"SO ARCHIE ISN'T GOING to Danny's party," Charlotte moans as we sit and take a break between Games and hockey practice.
Coach is up the top, supervising the rest of the girls getting back on the bus, so he's letting us have a breather before team drills start.
"What?" I ask, taking the phone she's offering to me.
Sure enough there's a message from Archie and then Danny's reply.
Hey mate, I'm so sorry but I can't come to yours now. See has asked if I go to Callum's... and after what happened after today I can't really say no... x
I'll make it up, I promise..! x
No worries bud. Hope things are cool with you and her. Won't be as fun without you though x
"What's wrong?" I ask when I noticed she looks uneasy. "It's not the end of the world he's not coming," I smile. It means I can relax for one thing, and actually enjoy myself.
She nods. "Yeah, I suppose," she shrugs, thankfully understanding I didn't want to talk about it. "He's just a big part of the group, that's all."
"We can have fun without him," I nudge her with my elbow.
Fun was guaranteed at this party, that I knew. Despite being a quieter couple, Danny and Charlotte made us laugh until we cried. And with Matt and Millie there as well, I'm bound to have sore stomach muscles by the end of the night.
"I'm still going, and so are Millie and Matt. So you'll have us." She smiles. "We doing the usual?"
"Sure are. Drinks, pizza, beer pong, more drinks. Usual drill. Are you guys staying?"
I nod, "Yeah I was planning to. Is that okay?"
"Of course!" She smiles. "You and Millie can take Danny's brother's bedroom. He's away. Matt can sleep wherever he passes out." We both giggle at that.
"Cool," I take a sip of my water and I realise I hadn't told her about the drama from this morning.
"Oh so, erm, Archie and Dee had an argument earlier," I look at her to see how she reacts.
"What, really?" I nod. "How did you know?" She asks, sitting up as best she could despite being in half her goalie padding.
"Unfortunately I was there. He had his arm round me, and we wer-"
"Wait, he had his arm round you?" She shrieks and I see Dee and Becca look over at us. A scowl is decorating Dee's face and her eyes are so thunderous I have to turn away.
"Shush!" I put my hand over her mouth. "What the hell!"
She just shrugs as I take my hand away, not caring. "He had his arm round you... continue," she gestures with her hand to continue, clearly focussing on the important details.
I shake my head and narrow my eyes, continuing anyway. "He had his arm round me, and we were just talking. But then we heard her come up behind us."
"Ooh! Busted!"
I nod, "I know. Anyway, he removed said arm, and it was then super awkward, and Archie didn't know what to say."
"Archie didn't?" I shake my head. "Is that why she's giving you the stare of death right now?"
"Charlotte don't look at her! You'll make it worse!"
Given she'd already combusted about his arm around my shoulder, I decide not to tell her that Archie had practically pleaded for me to stay, just with a look. I don't even know if there even was a look to be honest, but I stayed anyway, whether he wanted me there or not.
Keeping my voice low, I continue, "Well, the best bit was that, but when she spotted Matt and Mils coming back toward us, she basically panicked. She said she had an early morning meeting with Coach about hockey. So, thinking there was a meeting, I kept badgering her until finally we both realised she'd lied."
"Was there not?"
I shake my head, "She had me believing there was until I caught Archie laughing silently to himself."
She laughs once.
"I think she thought of the first thing that came into her head," I snort as I take a gulp of water. "I felt a bit bad actually."
There's a pause between us as she mulls it over. "Wait, hang on, how did you know all this?" She turns awkwardly.
"Charlotte..." I shrug. "I was there!" I swat her on the arm.
"You didn't leave?! Oh my god, what is wrong with you?" I know she wants to shriek it but thankfully she manages to keep it relatively quiet.
My cheeks pink, knowing I stayed for Archie, even if he hadn't actually said the words out loud.
"He had my bag," I offer.
She shakes her head, not believing me. "He would have put it in the common room, surely?"
"Yeah that was why I didn't want to leave it with him. He would have put it down, then forgotten where and what it looked like."
"That does sound like him," she giggles. "But I can't believe you stayed. You have a death wish," she half laughs.
All I can do is shrug.
"Oh look, Coach is coming back." She nods with her head to the path so I turn around.
He was making his way back down to us, and behind him we could see the bus turning the corner to head back to school. When he arrives back on the pitch, he rubs his hands together and starts his speech as we all start to gather.
"Right. Tomorrow. Chigwell," he claps his hands. "As I'm sure you're all aware, we've lost to them for the last two years, and I want that to change tomorrow." He starts looking around the circle and his eyes rest on me. "Tessa," he points. "What do you think we could do better?" He asks, smiling.
