Oh joy. School. My history teacher scares the crap out of me.
I would have had this up much sooner, but frankly, I lost interest in writing this at halftime. XP Playing soccer is just so much more entertaining than writing about it!
DEDICATED TO: my first flamer, avian-american-supporter! And also, to my lovely defender, AssassinationOfDylan! I appreciate that so much. =D
Gazzy: …I'm so confused…
Which reminds me! Someone asked if Ells was a mistake or done on purpose? I did mean to write Ells instead of Ella at certain points, yes. =D
FPOV
I was completely focused on the ball at the foot of one of the Daleview forwards, utterly intent on getting possession. Nothing would distract me.
Well, except for that Mustangs forward. He wouldn't shut up, and his eyes were locked on Max, who was standing a few feet behind me, as he spoke.
I didn't like that.
"This will be a breeze, guys," the forward said loudly to his team. "Look at these guys. A cripple and an emo," he gestured to Gazzy and I, "leading the pack, with tons of girls on the team too. And their treasured captains are jokes. A girl with attitude problems and a crushed face, with a boy's name? Then the perky cripple? Right."
Several of the Mustangs snickered at the boy's words, but the dark-haired girl playing left mid gave him a distasteful look. It appeared that this forward wasn't loved by everyone.
"Oy! Jose, is it?" Max demanded from behind me, her voice ringing from across the field. "If you're gonna talk the talk, you better be ready to walk the walk. 'Cause I'm going to make you."
Jose didn't look happy, but the left mid girl looked appreciatively over at Max. I rolled my eyes. Max had a gift for making enemies and friends in two sentences, as demonstrated.
The referees seemed oddly deaf to Jose and Max's loud conversation, and started the game normally after a few moments. The other Mustang forward tapped the ball forward to Jose, and at the same time Gazzy sprinted forward and nabbed the ball away from Jose before he had even touched it. It was as if Gazzy had never had a knee injury in his life. He ran as smoothly and quickly as ever before.
If I hadn't been the one hauling Gazzy around school like a sack of potatoes, I would never have believed that yesterday he couldn't walk without assistance.
"Go Gazzy!" Max boomed from behind me, her voice carrying loudly across the field. "Everyone UP!"
While Max spoke, Gazzy had been sprinting forward, dribbling the ball quickly up the center of the field. I slipped over to the sidelines, running as quickly and quietly as I could.
The majority of the Mustangs' midfielders and defenders were focused on Gazzy's attack with the ball, so no one noticed me running up the right side. Juliann was shadowing my run about twenty feet behind me, and Liz was following Gazzy up the center. Max had slipped over to Gazzy's right, in between him and me, while Danny was covering the right line.
The offense was in perfect formation as a whole, and from Nudge's shouted orders behind ms, I could tell the defense was coming together nicely also.
At this point, the Mustangs coach had started yelling his lungs out. Gazzy's ability to juke every single one of his players seemed to irk the poor guy. "MARK AND JAKE, ATTACK TOGETHER! THE BOY IS DANCING AROUND YOU FOOLS! MARINA, IF YOU CAN'T STOP HIM THEN YOU'RE OFF THE TEAM!" the coach bellowed.
Anne simply smiled.
The girl playing left mid scowled at the sound of her coach's voice, and suddenly accelerated towards Gazzy. Gazzy kept going towards the goal, plowing through several players and skillfully juking the rest. However, for whatever reason, Gazzy didn't see the left mid, and she managed to kick the ball away from Gazzy and to another midfielder.
"LOOK, YOU LAZY EXCUSES FOR SOCCER PLAYERS! IF MARINA CAN TAKE IT FROM HIM, ALL OF YOU COULD!" the coach roared.
The girl, who I figured was Marina, scowled again, tossing her short ponytail in her coach's direction.
I didn't halt my run up the side, even though Gazzy had lost the ball, because I saw something that I doubted any of the other players saw. Juliann looked a bit confused when I glanced back at her, but she kept following me anyway.
Danny had ran towards the boy that Marina had passed to as soon as Gazzy lost the ball. Now the two boys were running side by side, Danny trying to take the ball from the Mustang player.
The thing that I was fairly sure no one else saw was Max. She sprinted in and cut across both boys' paths, nimbly stealing the ball right from under their noses. The Mustang player swore, but Danny grinned and changed direction, running back up the sideline again.
