Hey there, girlfriend, I said as I finished making my connections to Jen's brain. So, how did the game go? Did you get to play?

((Oh, come on, Yems, are you kidding me?)) Jen asked back as she stood up from the infestation pier. ((I just got here. I'm still a freaking freshman. They're not going to start me in the very first game of the season right off the bat!))

Okay, no need to be defensive, I said as we walked out of the Yeerk Pool and into the light of the afternoon. I was just asking you how your day went.

((When you ask nicely, you're gonna get a nice answer,)) Jen replied.

That doesn't even make any sense. I asked you nicely the first time.

((Oh, all right. I was on the bench. I got to warm up a few times. But I didn't even play. I just sat around and walked around and did some jumping jacks. We drew 2-2 with Wake Forest. Wanna see?))

No, I think I'm good. The memories should still be easily accessible as long as they're still in the short-term memory area.

((Oh, please, have a look. It's not like Sonny and I are gonna be doing much,)) Jen said as she waved her hand at Sonny Torres. ((Oh, and speaking of Sonny, you're gonna wanna see what happened in injury time. You will not believe what happened in injury time.))

All right, if you insist… I said even as Jen was already focusing on Sonny and asking her where they were going to eat a post-game snack. The memory that she was talking about was already on the forefront of Jen's mind, and it was just a matter of playing it back. As Jen had mentioned, the score was 2-2 between Notre Dame and Wake Forest, and it was the fourth of five minutes of injury time in the second half. Jen was indeed on the bench for the game, but Sonny had been subbed on as part of Coach Karl's strategy to grab the win. Sonny's position was usually listed as an attacking midfielder but she (Sonny, I mean) liked to describe herself as a second striker who makes her way into the box hoping to pounce on the other team's mistakes to score. In this situation, Notre Dame had surged forward and flooded Wake Forest's box, hoping for anyone to score off of a cross or a corner or a mistake.

"Come on, ND," Jen said as she watched the game from the edge of her seat on the bench, along with some of her teammates. "Come on!" Even Coach Karl was gesturing for his team to keep pushing for that third and winning goal that would get the Fighting Irish's season off to a good, winning start. Jen's focus seemed to shift between the ball and the game itself, and even though she was not playing Jen couldn't help but look at the situation from a player's perspective, and specifically a striker's perspective for her, as she was looking for the pockets of space in the box and mentally calling for a cross once she saw a real player occupy the same space she would have occupied had she been playing herself.

And then it so happened that it was Sonny Torres who was in that pocket of space, and the cross finally came in from the right. The ball flew straight in the middle of the box and hit Sonny on the forehead before dropping to the ground right at her feet. Everything seemed to slow down even though Jen was just watching and not playing, and Sonny actually seemed to juggle the ball with her feet before she finally turned to face the goal. "Come on, Sonny, shoot!" Jen shouted, a sentiment echoed by the rest of her teammates and even the coaching staff. Sonny was only too happy to oblige, and she had a golden chance to become a Notre Dame soccer legend on her very first game (not that Notre Dame and Wake Forest were rivals in the way that Arsenal, Jen's favorite soccer team, and Tottenham Hotspur were). (Jen: Three words: North London derby. Look it up.) But, faced with said golden opportunity, Sonny messed it up, and she messed it up real bad. She had the goal gaping in front of her, as Jen described it in her mind. The Wake Forest goalkeeper was at the left side of the goal, giving Sonny a wide open space to the right into which to send the ball and score the winning goal. But Sonny didn't fire the ball into that space. Instead, she kicked the ball so hard that it actually flew above the goal and into the safety netting behind that was there to keep the ball within the stadium (which was more of a field than anything, and certainly nothing on the level of Notre Dame's football stadium).

"Oh, my God, Sonny!" Jen screamed, and she was almost at the point of tearing her hair out in frustration. "What the fuck was that! That was a fucking sitter and you missed it! Oh, my God!" Jen then had to sit back down again to catch her breath. "I would have scored that," she said to herself. "I would have scored that chance!"

"What are you laughing at?" Sonny asked Jen back in the present day as they walked down the road back to their dorm.

