Chapter 4
CHAPTER
FOUR
BECKY
It hadn’t been Becky’s first soccer camp, but it had been her first camp out of state.
Her parents had let her go to the North Carolina University camp every year since she had been old enough, but Becky had begged and pleaded with them to let her go to the Los Angeles University camp.
She was sixteen, she had a phone, she knew what to do in the event of an emergency, and more importantly—in her opinion—she had never really been anywhere without her parents.
She was going off to college in two years; and even though there was a really good chance she would be going to the same school everyone else in her family had attended, it would be nice to at least see what other schools had to offer.
Her father had finally agreed on the condition that she still attended the NCU camp when she got back.
Becky was thrilled. She didn’t even mind that her dad made her do all the legwork.
She’d had to book her own flight, arrange a way to get from the airport to the campus, and then prove to him that she had a plan and that she knew what to do if she needed a backup plan.
The most frustrating part was that he had called the head coach and confirmed everything with them, making sure she wouldn’t need a chaperone to drop her off even though she had given him a brochure that had already answered all of his questions.
But that wasn’t the point. The point was she would get to go.
At check-in, girls were shrieking and hugging and laughing and catching up with friends they hadn’t seen since the summer before.
Becky had never done well in those situations.
She stood awkwardly off to one side of the check-in table, waiting for further instruction.
One of the coaches handed her a packet of information and pointed her towards the dorm rooms where she would be staying for the two-week duration of the camp.
Becky would never forget the next part. She knocked on her dorm room door a few times before jamming her key into the lock.
Before she could even turn the key, the door swung open and the most beautiful girl Becky had ever seen was standing there in the doorway.
Becky must have looked like an idiot, stunned into silence by tan skin and green eyes and a scar through an eyebrow that she inexplicably wanted to touch.
“Hey, I’m Wren.” God, she had dimples. “Are you Rebecca?”
Becky had managed a nod. “Yeah, yep.” In her mind she corrected her to Becky, but that would have been too many words, so she had just nodded along.
“Well, come on in. We’ve got about two hours to get our room rearranged and unpacked before dinner and the opening games.” Wren moved out of her way and ushered her into their shared room.
Becky remembered everything about it: The way that Wren wanted to put the furniture in the least ‘feng shui’ arrangement they could configure because it was only for two weeks and admittedly it would be hilarious.
They laughed the whole time, working together to push the beds at weird angles in the middle of the room, stacking the desks on top of each other because they wouldn’t have any use for them.
In two hours, Becky felt more rebellious than she had in her entire life and all she’d done was an intentionally shit job of a room remodel.
“Girls, dinner is being served in the first floor cafeteria. Please make your way down. Welcome to camp,” the intercom rang out.
Becky looked around their room. It was ridiculous and barely functional. “Well, how do you feel about it?” she asked Wren, unable to not smile at the shorter girl, marveling at the way her green eyes sparkled with delight.
“I hate it. It’s perfect.” Wren laughed, a warm, real, open laugh. A sound lighter than Becky had ever heard.
And for almost a week, it was perfect. Mediocre breakfasts followed by conditioning, then skills drills, then usually semi-decent lunches, then games and scrimmages, then dinner, then free time. Free time at first was Wren and Becky just hanging out and getting to know each other.
Like in all relationships, they started with the basics: Becky was the youngest of four with three brothers.
Wren was an only child, raised solely by her dad.
They avoided the deeper things in the beginning, but as the week progressed, their conversations got more serious.
Wren had minimal contact with her mom, and though she knew how much she looked like her, she was terrified she would act like her, too, becoming the selfish type of asshole that could abandon her family for another man and the promise of a life of luxury and excess.
In exchange for that vulnerable truth, Becky admitted that she had no real desire to live up to her parents' perfect ideal image of her.
She finally said out loud that her father cared more about his career and his public image than he did about his wife or his children.
She even admitted that she kind of hated him for it.
Wren reached across the awkward angle that separated their beds, grabbed her hand, and told her that it was okay to not want to live up to someone else’s idea of perfection.