I hate being put on the spot and I feel my cheeks pink as all eyes turn to me. "Erm, keep moving? If we stand still, we'll lose the ball?"
"Yes!" He claps his hand again. "Good. So, that's exactly what we're working on today: footwork. So can we get into groups of five, and practice moving those feet. One group at a time will also be practicing goal-scoring and finding gaps with Charlotte as well." He tacks that on the end when Charlotte was about to protest about not having anything to do.
As groups are chosen, my heart sinks when I see just how awful my luck was today.
***
MY GROUP ENDS UP being being a four with myself, Chloe, Becca and... Dee. Trust my bloody luck. But having said that, despite Dee's reticence to work with me, the drill wasn't actually too bad.
It was a good chance to work with Chloe. She's one of the newer girls, who joined the team last year, and I could see myself being friends with her. She's a great player too. She's our Sweeper, and she's done pretty well at sweeping up balls and passing them forward to us quite successfully, as well as tackling opposition. Our best Sweeper left last year so Coach will be pleased.
"Move your feet!" A call comes from our left, and I notice Coach is watching our group, particularly Dee, who is now just passing the ball lazily, not bothering to actually move her feet at all.
"I am!" She yells back rudely. "Fuck's sake," she says under her breath, loud enough for us to hear but not Coach.
I grind my teeth, annoyed. So to demonstrate just how much she wasn't moving, I manoeuvre around her and nick the ball from her without much of a fight.
I snort as I come to a stop five metres away, smacking the ball back to Chloe, who chuckles as she twiddles it from side to side with her stick. Coach applauds us as he walks towards the next group, who were all shooting at Charlotte, without much luck in scoring.
Before I can smile smugly at Charlotte, I feel my stick wrenched from my grip. I turn around just in time to see Dee throw it with an immense amount of force at the railings of the pitch just behind us. The echo from the railings is loud it makes all groups stop and look at us.
"What the...?" I say to myself incredulously. "Dee! What the hell was that for?" I shout before I can stop myself.
She walks towards me and gets very close to my face. Her nose must be an inch from mine.
"That was for this morning," she spits before shoving me backwards, almost making me lose my footing.
I recover as quickly as I can, "This morning? Dee, for God's sake, you didn't need to do that," I say, gesturing to my stick lying on the floor.
She scoffs and walks away, leaving my stick on the floor. I pick it up, and run my hand up and down it, checking it for any breaks. I'm relieved to say it doesn't. But I speak too soon. As I walk over to Charlotte, I brush my hand over the end of my stick.
There is a sizeable gash in the bottom of it, and I could feel several splintered pieces coming away in different directions. Hockey sticks are made of modified wood so the vibrations from the railings must have been what caused it to splinter.
"She broke it!" I call as I walk over to Charlotte, who is shrugging at me, asking what the hell just happened.
I'd clearly got under her skin this morning, and she was now reacting in the only way she could, other than hitting me. And I wouldn't put that past her either.
The only silver lining is that Coach saw the whole thing, and it's evident in the fact he's storming thunderously towards her. She has her arms crossed and I can feel the negative attitude radiating off her from here.
"She broke it?" Charlotte asks, shaking her head same as me, looking in Dee's direction.
"Yeah," I hand it over and she runs her fingers along the break.
She smooths her hand over the end. "Yup, that's definitely broken. Bloody hell how hard did she throw it. She owes you a new one."
"God's sake. These things aren't cheap."
I start walking over to Dee, who has been enduring a shouting rant from Coach for a couple of minutes now.
"She's your teammate Dee, so you can't blow up like that," he points at me as I come to a stop next to him.
"Nice one, moron, you broke my stick by doing that!" I shout, showing her and I put it in Coach's outstretched hand. He shakes his head and put his tongue into his cheek, mulling over what he's going to do. "Why the hell did you do it?"
"She fouled me," she tries, pointing at me whilst looking at Coach.
I scoff, "Dee! We were doing an exercise! I just took the ball from you because you weren't moving your feet! That doesn't constitute you breaking my stick!"
He's looking between the both of us. "Dee, you have been distracted today. Is everything alright?"
I knew she would have problems with me, but maybe there was was something more underlying that none of us knew about, and then Archie and me this morning was just the cherry on top of a bad day.
She looks at me, and she's glaring.
Her problem is definitely with me, but thankfully she decides to keep the situation to herself. I don't think Coach would have been very impressed about her disrupting practice over something as petty as Archie having his arm around me.
"Yes," she says sullenly. "Everything's fine." She flips her hair over her shoulder and crosses her arms.