Max didn't keep the ball like Gazzy had, but immediately passed it off to Liz. In turn, Liz passed to Juliann, who crossed the ball back through the air to Danny on the other side of the field. Danny neatly trapped the ball under his right foot and started dribbling up the line.
The Mustangs seemed flabbergasted by our passing, frankly. Their coach kept roaring orders at them, but none of the players could follow them. We were just too fast for them.
Danny dribbled swiftly up the line, his long legs quickly outstripping the short defender trying to stop him. I closed in on the back of the goal box, Juliann peeling off to wait by the center. Max and Liz were running up towards the middle of the box, and Gazzy covered the front post. The Mustang goalie screamed frantically at his defense, trying to get them into some sort of order.
He knew as well as I did there was no way we wouldn't score on this play.
Danny cut around the defender attempting to block his path, then slammed his foot into the ball, crossing it gracefully across the goal box. It sailed high over the heads of Max, Gazzy, Liz, and Juliann, heading straight for me. My eyes were locked on the ball as it began to descend, and I instantly analyze when it would drop to my level.
Less than a second later, I shoved away from the defender guarding me and sprinted towards the ball, closing my eyes at the last possible moment before impact. There was a dull pain on my forehead for a moment, and sudden loud cheering exploding behind me.
I opened my eyes to find the ball in the back of the net.
"BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL!" Anne kept screaming, waving her clipboard triumphantly from the sideline. "WELL DONE, FANG!"
Max grinned and high fived me as we trotted back down to our end of the field. "Nice one," she said, beaming at me.
"Thanks," I replied, smiling quickly back at her.
"Awesome, man," Gazzy murmured to me, fiddling neurotically with the hem of his jersey. "Let's do that a few more times."
Unfortunately, this was not to be. After our early goal, literally about four minutes into the game, we were hard-pressed to keep the ball. The Mustangs seemed to have finally woken up, and that forward Jose especially was trying his best tbreak through our defense.
Our defense, however, is pretty bad ass.
If you met Ella in the hallways at school, you might think she was a bit of a nerd, because of her knack with geometry and science. Possibly, you'd think she was also a bit of an airhead, because of her love of shoes, and fashion, and gossip. At the very least you would notice she was very bubbly and friendly to everyone she met, unless she had a valid reason not to be.
On the soccer field, she was another whole person. Ella was freaking scary playing stopper. She had this permenant scowl etched on her face, and her fists were clenched at her sides. Ella literally looked like she was about to commit a homicide.
All in all, Ella was showing quite a family resemblance with Max at the moment.
For the most part, Nudge looked as sweet and happy as ever at her position back at sweeper. However, when Jose the Jerk had managed to power his way through the rest of our defense, her cute little smile disappeared, replaced by a scowl worthy of Maximum Ride. She had raced towards Jose, and before he had a chance to react, Nudge had crashed into him, forcibly wrenching the ball away from him. Nudge then proceeded to dribble back up to the half line and booted the ball up to Max.
Jose was positively steaming as he jogged back into position. As he passed Nudge, he muttered something that didn't sound very complimentary. Nudge flashed him a bright smile in return, flipping her ponytail jauntily.
Max glanced towards Gazzy, who nodded almost imperceptibly and sprinted up to run beside her. Then without another look at him, Max peeled off to the left, quickly challenging a defender and juking around them. I smiled as I watched her continue up the line. The move she had used was one of my own, the one I called the Whiplash. Max insisted on referring to the move as something silly and overly long, which slightly aggravated me.
As long as she kept juking those defenders like that, she could call the move Voldemort's Revenge for all I cared.
Just as three defenders were descending on her, Max snapped off a powerful pass to her right, where Gazzy was lurking at the ready. He trapped the ball and headed further up the field, and when a Mustang midfielder moved to block him, he passed back to Max. They were completely in sync as they traveled up to the Mustangs goal again.
I slipped away from the girl guarding me and ran up along the right again. Everyone was preoccupied with Gazzy and Max's beautiful passing, and nobody noticed me curving up behind their defense. I jogged slowly, being careful not to make too much sound, and making sure I wasn't offsides.
Meanwhile, Gazzy and Max were still passing in dizzyingly precise patterns around the Mustangs, conquering the whole defense by themselves. Juliann, Danny, and Liz hovered behind them for back up, but they knew better than to interrupt Gazzy and Max's passing rhythm.
