He would have made it too, if their goalie hadn’t been like six foot seven, with ridiculous noodle arms that could catch things at the most impossible angles.
He lobbed the ball back toward us. Chip shook his head and changed direction, headed back toward midfield.
The Trojans passed back and forth, back and forth. They had Bruno and Cooper marked as number 7 sprinted toward me, angling for our goal.
“You got this, Darius!” Dad hollered.
Stephen Kellner, Soccer Dad, was a force to be reckoned with.
Number 7 tried to fake me left, then right. I stayed with him, looking for an opening.
But then he kicked the ball right between my feet and darted past me while I spun around to give chase.
That is, I tried to spin around.
Instead, I slipped and fell onto the grass, face-first.
For a second it was like I had fallen onto oil instead of grass. My cleats couldn’t catch any traction. I finally got my feet under me again, but it was too late. Diego had been marking number 12, counting on me to deal with number 7, and couldn’t course-correct in time.
Number 7 struck.
The whistle blew.
Trojans goal.
It was our first loss.
All because I let number 7 get past me.
It felt like it should’ve been raining as we lined up to shake hands with the Trojans.
Maybe even a bit of thunder in the distance or something.
But the sun was out, and I squinted at it to keep myself from crying.
As we went down the line, number 7 gave me a fist bump. “Tricky,” he said.
“Thanks.”
Not tricky enough, though.
I let him get past me.
I wished Sohrab were around.
With Sohrab I was invincible.
As we trudged toward the lockers—some of the guys, like Jaden and Gabe, with their hands behind their heads in Surrender Cobra—Chip rested his hand on my shoulder.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
Chip gave me a little squeeze.
“Don’t—”
But he didn’t finish, because Trent Bolger was whistling and waving at him from the stands, still dressed in his Chapel Hill High School varsity football jersey. He must’ve come straight from practice.