Coach sighs, "Well, seeing as you're so remorseful, you're benched for the rest of practice and you can go and run laps. And hand Tessa your stick." He points at the fluorescent one in her hand as she starts to walk away. It was the first time I was seeing it, so it must be new.
"What?!" She protests, cursing again, as she throws her head back, cursing again at the ground as she walks away. She throws her stick down violently on the floor as she leaves; Coach looks at me for an explanation, but all I can do is shrug.
"And for Chigwell tomorrow for that language," he shouts after her.
He bends down to pick up the stick for me, twiddling it in his hands before handing it over.
"You've done well today, Tessa," he grins. "Have you been practicing?"
I shrug, and I can feel my cheeks going a little pink. "A little, with Charlotte's mum."
"Well, I can tell... great work," he pats me on the shoulder. My cheeks heat even more as my inability to take a compliment resurfaces. "Would you mind getting the others to come over to me, please?"
"Yeah, sure." Looking at my watch I realise we were coming to the end of practice anyway.
Turning the other way, I head towards the girls standing about twenty feet away.
"Hey guys, Coach wants us back over there," I smile, gesturing behind my shoulder.
Charlotte and Chloe start to move immediately, Charlotte gradually expelling her pads, but I have to say it again before the others start to move.
I fear it's something about respect - I obviously don't have theirs, which I suspect is something to do with Dee - but I didn't mind. I was here to play hockey because I enjoyed it and wanted to do well, not to make friends whom I had no interest in keeping past school.
Once we'd all gathered, and Coach had set Dee off on her laps, he held up the sheet with the final names for the team on it.
"Chigwell tomorrow. I need you all to be here by four PM sharp okay? Match starts at six, but I want to run some drills beforehand. Is everyone clear?"
"Yes Coach!" We all say in unison.
"Good. Now teams. There aren't any changes from last week except one. Dee is benched due to lack of team mentality. So Tessa," he points at me across the circle, "you're our captain tomorrow. Is that okay?"
"Erm... No, no," I object. "Surely it should be Becca? She's vice?" I see Becca nod in agreement, but Coach shakes his head.
"Nope, Tessa is captain. I can see the hard work, you've put in today, and I'm sure everyone else has. I want to give you a chance, okay?"
I smile unsurely but nod, still not entirely sure about it. The number of faces looking at me with contempt, compared to the two without, was incredibly unnerving.
"Now that's settled," he checks his watch, "we have about twenty minutes left. Tessa can you lead the rest, and show the team those flicks you were doing last week please?"
"Erm, yeah sure," I say, leaning over to grab the bucket of balls.
The team does follow me this time, so that's a start, and after demonstrating a couple of times, quite a few of them grab a couple of balls and try themselves, smiling when they manage it.
By the end of practice I think I'd won a couple more people over, but tomorrow was another day. While I was helping Charlotte with her pads, trying to shove them all in her bag, I get a couple of pats on the back from people congratulating me on temporary captaincy, but all I did was smile. I didn't comment because I couldn't quite believe it had happened to be honest. I suppose I would see tomorrow if the results were positive or not. If we win, maybe he'd make it permanent?
When Charlotte and I get back up to the changing rooms, most of the girls have left. As I gather up my stuff, I can feel my phone buzzing in the bottom of my bag.
Rifling through it, I pull it out and Archie's picture - one where he's pulling the dorkiest face ever - is flashing up on my phone.
I smile as I answer. "Hello?" I throw my bags over my shoulders, exiting the changing rooms to give myself as much privacy as possible.
"Hey! How was practice?" He asks, his mouth full of food.
"It was good thanks." I didn't want to go into too much detail now; I'd tell him later about getting captain.
"I'm guessing you answering the phone answers my question. You finished?"
I nod while I'm answering. "Yeah just finished. Is someone on their way to get me?"
"Yep, your Dad is leaving in a minute I think. He asked one of us to call you and the other two are currently stuck in a giant death match with Darth Maul." His sentence is followed by a chorus of groans and expletives, which I'm guessing came from Matt. "And said death match has apparently now been lost."
I snort as I hear him snigger.
"That kid is obsessed!" I laugh.
Charlotte taps me on the shoulder.
"One sec," I say to Archie and take the phone away from my ear.
I say goodbye to her, hugging her hard before she heads up the steps to her mum's car. "See you tomorrow!" I yell after her. "We have our free!" I smile with a giggle.
"So excited!" I hear her faintly as she gets in her car.
"Sorry, what were we saying?" I put the phone back to my ear.
"Erm, that you've finished? Thank God, because I've been bored stiff, and Millie's been asking when you're home for the last half hour," he beams, and I can hear he's smiling. His voice takes on a lighter tone when he's smiling, and the thought warms me to my core, that him smiling is potentially down to me coming home.