Finally, the Mustangs swarmed three players on Gazzy and four on Max, who had the ball. Without a second of hesitation, Max passed the ball off to Juliann, who stood waiting about ten yards behind her. Juliann instantly launched the ball over everyone's heads, and I sprang into action.
After first checking one last time to be sure I wasn't offsides, I locked my eyes on the ball and ran forward as quickly as I could. The Mustangs goalie saw me coming, and sprinted out with his arms spread out widely to try to intercept the pass before I got there.
It didn't work.
Just as the goalie dove at the still descending ball, I trapped it under my foot and performed a reckless Maradona around his sprawled body. I smiled at the open goal that greeted me, and sent the ball spinning into the net.
"GOOOOOAAALLL!" Max shrieked, sounding almost irrationally excited. "Go FANG! You rock!"
"Enjoy this while it lasts, buddy," Gazzy informed me, grinning widely as we trotted back to the half line. "Max will be back to normal by the end of the game. Nice moves there, by the way."
"Thanks," I murmured, allowing myself another smile before concentrating back on the ball.
Jose and the other forward looked infuriated by my lovely goal-scoring prowess. They whispered to each other heatedly, neither looking very pleased. I ignored them, focusing on the ball at their feet.
As soon as they tapped the ball forward, Gazzy rocketed forward. Jose crashed roughly into him, managing to keep possession of the ball and continuing forward. I started at him too, kicking the ball away from this Jose character. He glared at me, and I looked impassively back before he huffed and turned to try and retrieve the ball again.
Both of the teams were pretty evenly matched, despite our 2-0 lead. The Mustangs managed a few shots on goal, but Ford pulled off some spectacular saves. Our shut-out held.
We fought hard and roughly against each other for the ball, and there was no mercy involved whatsoever. Max and the girl named Marina had a spot of trouble at one point, and the two had almost knocked each other out with all of the pushing and shoving they performed.
I personally witnessed Nudge and Ella intentionally sandwiching one of the Mustang forwards, HARD. Gazzy whooped, and Danny let out a shrill whistle, causing both girls to blush.
At the second quarter, Anne pulled Gazzy out and subsituted Rosanna. The first play she made was almost a third goal, because the defense had gravely underestimated her ability. They probably glanced at her, thought 'short, pretty girl- no prob', and almost got their asses kicked. Literally. Rosanna was very close to cleating the Mustang sweeper hard in the rear, but he had managed to get out of the way just in time.
Now they were taking Rosanna much more seriously.
Jose jogged over to one of the midfielders and started whispering in his ear. I watched them out of the corner of my eye, but they weren't even involved in the current play, so after a minute, I ignored them. Rosanna, Max, and Danny were up with the ball, and I had just begun to follow them when I heard, "Tail number fourteen, until he gets an idea, Marco."
I smiled tightly. This could be fun.
The Mustang goalie managed to wrangle the ball away from Rosanna, and dropkicked it hard down the field. I ran to get it, and the guy Jose had whispered to, Marco, followed me closely. By performing several cuts, a Whiplash/Voldemort's Revenge, and a quick Croif, I managed to shake the guy off without too much trouble. I dribbled quickly away from him, then passed the ball off to Juliann.
"COME ON MARCO, DEAL WITH THE GUY ALREADY!" the Mustangs coach screamed. Marco didn't look happy, and set his jaw as he ran back over to me.
Bring it on.
The Marco guy tailed me for the rest of the quarter, but it didn't trouble me too much to have to shake him off. His coach's screams got louder and louder with each juke I performed.
Nobody was tailing Max and Gazzy though, which could play very easily to our advantage. Truth be told, the pair of them could defeat anybody on the field when working together. They seemed to click really well, for some reason.
A tendril of jealousy drifted through my stomach. I looked down in surprise, almost as if I could see it there, starkly green against my red uniform. Why should I be jealous of Max and Gazzy? They were two of my best friends. Plus, it was extremely fortunate for our team that they were so in tune on the soccer field.
On a totally unrelated thought, I suddenly remembered my drawing from earlier. It was only Max, nothing else. Was I subconsciously thinking her more important than anything else, for whatever reason? Something gnawed at my mind, but I couldn't really define what it was.