She smiled the warmest smile Becky had ever seen and told Becky her dad was a loser for missing out.
And Becky, for the first time in her life, felt free and seen.
The next night changed everything. Wren, always easy going and charming, had made friends with some of the other forwards. And one of them had snuck a bottle of vodka into camp.
“Come on, come hang out with us?” Wren asked, her bottom lip jutting out in a pout.
Becky had never had alcohol and was more than a little nervous to drink around someone who made her heart flutter while sober. She had no idea how the whole lowered inhibitions thing would go.
“Rebecca, please? There are going to be like eight of us splitting a small bottle of vodka. I promise you won’t get drunk.
I’ve also convinced them that we should have pizza delivered.
So, you know, doubly sure you won’t get drunk.
And you’ll get pizza.” Wren’s lips pulled up into a mischievous smile, the eyebrow with the cut through it lifted in corroboration.
The effect was dazzling and devastating.
Becky was a hundred percent certain that Wren had heard all the other campers and coaches call her Becky by then.
But because Becky had never personally corrected her, Wren had continued to call her Rebecca, and it had continued to disrupt Becky’s pulse.
She agreed to Wren’s pizza and vodka party.
Of course she agreed. She would have done pretty much anything Wren Eames asked her to do.
So that night, she found herself in the one pair of jeans she brought, sitting on the dorm room floor of two girls whose names Becky could genuinely not remember if her life depended on it.
Like most teenaged encounters with alcohol, the party had quickly dissolved into a game of truth or dare.
Becky picked truth. “Have you ever kissed a boy?” Of course she had–Robby Finley last year.
The kiss had sucked, literally. She was pretty sure they hadn’t done it right, but she didn’t tell the other girls that.
Wren was seated next to her and was therefore up next. She shrugged and picked truth as well. “Have you ever kissed a girl?”
Becky’s mouth went dry. Wren just laughed and nodded. “Yep.” It was an easy answer for her, and it was an answer that had made Becky want to chug the entire bottle of vodka.
When Becky was back up, she picked truth again.
“Have you ever had sex?” Oh, boy. No, she hadn’t.
There was no one in her hometown who had ever made her even want to have sex.
Well, except for maybe Christina Alvarez, but she had been two grades above her, and they had never even spoken, so that hardly counted.
Wren was the first to break the cycle of truths. “Dare,” she said, taking a swig of the vodka even though that’s not how the game worked.
“I dare you to kiss your roommate.”
Becky froze as a blush crept up her neck and dusted across her cheeks. She eyed Wren nervously.
“Up to you,” Wren said, her easy smile never fading from her lips. “I’ll drink if you’re uncomfortable with it.”
Becky could vaguely remember the sounds of the other girls whisper-chanting “kiss her, kiss her, kiss her.” She shrugged, knowing this would probably be her only chance to kiss a woman as beautiful as Wren, silently panicking and doing her best to act as nonchalant as possible.
“It’s just a kiss.” She remembered rolling her eyes like this wasn’t the biggest moment of her life to date, like she couldn’t hear the sound of her own heartbeat pounding in her ears.
Becky could still remember how it felt, how soft Wren’s full lips felt against her own, the taste of vodka and pizza mixed together, the way her hand quickly moved to cup Wren’s face, how Wren’s hands immediately gripped the side of her shirt.
She could also still remember how much she missed the feeling the second it was over.
She knew the kiss only lasted a few seconds.
The other girls just golf clapped for them.
They didn’t yell “get a room” or anything like that.
So, Becky knew it hadn’t even been risqué.
It had just been a kiss. And it had flipped Becky’s life upside down.
At around midnight, Wren called it a night. They’d all have to be up at six the next morning, and while she was clearly the most rebellious girl in the group, she didn’t want the coaches to suspect anything. They still had half a bottle left, they could all hang out another night.
Becky and Wren walked back to their room in a heavy silence. Becky was worried she had imagined the tension, but the second the door shut, Wren started to apologize. “I’m sorry I kissed you. I should have just taken the shot.”