"Oh, you know exactly what I'm laughing at," Jen replied even as she tried, and failed, to suppress her sniggers.

"Hey, not everybody can be a great tap-in merchant like you, you know," Sonny retorted.

"Hey, I resent that," Jen said. "I am not just a tap-in merchant. I am also a penalty merchant. They don't call me Pen Carson for nothing, remember?" It was a pun, with Jen rhyming with Pen, which in this context means a penalty kick in soccer. She had gotten that nickname for her reputation of scoring her goals from penalty kicks back in high school.

"And you're so damn proud of it, aren't you?" Sonny asked, but she asked it with a knowing smile and a resigned shake of her head.

"You know how it is with us strikers and forwards. Any chance to get a goal, we take it. Unlike you."

"Oh, give it a rest already!" Sonny moaned.

I remember the first time that Jen played a game of soccer with me in her head. It was the first time that I had been inside the head of an athletically inclined human, which provided a contrast to my first human host, Mallory Brunner, who although she was a fan of the local sports teams like the 76ers, Eagles, and Flyers, never really kept track of the teams' results and progress through the standings. Not Jen, though. She tries to get her hands on the results of her favorite teams as soon as she can, usually by looking them up on the Internet or the news, if the sports section happens to come up.

But back to my first soccer game inside Jen's head. It was a cool autumn afternoon, the sky blue and the wind blowing right down the field. It was the first game of the season for Jen's high school soccer team, and there had been talk that Jen would not start or even play in this first game because of concerns about the long-term effects of her banging her head in the river just a few months ago, but those rumors proved to be nothing but when Jen was told to report for training on the Saturday before the game.

The first thing that I noticed before the game even started was that everything looked so different. Everything seemed much closer to me than I could remember. And then I realized, of course everything would be closer. I was standing right in the middle of the action now. I was no longer just a spectator watching from the sidelines; I was now a player myself. Of course I, meaning me, the Yeerk Yemra, was not the one playing; that would be Jen Carson. But you know what I'm talking about. The difference in perspectives between when I watched the game from the sidelines and when I was actually right in the middle of the game was an eye-opener, to say the least. And it also didn't help that Jen's body was flooded with at least twice the adrenaline that Mallory had, and the game hadn't even started yet.

I watched silently as Jen went through her pre-game rituals, things she did to pump her up for the next ninety minutes. It was very much a ritual; there were a lot of chants involved, mostly about Jen praising her own skills while at the same time telling herself that their opponents were an enemy that needed to be defeated. Eventually, Jen finished her ritual, and she stepped up to a spot just outside of the center of the field. The ball itself was in the center, and Carina Russolini, another one of Jen's friends, was standing over it. "You sure you still wanna play, Jen?" she asked. "It's just been two months since, um, you know…"

"I'll be all right," Jen replied. "It's not like I forgot how to play soccer or anything. I'm still the same Jen Carson who went to your birthday party not knowing I was gonna slip in the river." ((Except for the alien slug that's now in my head,)) she added to herself.

"Yeah, well, one thing's for sure: my birthdays are never gonna be the same again," Carina muttered.

While Jen and Carina had been talking, I had tried to distract myself from the thundering of Jen's hearbeat and the masses of microvolts surging around in her brain by looking around her field of vision, trying to identify the faces with those in Jen's memories. Carina was obviously front and center and, since Jen was talking to her, was right on the surface of Jen's memory bank. Further away and to the right was Julia Baker, Jen's BFF (best friend forever), while to the left were two players in dark red whom Jen didn't know by name, but she knew them by their faces, their numbers, and their team (Wyomissing High). And out of the corner of Jen's eye, I spotted a girl wearing an orange shirt and shorts, and black gloves and socks who appeared to be giving commands to the players in dark red. I wondered if this was going to have any significance to the game so I decided to file away the moment in my mind.

The referee blew his whistle, and Carina passed the ball to Jen. While all this was happening, I told Jen about the girl in orange giving orders to the girls in dark red. Is that important? I asked her.