"FANG! Heads up!" Lucas screamed. I shook out of my thoughts just in time to see a ball hurtling through the air towards me. More instinctively than anything else, I rolled off of Marco's back and whirled in front of him, volleying the ball straight up the field. Rosanna and Danny chased it, grappling with defender after defender on their journey towards the goal.
I needed to get my head in the game. I'd think philosophically later. Right now, it was soccer time. Gritting my teeth, I ran up the field to help Rosanna with the ball.
In what felt like no time at all, the first half was over. The referee blasted his whistle at us, tooted it again in case we didn't get the point, and trilled one last note before finally hanging it back around his neck. "Shut up already," Ella groaned, glaring at the referee's back as he walked away.
"Well done, boys and girls, well done," Anne praised, smiling at us over her clipboard. No one replied, as we were all too busy chugging our drinks. It was hot out, suddenly, after having been cool all week. "Beautiful goals, Fang, the both of them," she added, nodding proudly at me. I flashed her a quick smile in return before downing the rest of my Gatorade. "Now we have a decision to make. Should we push and hold, or play cat and mousie with them?" Anne asked, getting a dangerously devious sparkle in her eye.
I was reminded frighteningly of Max.
"Push and hold!" Gazzy immediately voted, pumping his fist up.
"I agree," Ford drawled. "It'll be entertaining to watch that cocky forward's face."
There were many murmured comments of agreement. Anne grinned wickedly, not at all acting like the responsible coach she should be. "True," she conceded, making no attempt to disguise her amusement. "And as we need to protect our cripple crew's pride here, I nominate Gazzy and Max to be our elected goal scorers this half. Only they are allowed to shoot."
"What? That sucks!" Devon complained, looking surly.
"You'll get your chance, Dev. Just think about how funny it'll be to see that forward's face if one of our beloved captains score!" Danny coaxed.
Devon looked annoyed for a moment, but slowly a small smile broke out on his face. "You should be a lawyer, Danny boy," he muttered under his breath. Danny grinned, ruffling Devon's hair. Despite that Danny was a senior and Devon a freshman, along with the undeniable fact that Devon was a sourpuss and Danny the stereotypical nice boy, the two seemed to be the best of friends.
Max fistpumped, and high-fived Gazzy. "Heck yeah!" she cried, grinning wildly. "I'm gonna give that Jose jerk what's coming to him! That sexist idiot!"
"Go Max!" Sadie cheered, surprising all of us with her sudden vehemence.
"Okay everyone, settle down," Anne ordered, wiping the smile off of her face. "We're gonna play this half like it's still 0-0 tie, okay? Gazzy and Max are up top, Danny, Liz, Fang and Sadie are midfield left to right. Defense is Jack left wing, Ford right wing, Ella stopper and Nudge sweeper. Lauri, you're in goal. Let's play hard, fast, and strong. Don't be merciful. Because do you know who isn't merciful to their enemies?" Anne demanded, pumping her clipboard up and down.
"LYNXES!" Nudge shouted, startling all of us.
How did Nudge always know when to do that?
"WHO ARE WE?" Anne yelled.
"LYNXES!"
"Well get out there and show me!" she ordered, waving us off onto the field. I threw down my Gatorade bottle, marching off onto the field.
Gazzy and Max settled at the half line with the ball, quietly
conferring with each other as we waited for the referees to be ready. I felt that same tentacle of jealousy wrap around my abdomen for a moment before I brushed it away, trying to focus on the game. It was no time to brood.
The Jose kid sauntered onto the field again, wrinkling his nose at Max disdainfully. I could see her smiling cheekily at him in return, and barely suppressed a smile of my own. Max was just too… Max.
The ref blew his whistle again, and once more the game had begun.
Lightning fast, Gazzy tapped the ball forward, and instantly Max was dribbling up the center. I trailed her about ten feet away, ready for a pass-back if she ran into trouble.
Trouble came in the form of our delightful friend Jose, who darted at Max so quickly it seemed he thought she was about to disappear. Max performed another perfect Whiplash, effectively juking him. I smiled, feeling very proud of both my move and Max performing it so well.
Then, things went south.
Jose, apparently, was getting tired of Max juking him so badly, and decided to take matters into his own hands. When Max was running past him, he shot out a hand and grabbed a fistful of Max's jersey, jerking her backwards.
Surprised by the sudden force pulling her backwards, Max didn't have time to adjust. She was yanked backwards, flying right into Jose's arms and knocking him onto the grass.
