I didn’t know what to say to that.
It still felt weird for people at school to actually have my back.
“Thanks.”
“Partner up for front squats,” Coach Winfield said. “Light load. Ten reps. Three-second hold.”
I stifled a groan. Squats were the worst, but front squats with a three-second hold at the bottom were tantamount to a crime against humanity.
At least they were good for my butt.
You could tell Coach Winfield was a football coach, because whenever there was a football game, there would always be stretching or jogging or some kind of “active recovery” for Conditioning. But that sort of collusion never extended to soccer games.
I partnered up with Jaden, since we could use the same rack height, and Gabe was next to us, partnered with Trent.
It was hard to tell who was more unhappy with that arrangement.
To be fair, Trent Bolger never seemed happy these days. I’dalways been Trent’s Priority One Target, but now that I was friends with Chip, and part of the soccer team, I had people on my side.
Trent hadn’t been able to find a new Target, though. He just spent his time trying to make me miserable, and never quite succeeding.
There had been this great gravitational shift in the stellar alignment of Chapel Hill High School, but Trent was operating off old star charts.
I almost felt sorry for him.
Almost.
“Don’t look at my ass, Dairy Queen,” Trent muttered when Coach Winfield was out of earshot.
“Then try moving it,” Gabe said. “Some of us would like to get a set in.”
I stopped myself from laughing, but I didn’t stop myself from grinning. Trent just didn’t know how to navigate this new paradigm.
And I wanted to cry a little bit too.
It felt good, having Gabe stand up for me.
It felt good to have a team.
Game days for the Chapel Hill High School varsity men’s soccer team were a lot less intense than for the football team, but I didn’t mind that. The football players had to wear their jerseys all day, and the cheerleaders their uniforms, and there were Spirit Assemblies and altered schedules to accommodate them.
There were no Spirit Assemblies for the soccer team. So theday of our first game, I finished fourth block like usual, then headed to the bike racks to meet Chip.
Flat gray clouds had rolled in while we were in class. I pulled my hood up to protect myself from the cold drizzle tapping a soft, steady rhythm against the back of my neck.
As I unchained my bike, Chip came down the stairs, his keys jangling from the carabiner clip on his messenger bag. He had at least ten keys on there, even though only two of them were actually useful. The rest were random keys he’d found and added to his keychain—like a blackened skeleton key that looked like something from the eighteenth century—“for the aesthetic.”
“Sorry. Had to ask Mr. Gerke about an assignment, but somehow we got on the topic of Germany and the European Union’s economy and I’m still not sure how.”
“Mr. Gerke can be like that. Come on. We better hurry if we want to get the Good Table.”
I tightened my messenger bag against my back, while Chip unchained his bike and got helmeted up.
I led the way to Mindspace, this little coffee shop about a mile away from Chapel Hill High School, in the opposite direction from home. It only sat about ten people, so if you didn’t get there at the right time you might not be able to get seats.
I was categorically opposed to drinking coffee, but I actually liked the smell of the roaster they kept going pretty much all the time at Mindspace. And I liked the way the roaster kept the whole shop warm, especially on rainy days. The sound was a nice constant white noise that made it easier to study.
The best part, though, was that Mindspace carried Rose CityTeas. It was the only place close to school to get a reliable cup of tea, unless I carried my own with me.