((Oh!)) Jen exclaimed. ((Hang on a minute there, Yemra. Let me just do something here.)) Jen then cocked her right foot back, and then she swung it as hard as she could at the ball, which flew high and long towards the other side of the pitch. The wind was blowing right into Jen's face, which meant that it was also blowing right into the ball, and it showed in the ball's sudden and sharp descent as opposed to its long and gradual takeoff. The girl in orange had tried to run towards the ball as it began to fall in her general direction, but she then made the mistake of jumping too soon and just a little too far away, and she could only reach out for the ball with her gloved hand before it slipped away from her, bounced once, and rolled into the goal.

"Oh, my God, it worked!" Jen yelled out even as her teammates were already surrounding her in celebration. "It really actually fucking worked!" To this day, it remains the fastest goal scored in the history of the high school soccer team, as well as the longest (or furthest) goal scored by an outfield player for the team. And it also proved to be the decisive and winning goal in that first game as nobody else, not even Jen, was able to score for the next 89 minutes. So you could say that I technically won my first ever soccer game, even though all I did at that time was tell Jen about the goalkeeper being so far off of her line.

That first ever soccer game also gave me a first taste of what would eventually become what I will admit to being an addiction. I didn't know that it was possible to feel almost every single emotion in the human spectrum in just ninety minutes; sometimes even less than that. The exhilaration of scoring a goal; that was quite obvious, especially when that goal turns out to be the game-winning one. The tension of waiting for that cross, corner, or free kick to fly towards you so that you could turn it into the net; that was another thing that I liked about soccer. The joy of winning a game, especially when winning that game also meant winning a trophy; that was like no other feeling in the world. Even the disappointment that came with losing or even just drawing a game, especially a game that we could have won if only a few things had fallen in our favor was a feeling that, while I didn't really enjoy them as much as the others, I knew that it still played an important part in the full enjoyment of the game.

Yes, I was not afraid to admit it: I had become addicted to The Beautiful Game.

So when the time came for me to get out of Jen's head whenever she had to train and/or play for Notre Dame, I couldn't say that I wasn't disappointed. Sure, I knew why I had to get out of her head until after the game, but that didn't make it any easier for me (and for Jen, but we'll get to that later). Still, I had her memories to peruse, but it was still a completely different thing to be right in the thick of things, as it were.

I tuned out Jen and Sonny's conversation as I replayed Jen's memories of Notre Dame versus Wake Forest. In my own judgment, it was a pretty exciting enough game, with enough action and drama to keep even someone with only a passing interest in the game hooked all throughout the ninety. But for someone like me who had seen, played in more soccer games than I could count, the game between Notre Dame and Wake Forest was, well, meh, for lack of a better term. Yes, it was still an exciting and frantic game, but I just knew that it had to have been so much better if I was there. Not even to assist Jen, just to watch the game through her eyes. I bet the running commentary in her head would have been wonderful to hear.

((Yeah, no. Trust me, it wasn't,)) Jen replied even as she continued talking to Sonny. ((I wasn't even saying much. Probably because there wasn't anyone up in there to talk with.))

Having satisfied myself with watching Jen's memories of the match, I trawled through some of her more recent memories, specifically the ones she made while waiting for me to finish "feeding". Oh, hello, what have we here? I said as I watched Jen talk to a brown-skinned human male with big broad shoulders that didn't seem to fit with his small and slender frame. Who are we talking to here, Jen? I asked in a teasing tone.

((Nunya.))

Last name?

((None ya business, Yems!)) Jen retorted. ((All right, no, but seriously, he's just some guy I met at the Pool. He actually studies at Notre Dame too. He even plays for the football team. Freshman quarterback. So, like me, he hasn't had a lot of chances to play. He's taking it in stride. Heck, Notre Dame wouldn't want to get him if he wasn't good, right?))

You have a point, Jen, I conceded. So you met…

((Danny. Danny Villavicencio.))

So you met Danny Villavicencio at the Pool, I continued. Does he have something in common with you or is he just about to get it?

((Oh, he already has. Why do you think he was waiting in the Pool with me? But seriously though, when you think about it, surely he can't be allowed to train or play with his Yeerk in his head as well, can he? I don't know about either college football or the NFL, but surely they just take the lead with everyone else and do what everyone else does?))