The ref blew his whistle yet again, starting to jog over to the prone Max and Jose.
Max looked rather shocked. She didn't even try to struggle away from Jose's grasp, she was so confused by what had happened.
I, on the other hand was feeling extremely pissed. I marched over to where Jose lay sprawled with Max in his arms and roughly pulled her up by the underarms. Max backed into my chest, the top of her head hovering in front of my nose. "You asshole!" Max hissed, quiet enough so the ref couldn't hear, but with a truckload of venom laced in. "What was that for?"
"You shouldn't be playing my game, girlie," Jose snarled back as he stood up, his eyes glinting nastily. "So if you do, I can punish you as I please."
I was itching to just go punch the crap out of this guy, and I could tell by the way Max had tensed up that she was too. Good. We could beat him up together.
What great bonding time that would be.
Sadly, before we could rearrange Jose's face for him free of charge, the ref appeared next to Jose. He rummaged around in the pocket of his yellow shirt, finally fishing out the item I was hoping for. A small rectangular card, made of bright yellow plastic.
"Intentional jersey-pulling! Yellow card!" Ref announced, flashing the yellow card over Jose's head. Jose scowled, crossing his arms, but he didn't dare say anything to the ref. "Free kick awarded to Cromwell," the ref continued, retrieving the ball and placing it roughly in the spot where Max and Jose had fallen.
Max stepped awkwardly away from me, not meeting my eyes. I smoothed out my expression, but internally I was deathly curious to know what exactly had caused Max's cheeks to turn pink.
I didn't have time to dwell on it, though, as Max and Gazzy were heading up the field, followed by the midfield in our precise formation. I shook my head slightly and jogged up into place as Ella prepared to take the free kick.
The ball sailed neatly over everyone's heads, the product of Ella's powerful kick. It landed neatly under Gazzy's foot at the top of the goal box, where he started juggling defenders in order to maintain possession. Quickly, Danny swooped in, and Gazzy passed off to him. Danny sent the ball to Liz, who passed to me. I dribbled up closer to the goal for a few steps before passing to Sadie where she was lurking by the sideline. Sadie dribbled further in, juking one of the defenders with a neat stepover before passing to Max, who stood, surprisingly alone, in the middle of the box.
Max had a good shot from where she stood. If I hadn't known her, I would have said she had a sixty-forty chance of scoring. Since I did know her, I bumped it up to seventy-thirty. Max could sink the shot, but it might be tricky.
Max had about two seconds to shoot before the Mustang defense realized their mistake and swarmed her. However, she didn't take the shot.
Come on, Max, I found myself thinking. Just shoot already!
But Max didn't shoot. In fact, she didn't even glance towards the goal. Instead, she pulled the most perfect Croif I had ever seen and passed straight across the goal to Gazzy, who was waiting, defenderless, to tap the ball into the waiting net.
The goalie was dumbfounded. He didn't even have a chance, not against Max and Gazzy. They were a perfect team.
We all flooded back to our side of the field, grinning and
congratulating Max and Gazzy. Nobody mentioned the little incident between Max and Jose that had started the play in the first place.
At the new start, Jose's buddy passed forward to him, and he took it and rocketed off down the field. Jack tracked him all the way, matching him stride for stride and continuing to poke at the ball. Nudge hovered in the middle of our half, looking grim and purposeful. Jose managed to shake off Jack, and burst into our goal box. Nudge crashed headlong into him, sending Jose spinning off to the side and allowing time for Lauri to sprint out and dive on the ball. Safe.
Jose glowered at Nudge, who pointedly ignored him.
Lauri punted the ball, sending it halfway up the field, straight to Sadie. Sadie trapped the ball on her thigh, dropped it to her feet, and passed off quickly to Max.
Max dribbled swiftly up the center, deciding not use any moves, and instead turning up the speed and flying by any Mustangs who challenged her. I followed her up the center, keeping a close eye on Jose. Luckily, he was far away from Max at the moment, so I didn't have to worry.
Max passed off to Liz, who dribbled further up the line before being ambushed by that one midfielder girl, Marina. Marina kicked the ball out of Liz's reach, but unfortunately for her, it came straight to me. I trapped it softly under my foot before surging straight through the center, bypassing two Mustangs and shaking off that guy Marco, who was still lingering around me.