He sounds more distant when he speaks again, and I realise he's talking to Dad.
"Yeah she's finished. Old Lought's," he explains. "Okay we're coming to get you," he says back into earpiece.
"Ar-" I stop and catch my sentence as I spot Dee, Becca and Lauren are all looking at me. My cheeks pink as I hadn't realised they were, and it makes me wonder how long they'd been stood there, listening to our conversation.
Turning around to get slightly more privacy, I lower my voice slightly in the hopes they can't hear me.
"Erm, I don't think it's a good idea if you come. There's been... stuff... today," I try to explain without saying too much out loud. "Dee stuff." I say the last sentence very quietly.
"Stuff? What stuff? What has she done?" He sounds concerned, and a little pissed off, although I hoped not at me.
"Nothing for you to worry about, but we'll talk when I get home and I've done some homework okay?" He doesn't say anything so I continue. "If you come she'd freak at both you and me. Again." I keep my voice quiet, hoping he'll get the hint.
He sighs down the phone, and when he speaks I can hear the smile has gone.
"Okay," he breathes, his voice thick with disappointment. "I guess I'll see you at home then?"
"Mm-hmm," I say, swallowing nervously. "See you in a bit."
"Okay," he mumbles. "Bye," and the line clicks dead.
When I put my phone in my pocket, I turn around and see Lauren and Becca walk past me, to the cars waiting for them. Dee walks up behind me and then stands on my left, fury radiating off her as she waves at them.
"Are you okay?" I ask with genuine concern.
She scoffs. "Like you care."
"Well, you're clearly not, but you need to actually talk to me, or better yet to Archie, rather than taking it out on me and breaking my stuff. It's childish and petty, and it doesn't look good on you."
I turn to face forward and cross my arms.
"I did talk to Archie today... Not that it helped," she counters, thankfully ignoring the fact I'd called her childish and petty.
"And I'm not taking it out on you."
I scoff, "Feels like it to me."
She looks at me, and after a couple of seconds her expression softens.
She sighs, "Okay fine. I really am sorry. Today has been a bit..." she pauses to find the right word, "stressful, to say the least. When I spoke to Archie, he assured me," she widens her eyes, "that nothing is going on. But then I saw you smiling at each other at lunch and I guess I just flipped."
I roll my eyes. "Dee that meant nothing. You know he'd never hurt you. Neither would I, even if we don't see eye to eye most of the time," I gesture between the two of us.
She tuts, but she shrugs, meaning she knew I was right. "I am sorry about your stick though, I really am. I don't even know why I did that?" She shakes her head. "And now Coach has benched me because of it." She did sound sorry, but I think it was probably more that she's not playing tomorrow. "I can't believe I broke it. I certainly didn't mean to do that."
"You were angry," I say, trying to help her. "I get it, and I'm glad you went for the stick rather than my face," I joke. "But, like I said, if it's between you and Archie you need to talk to him about it. There's nothing going on here between us, I promise." As much as I wished he saw something in me, he didn't.
She laughs at my half-joke. "I know. His arm around you this morning just scared me, that's all. He hasn't been doing that for me lately, so I guess I panicked. And then my first reaction was to lash out at you, and I know now that that wasn't fair." I had no idea why she was admitting this to me. Of course, I reckoned she would deny anything she's said to me. It humanises her more, but also makes me feel even worse about how I feel.
I hadn't realised they were having issues. Whenever I'd seen them they'd been lovey-dovey in corners or talking animatedly, so this was definitely news to me.
"That's just Archie!" I note, referring back to his arm.
I'm squirming inside; I can't believe I'm having this conversation right now, and am having it with Dee of all people. I'd give anything to be in her position, and now she seemingly wanted to be in mine. She has the perfect boy - a boy I'd loved for basically my whole life - and she clearly doesn't understand how special of a boy he truly is.
"He's helpful, he's chivalrous and he listens. And he's there for you one-hundred percent, I can tell," I continue, putting my hand reassuringly on her arm.
She smiles back shyly. "He is pretty great. I need to stop worrying."
I nod, swallowing a lump in my throat, knowing I'd only ever be able to admit that in a friendly capacity.
"Listen, I better go, my dad's here. Let me know about your stick, and I'll give you the money. I am so sorry," she gives me a genuine smile before walking towards the Mercedes that had just flashed its lights.
Sometimes Dee is alright, I suppose.
"Bye," I wave, and I'm now the last one left. Coach usually stays until the last person had gone, but it was his anniversary today, so we all told him to go home.
Dad would be here soon anyway.
And I hoped he'd be here alone.