, "Tiegan Smith," her tone almost monotone by this point.
I got my top and just like all of the girls before me, I turned my back and changed my top quickly to cover my sports bra I had already got on. The top had SMITH on the back of it, above the number 17 which was my lucky number, fortunately. The number was also what the coaches would sometimes refer to us as which I had read on the website.
"Right, warm up, three laps and then you can go off to do your individual training. I'll be walking round and helping for this lesson. I just want to see what all your skills are first before I can properly assess you and designate you to certain areas of improvement," she declared. She clapped her hands together and most of the girls began to put their things into the lockers so I did the same before we ambled out onto the pitch.
I got straight on the track with the other girls as Coach started the timer, running with my new Nike trainers. They were a going away present from my parents seeing as I wouldn't be seeing them very often and I was an only child which did suck sometimes. They tried for another baby many times but after me, they just couldn't conceive again.
I managed to finish the warm up of three laps before any other girl and I felt a surge of elation whiz through my veins as I doubled over, my hands on my knees while I tried to catch my breath again. The coach strolled up to me and patted a hand to my shoulder in a sort of congratulations; I knew I had stunned her and that was good. First impressions were good. Maybe I was making up for something, too.
"Well done, Smith," she praised. "I can see your expertise lie in the field of long distance running." She was gawping admirably at the stop watch before scribbling down the time on the clip board.
"I was on the team," I breathed, standing up properly as someone else was running down the home stretch. "Always came first. Never came second."
"Did you make any new records?" Her eyebrows were raised enough to exhibit the myriad wrinkles on her foreheads.
I nodded. "I always beat my own, every year." I wasn't trying to swank, but she did seem engrossed.
"Excellent, Smith," she spoke, jotting down things on her clip board.
I smiled as the girl that was coming up the home stretch, finally finished and Coach saw her time, too and jotted it down. I waited with the girl until everyone else managed to finish it. I had no idea how quick I was but a definite five minutes had passed before the last person finished the warm up – whom, might I add as I perceived, was very out of breath before she collapsed to the floor.
"Alright, girls," Coach began, "sit down while I talk."
Everyone took their places on the ground as we sat in some sort of a semi circle on the track floor. It was a little prickly as I crossed my legs with the little bumps were chafing on my exposed legs. In the end, while everyone was still trying to get restful, I pulled my legs up so only my shorts-covered bum was on the floor.
"Alright, the quickest time for the three laps was three minutes, twenty nine seconds and that goes to Tiegan Smith." Her eyes briefly glanced over to mine before diverting them to her clip board that she held out in front of her, her stop watch sagging uselessly from her neck. "The slowest time was seven minutes, forty one seconds. I watched some of you on the home stretch, too and I think some of you are better suited for being sprinters while I have a handful of you which are better at long distances."
The talk went on for quite some time, informing us of how we must stretch out all the time and even though we forgot to for this warm up, we should have done. She also began to explain the consequences of missing practice as she wanted to start some teams: long distance and sprinting. "I'll put the sheet up in the changing rooms later in the week – it may be the end of the week but make sure you all keep an eye out for it. I will try to assign every single one of you to a team of some sort, even if you'll be a reserve. You'll all get your time at some point," she promised. She also said about how she'd do extra curriculum for running as well as our lesson times.
After the talk, we all stood up and began to stretch now while Coach began to sort some of her papers out. She pointed to different parts of the track where the sprinters would be and where the long distance runners will be.
When the lesson was finally over, we staggered back into the changing rooms. Some people changed quietly while others immersed themselves in gossip of other people. I was one of those who were quiet when the bell sounded as I took my key for locker 38 and stuffed it inside my bag. Turns out we got to keep the lockers.
When I made it back into the main building, I dumped my stuff in my room before showering in the bathroom. I wasn't too sure where Johanna was, but presumably she was in the science rooms. I wasn't quite sure if I had ever met someone so fanatical about science – and a girl, at that.
After showering, I dressed myself into a pair of ripped jeans, my ankle boots with a chain over them and a random white top I picked out of my wardrobe. I looked at my time table to see I had a free period before lunch – which was now and was every day; it must be some sort of break for homework or to catch up or something.
After lunch, I would have my first psychology/sociology class. I originally wanted to do psychology but since the classes for both psychology and sociology were so small, they had morphed them into one class so then we would do projects on either psychology or sociology – whichever one you wanted which also meant whichever one you wanted to do originally.
My time table was as followed:
Morning: (9:30-11) / Afternoon: (1:30-3) / Extra (evening): (7-8:30)
Monday: Running (Track) / Psychology (Build. 3, rm 68)
Tuesday: Free / Running (Track)
Wednesday: Running (Build 6, rm 139) / Running (Track)
Thursday: Psychology (Build. 3, rm 68) / Free
Friday: Psychology (Build. 3, rm 68) / Psychology (Build. 3, rm 68)
The extra column was blank for now which meant I would have to fill it in after Coach had put up the notices on the walls of the changing rooms. And there were no lessons on the weekend, thank god.
I stumbled down the stairs as best as I could with my trembling legs. I wasn't used to this after running in high school. In fact, I've never ran three laps as a warm up seeing as three laps was normally the bulk of the lesson but I managed to still come first. I would phone my parents tonight and tell them how my first day was.
But when I got down to the dining area, my eyes instantly landed on Jason who was sat in the far corner of the seating area, tucking into a chicken casserole and new potatoes before a girl sauntered up to him. His eyes beamed at the sight of her as she leaned over in her two-inch shoes and gave him an uncorrupted kiss on the cheek. I kept walking in to seem unaffected by the whole thing as the girl sat opposite him and grabbed an extra fork that he had on his plate and began to nibble on a new potato.
I happened to grab the same as Jason before perching on the end of a small table somewhere in the middle of the room. I ate about half of my food (that also had a small salad on the side) when Jason and the girl passed me. But before Jason could wander off anywhere, he turned his head and smiled at me.
"Oh, hey, Tiegan, wasn't it?" he spoke.
I nodded. "Yeah, it is."
"It's good to see you again. I think I saw you last night while I was practicing soccer. I've got that next, actually so I best be going but I just wanted to say hi. I feel like I should be redeeming myself more for knocking into you." He still wore a smile.
I shook my head. "Oh, you don't have to redeem yourself. It's fine, you've apologised." No, keep redeeming yourself... please.
He nodded. "Well, hi, again." He chuckled lowly. "I'll see you around, British girl." And with that conclusion to the conversation, he strolled off, slinging an arm around his girlfriend's shoulder.
British girl... British girl... I could unquestionably get used to that, especially by him.
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Author's Note:
She has a new nickname! What do you guys think of Jason as of yet in this story?
Thank you :) x