How should I know? I'm not in the CFB or the NFL! I don't know the answer to those questions!

((And when you think about it, does having a Yeerk have any effect on getting concussions?)) Jen continued. ((A Yeerk's wrapped around a brain, right? Surely that has to have some effect on how the brain moves around during a collision. A Yeerk acts like some sort of padding, right?))

Oh, is that all that I am to you now? Padding around your precious, precious brain? I thought you were better than that, Jennifer Carson! I said. And to answer your first question, not every Yeerk wraps themselves around their hosts' brains. Some of the ones I know like to just sit around in that valley between the hemispheres and control everything from there. So just because you have a Yeerk in your head doesn't mean that you can't get a concussion ever again!

((But are you wrapped around my head, Yems?)) Jen asked me.

Yes, but that's not my point at all!

((Oh, yeah? Then what is your point?))

I can't even remember at all, I admitted. What were we talking about again?

((Probably for the best that we both forgot about it. Makes concentrating on our food just that much easier. We're getting wings tonight. Sonny's buying.))

Ooh, I wonder if there's either garlic or spicy wings there, I said. I'm craving for some garlic and spicy wings. Maybe we might even get some spicy garlic wings!

And so things would continue for the next few weeks. Every hour before practice and training, Jen would drop me off at the Pool near Notre Dame, and then she would come back for me two or three hours later. As for the game days themselves, Jen dropped me off at the South Bend Pool before the game against Pittsburgh, and then when Jen was named as part of the team that would go to Florida State, Jen made sure to memorize the location to the nearest Pool so that she could deposit me there before the game. I swam around for three hours, met some Yeerks who had been relocated here following local demand in Tallahassee for a Pool of their own, and then I saw with my sonar Jen's face plunge into the Pool.

Hey, Jen, I said once I was fully connected to her once again. So how did it go?

((I finally got to play, Yems,)) Jen replied. ((I even scored a goal.))

Hey! That's good news! Right?

((Yeah, good news,)) Jen muttered, almost as if she wasn't as enthused as her words would suggest.

Jen! Is something wrong? I asked. I had never before heard Jen sound this sad right after a game of soccer. Well, maybe after those games where she lost to a rival team or lost in a cup final or semifinal. This was a very different kind of sadness. It sounded as if Jen was lost, as if she had lost something in her as well.

((No, no, nothing's wrong,)) Jen pressed. ((I'm all right. I'm A-OK.))

You know, Jen, whenever you say you're A-OK, you're anything but, I said. Come on. Out with it!

((Just take a look at my memories, Yems. You'll know what I'm talking about,)) Jen replied with a heavy mental sigh that carried itself over to the physical world with Jen sighing loudly.

So I did. Notre Dame won 3-1 against Florida State, and as Jen said, she had scored a goal, her first goal as a Fighting Irish, coming off the bench in the 80th minute and then heading home the third goal of the game for Notre Dame just five minutes later to secure all three points. At that point, I remembered just how excited Jen had been when she had scored her first ever soccer goal, as well as her first goal for her high school, and her excitement, happiness, and glee in those moments were a far cry from the emotions that she had felt when she scored her first goal for Notre Dame. Sure, she was happy, and she celebrated the goal, but it was nothing like the other first goals that she had scored.

Jen! What happened to you? I asked. What's going on here? This isn't like you! This isn't the Jen Carson that I know!

((I know, right!?)) Jen replied. ((I can't even explain it! It's like I'm there, but at the same time I'm not. You know what I mean?))

Eh, not really, I admitted. But I have to say that this is indeed very worrying. When did this start?

((I don't know, Yems. I didn't even realize it was happening until just now, just before I came to pick you up. And then after that, it's now the only thing I can think of. I just can't stop thinking about it!))

This is serious, Jen. You need to talk to someone about this, I told her.

((Maybe, maybe,)) she nodded. ((But I think I'll be all right for right now. Maybe this is just a one-off thing. Maybe this is all gonna blow over soon, and I'll be back to my normal soccer-loving self.))

I can only hope that you're right, Jen, I said. But as it turned out, Jen was wrong. This was not a one-off thing; this didn't blow over soon, and she didn't get all right soon after.