I was shooting towards the goal now, the wind rushing in my ears and adrenaline pumping through my veins. I was at the top of my game. I could do this.
Then suddenly, something crashed into my side, throwing me off balance. I staggered slightly to the side, managing to pull the ball with me, before looking up. My attacker was none other than Marina the Mustang Midfielder, and her attention was focused solely on the black and silver ball at my feet.
So she wanted to play rough? I can play rough.
I pulled my elbow in at an angle, and jammed it unmercifully into Marina's ribs. She gasped out, but stayed at my side, trying to revoke the ball from my possession.
Soooo not gonna happen.
Finally, I shouldered her forcibly out of the way, leaving me an open trail to the goal.
Then, suddenly: TWEEEEET!
I groaned, pausing the ball at my feet and turning slowly to face the ref. "Foul by number fourteen. Free kick for Daleview," the ref intoned, gesturing at me.
I rolled my eyes and passed the ball back to that Marina girl before jogging back into position. Lousy ref- I hadn't even extended my arm! That push was perfectly legal.
While I was stewing over the injustice of the foul, Gazzy scored.
Apparently, while I was busy being annoyed and not paying attention to anything (we were three points up at the end of the third quarter- I had the right to slack off for a moment) Marina had performed a beautiful free kick straight to Jose. However, our dear friend Jose was just a mite too slow to the ball, and Gazzy had appeared in front of him, stolen the ball, and dribbled all the way up the field by himself. Finally, he juked the goalie out, causing them to fall flat on their side, and tapped the ball agonizingly slowly into the net to score one of his patented Gazzy Richards goals.
This is why Gazzy is our best player.
"GOOD ON YOU, GAZZY!" Anne bellowed, waving her clipboard like a maniac. Gazzy grinned, shot her a two-fingered salute, and jogged over to the sideline to sub out. Rosanna came in for him, looking refreshed and ready to kick ass.
Jose was pissed. I could tell by the way he was glaring at everyone and everything- the refs, Max, his own team mates- that he was convinced the game was rigged. Somehow, we had bribed the refs, fed his team magic potion that made them suck at soccer, and put a remote controlled guidance device inside the ball. Any explanation was more reasonable than the fact that we were simply better than them at soccer. Heavens forbid THAT be the case.
We played Keep-Away-From-The-Mustangs for the rest of the game, only trying to get the ball up to Max for an attempt for her to score. Throughout the remainder of the game, only a few interesting things happened.
Max was, as she put it, 'awarded' a yellow card for profanity and overenthusiastic pushing the Mustang defense around.
Gazzy was subsituted in, promptly received a yellow card for excessive shoving, and was immediately subsituted out again.
Max scored on a beautiful left-footed shot thirty yards out of the goal box.
Jose's forward buddy finally managed to score, and the Mustangs acted like they were suddenly up six-zero.
Lauri flipped out about letting the goal in and almost attacked Jose for bragging too much. Only Ford forcibly restraining her kept her from leaving her goal box and pounding the crap out of Jose.
Also, as the finishing touch, I received a yellow card for finally getting annoyed and giving the Marco guy who was tailing me a few good elbows to the windpipe.
What can I say? We forwards can be touchy when it comes to personal space.
When the whistle blew to signal the end of the game, Anne whooped and crowed out her glee like celebrating a victory was going out of style. Frankly, it was embarrassing.
Anne gave us an after-game pep talk, which, quite honestly, nobody listened to. I barely heard her gushing praise about our 5-1 win over the whoosh of Gazzy's waterbottle contents splashing over my head. We were sweaty and tired, and too pleased with ourselves for whooping Daleview's butts to pay attention. After Anne released us, we trooped directly to the locker rooms for quick showers and a change of clothing.
Directly after our trip to the lockers, Max, Ella, Nudge, Gazzy, and I headed back over to the school entrance. Nudge had invited us all to come swimming at her house for an after-game hang out, and Terra was going to drop by also. It would be even better now, too, since we had a beautiful victory crowning our heads.
Before we had gone ten steps towards the gates, though, someone behind us drawled, "Hold it, Lynxes. I want to talk to you."
We all whirled around, only to see Jose, Marco the Soccer Stalker, and a couple of other Mustangs whose names I didn't know. Jose's eyes were locked on Max, who was standing at my side with Ella on her left. She was, frankly put, looking pretty hot in a pair of green Adidas running shorts and a white tournament t-shirt, with her hair was loose and wet around her shoulders. I could still clearly see the marks on her legs imprinted by her shinguards.
