Chapter 3
Busting through the locker room door, I shielded my eyes from my half-naked teammates as they got ready for practice.
Modesty wasn’t something we had time to care about in order to be on time for practice.
I was running late, so I headed for my locker in the back corner, where I unzipped my bag, pulled out my clothes, and pulled off my sweater.
“Damn, Allie, where’d you get those?” Lauren said from across the room, and everyone turned to look.
“Lucky bitch! You’ll have all the guys you want with knockers like those,” shouted Meredith.
“I hate you all, and I’m going to wreck you on the field, just so you know,” I said, as we walked through the door to the field.
Everyone tapped their sticks on the top of the door frame as they headed outside.
It was tradition. I may not have been an academic scholar or outgoing in school, but when I stepped onto the field, I was unstoppable.
During practice, I was always so in the zone, until today when the soccer team went running by, and there he was, the guy with the gorgeous dark hair from French class, and he was watching me as I played.
Why were they running around our field? As the captain, I found it distracting, and we had an enormous campus, so I flagged them down as they ran behind our goal, and he came running over.
“Hey, do you mind running somewhere else on campus? I’m worried we might hit you with a ball since you’re running so close to the field. Also, the team says you’re distracting in those shorts. Not you, your whole team.” I wanted to go die, I couldn’t believe I said that.
“We like short shorts!” sang a few of the other girls at once.
“Last I checked, we are allowed to run wherever we want. You’re really good, Allie. I’m Chris, by the way.” Then he winked at me and ran to catch up with the rest of the guys.
I was caught off guard by him knowing my name because I hadn’t introduced myself in French class. In that quick moment, I noticed his green eyes with long lashes, but I shook my head at the thought of anything other than needing to get back to practice. It was weird to be noticed.
“What was that!” Isabelle said, snapping me back to reality, as she came sprinting over, balancing the ball on her stick and chewing on her mouth guard.
“What was what? I asked them to run somewhere else. Come on, we’ve got a game to win next week.” Then I knocked the ball off her stick, dropped it to the ground, and drove it down the field.
After practice, I made my way through the crowd and onto the front steps of the gym, where I sat down on the top step to organize my hockey gear.
Once I stepped off the field and zipped up my hockey stick, I was back to being the quiet girl that I hoped nobody would notice.
I could see my sister at the far end of the congested pickup line, but I could hear her music from where I sat.
Suddenly, I heard a commotion of boys behind me talking about an impossible penalty kick that somehow went in.
“Chris, I can’t believe you made that shot! Your head was in the clouds all practice, you really pulled that out of nowhere!” someone said as they passed behind me.
“What are you talking about, man? Shut up!”
I turned as discreetly as possible to look at the group of guys to see that he was looking my way.
“Slurpees! Let’s go!” said a guy on the soccer team named Griffin. Chris winked at me and then looked back at his friends before disappearing into the parking lot. I watched until their packed car pulled out and drove away.
By the time my sister pulled in front of the gym, I had already completed one page of math homework and was anxious to leave.
On the ride home, Amy asked me about practice, and I asked her about the latest gossip that she always stayed on top of, but neither of us cared about the other’s answers.
I left out the part where Chris Patton spoke to me.
At home, I got out of the car, grabbed a snack in the kitchen, and headed for my room.
Then I turned on the stereo, unzipped my backpack, and dumped everything on the soft, blue carpeted floor to get started on the rest of my homework.
Dave Matthews Band just started to play as I opened my History book when the phone rang.
Through my closed door, I could hear my sister scream from the bottom of the back stairs.
“Allie! Oh my God, why is Chris Patton calling our house, and why does he want to talk to you!?” she shouted incredulously.
I didn’t reply because I didn’t know. Instead, I froze, forgetting that he was waiting for me to pick up the phone. Amy screamed my name again, and I lifted the handset from its cradle.
“Hello?” I said tentatively.
“Hey, Allie, it’s Chris.”
“Oh, right. Hi,” I replied, trying to sound as calm as possible, even though my brain was going one hundred miles a minute, my heart rate climbing with every breath. I had never had a boy call my house before.
“I’m calling because you left your hoodie in French class, and you jetted out of the room before I could catch your attention. I figured you might be looking for it. Anyway, I have it. What’s your locker number? I’ll bring it tomorrow,” he said, without taking a breath.
“Why didn’t you give it to me at practice?” I asked, loosening up now that I knew why he was calling.
“Because then I wouldn’t have had a reason to call.” Surprised by this, I was momentarily silent before he repeated his question. “Locker number?”
“Right. 317,” I replied, trying not to sound flustered but failing.
“Cool, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
“Okay.”
“Bye,” he said quickly, and then he hung up before I could reply.
I could hear my sister breathing outside my door.
“I can hear you out there, Amy. What do you want?” I said, as she opened the door and came barging in.
“Oh my God, tell me everything. What did he want? He is the hottest guy in school, isn’t he?
I love stopping to watch the Varsity soccer team practice on my way to my car after school.
You should see the way his hair gets all sweaty and sticks to his face, and his tan cheeks get a little pink from running up and down the field.
I about dropped the phone when I answered, and he said who it was.
Did he ask about me? Wait, why did you tell him your locker number?
” She finally stopped talking long enough to take a breath.
“I left my hoodie in French class, and he just wants to give it back to me,” I said, trying to play it cool, but realizing she was listening outside my door the whole time.
“Oh. Ok. You didn’t answer my question, though,” Amy said as I zoned out. “Did he ask about me?”
“No, he just called about the hoodie, that was it,” I said, and that was enough info for her to spin on her heels with a sigh and a smile and walk back into her room.
As I sat back down on the floor with a giant milk carton-shaped container of goldfish, I tried to get my homework done without thinking about Chris and the anticipation of meeting him at my locker for my hoodie tomorrow.
No matter how many times I read the page in my History textbook, I couldn’t remember a single thing it said.
Deciding it was hopeless, I shut the book, turned up Ants Marching, lay on my back, and sang along as I counted the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling.
I wasn’t getting any schoolwork done tonight.
“Bedtime!” Mom yelled from the bottom of the stairs.
In the pink bow wallpapered bathroom, I brushed my teeth and stared at myself in the mirror as I watched the toothpaste bubble in my mouth, and I closed my eyes.
Then I pressed my hips against the bathroom counter and wondered what it might be like if they were Chris’s pressed against mine.
Suddenly, I heard footsteps outside the door.
“Holy shit, am I interrupting something?” Amy said, as she bust into the bathroom and grabbed her toothbrush, then she sat down on the toilet to use the bathroom as she scrubbed her teeth at the same time. Amy had no respect for privacy.
“Can you knock? Oh my God!” I said, as I turned the water on, spat into the sink, and stomped out.
Once I was in my room, I shut the door and leaned against it.
This was the first time I had given a boy any thought.
Dave Matthews Band’s Crash started to play, and as his raspy voice started to sing, my imagination drifted away to unrealistic places of desire, and I was suddenly thinking about the possibilities of all of the things I would love to experience with Chris, but was too shy to ever pursue.
I knew I needed to get to bed, but my head was swimming with confusion about why I couldn’t stop thinking about those green eyes and long eyelashes.