Jose seemed to be enjoying the view of Max's long, toned legs and simultaneously scoffing at her.
Needless to say, I did not appreciate his blunt staring at my best friend.
"What do you want, Mustang?" Max demanded mockingly, emphasizing the 'Mustang' like it was a disgusting thing to say. "'Cause I've got better things to do than talk to you."
Jose's face twisted in anger. "So you think you can play soccer, bitch? Do you think you're hot? Because you aren't fooling anyone," Jose snarled.
Max laughed, stepping forward and giving Jose a highly exaggerated once over. "Honey," she started, her voice dripping with sarcasm, "if the way you were just staring at me was any indication, I am pretty damn hot."
I had the sudden urge to roll my eyes. Max had a gift for saying just the right thing to tick people off.
Jose looked even more pissed than he had on the field now. "You just want to think whatever you like, girlie," he spat. "I know better. I know how soccer should be played."
"Frankly, I don't think you're a good judge of how soccer should be played, since we just beat your team five to one," Max replied sweetly.
Before anyone could move, Jose lunged forward and punched Max right on her black eye.
Max recoiled, gasping in pain and clutching her hands over her bad eye. "Frick!" she breathed, doubling over and letting her hair fall forward to shield her face. I wasn't sure, but I thought I caught the glisten of a tear on her cheek.
Jose had crossed the line.
Stalking forward, I grabbed Jose by the neck of his jersey and slammed him against the chain link fence. His eyes widened as he stared at me, fingers clawing at my fists. "Never touch Max again," I told him quietly, my voice strangely devoid of emotion. I could feel the anger in my chest, boiling over at the replayed scene of Jose's fist meeting Max's already bruised eye. "If you do, I'll find you, and I'm going to be a lot less kind then." I let go of Jose's jersey and punched him across the jaw. His head snapped backward and he staggered against the fence. I could hear Nudge and Ella gasp in surprise behind me.
Without another glance at him, I turned away and walked towards Max. She had straightened up again, but her hands were still cupped tightly over her eye. "Max," I whispered, putting my hands on top of hers. "Let me see."
Slowly, Max's fingers relaxed, and she let them fall away from her eye. It was swollen shut, pink and red with a tinge of light purple mixed in.
The anger rose up in my throat again, choking any words I might have said. Max looked at me defiantly with her good eye. "I'm fine Fang. Let's go," she said stubbornly, her voice surprisingly strong considering she'd just been punched in her already bruised eye.
Then again, she was Maximum Ride.
Without another glance at the now silent Mustangs, I started off down the sidewalk towards Nudge's house. I could hear the others following behind me, and we didn't speak or look back as Cromwell and the Mustangs disappeared from sight.
I kept wondering at the feelings that were choking me, halting any words I might have said. There was anger, lots of it, but something deeper too. I just couldn't believe Jose had actually punched Max's black eye. It was just a low action on his part, and I didn't regret punching him at all.
But why had I reacted so strongly? Was it only because Max was my best friend?
No. It wasn't.
The realization almost stopped me in my tracks, but somehow, I kept walking. Apparently, I even kept up a convincing outer façade, because no one seemed to notice I had just experienced an epiphany. The only logical explanation for my actions just now, for the drawings earlier, for everything I had been feeling, was that…
I loved Max.
Crap.
"ZOMG I just thought of a nickname for your guys!" Nudge squealed, oblivious of my internal rampaging. "You guys should be Rated R! 'Cause you know, all of your names start with R, and you all got yellow cards today, and you all scored!"
"Wow, Nudge, that's actually kind of decent," Max commented, looking impressed.
"I know! Rated R! I'm so smart! I'm gonna call you guys that now!"
Double crap.
Hey! So yeah, I have this really inconvenient thing called a Life that gets in the way of my writing. =( I'm sorry!
B-t-dubs, some people are apparently expecting 3-day updates. Guys, I have trouble with a chapter per week! I do my best, but as most of you should know if you took my advice and read The iPod Screen, I am but 13 years old! Le Gasp! Therefore, I have other things to worry about besides School Days. Like… actual school.
And like my jazz band audition on Tuesday... Agh!
Review please! Did you like the game? Did you like how I FINALLY started the romance? XD
~TMI~