Chapter Text
Staring at the stapled packet, Natalie’s eyes darted across the penciled-in numbers lined neatly down the page. Her brows knitted together in disbelief. She hadn’t studied. Hell, she’d barely shown up to class lately. There was no way the unit test was meant to be this easy.
Was this review? She couldn’t even remember last year’s work. Still, the questions felt like common sense, like muscle memory she didn’t remember learning in the first place. She was finished before most of the class had gotten through page two.
Hesitating, she pushed her chair back. The metal legs scraped loudly against the floor, pulling a few glances her way. Her body felt stiff as she stood. With each step to the front, she searched the page for mistakes, half-expecting something to jump out and prove her wrong.
She placed the test on the teacher’s desk without a word.
Mrs. Robb looked up, surprised. “Done already, Natalie? Did you double-check everything?”
Natalie held her breath. One wrong move and she was out, not just from the class, but from the team. They hadn’t actually expelled her last year, but the threat had been real. After she’d stopped showing up for weeks, after the incident, she still remembered Coach Martinez's voice, harsh but sharp-edged: One more time, and you're out Natalie.
“Yeah, I did”
Mrs. Robb gave a tight smile, clicking her tongue as she opened her mouth to talk, and handed her a thick packet. “Next unit. Try working through it with the textbook. Just to keep busy.”
Natalie nodded, taking the bundle back to her desk. The room felt heavier on the way back, the stares, the whispered jokes, all digging into her like tiny needles. She dropped into her seat and stared blankly at the first question. Then, almost on autopilot, she started to solve.
It was easy. Not in a she was proud kind of way, but in a this doesn't even feel like thinking kind of way. The pencil moved without hesitation, like when she used to make mixtapes in her bedroom, zoning out for hours, building something that made sense. Envisioning the fine details of a far larger picture; envisioning a far larger concept than she really understood.
Time passed fast and the bell buzzed sharply through the grainy speakers, voices rose around her, and the sound of chairs scraping back echoed through the room. Natalie flipped the last page, finished the final question with unwavering decisiveness, and stood up.
She walked to the front again, dropped the new packet, now fully completed, onto the desk, and left without waiting for a response. Her bag hung off one shoulder, her eyes fixed on the floor. The strange weight in her chest hadn’t lifted, even though the work had felt easy. Maybe because it felt easy.
She just wanted to get to her locker. To do something familiar. To not think so fucking much.
Natalie slammed her locker shut, tossing in her school books, loose papers, and folders in to avoid dragging the weight of school into the mess of home. Her eyes flicked down the hallway at the sound of a burst of laughter. A cluster of Yellowjackets crowded together, team branded soccer bags slung over their team branded jacket shoulders or dropped by their feet as they talked and took up space in the slowly emptying hallway.
She hesitated. The last thing she wanted was to deal with them. She enjoyed their company on the field, their banter filled inside jokes. It was impossible not to have a bond with peers you’ve known almost your entire life. But after whatever the hell that math class had been, she needed quiet, something familiar. Something that didn’t make her feel so exposed and so blatantly different. She needed to be in the company of nothing, not even herself.
She needed to get high.
With a sigh, she slipped her headphones over her ears and hit play on her Walkman. “Hey Jealousy” by the Gin Blossoms blared into her eardrums halfway through the track. As she passed the group, she ducked her head and cranked up the volume until it hummed at the edge of pain.
Despite her tendency to puff up her chest and start shit with anyone who looked at her wrong, meathead jocks twice her size often included, Natalie had mastered the art of going unnoticed when she needed to. Being loud about expressing who she was through her appearance didn’t mean she particularly liked being seen.
Nat made it about three steps before being yanked backwards, nearly losing her footing alongside whoever pulled her.
She spun around, glare sharp and ready to cut. Van stood there, grinning like she hadn’t just almost taken Natalie down with her
“The fuck was that for, Palmer?”
“Wow, nice to see you too,” Van said. “My day? Oh, it’s been great. Can’t wait for practice and that super exciting, definitely voluntary team function tonight that I totally remember being on board for.”
Natalie rolled her eyes, which only made the others snicker.
“I’m going home.”
Jackie snorted and stood straighter, peeling herself off Shauna’s shoulder. “No you’re not. We were waiting for you. And I put actual effort into organizing this mandatory bonding sesh, so don’t make me waste it.”
“Since when do I care about that shit?”
Van shrugged, tone light but eyes watching her carefully. “I dunno, Nat. Martinez was losing it in Geo earlier. If you bail, he might toss around those 'you’re off the team' threats again.”
Natalie’s gaze flicked to Van. They’d had a few of those one-on-one hangouts at the park near their neighborhood, just enough for Van to know the outlines of what went down last year. Van knew more about the incident than anyone else, but it still wasn't much, but it was enough to understand the impact it had on her. They held each other’s eyes for a second, nothing dramatic, just quiet understanding. Nobody else could’ve noticed.
Taissa, standing a little off to the side of Van, was staring at her. Sharp. Expecting her to fold. Daring her to blow it. Daring her to mess up whatever internal strategy Tai had planned for their senior year season that included Nat on the field with her.
Natalie looked away, feeling the pressure and not wanting the heat of the few people she could actually tolerate being around.
“Fine,” she muttered.
The group shifted around her, a blend of relief and exasperation, as they turned toward the locker room, sneakers squeaking against the hallway tile.
- - -
The sun sat low, soft and warm, casting long early autumn shadows across the field. Cleats thudded against astroturf in uneven rhythms, voices rose and dipped with the drills, and Natalie kept her eyes on the turf just ahead of her feet, not because she was tired, but because looking anywhere else felt heavy. Too many eyes. Too many ways to be read wrong. Too many mouths to tell her she wasn’t deserving of any of this.
Her body moved the way it always did out here: automatic, efficient, almost expert. She didn’t feel good, exactly, but she didn’t feel bad either. She felt useful. It wouldn't be a stretch to say it made her feel purposeful.
Van was yelling, not at her, not really, but barking commands to the back line from the net with her usual intensity. Tai shot Natalie a glance after a pass fell short and weaker than intended. Natalie shrugged back.
Not everything was going to be perfect.
She didn’t care about being perfect. She just needed to run until her head stopped talking.
Jackie shouted something with a wide toothy grin, and Shauna laughed, bright, genuine and distant. Natalie didn’t join in. She really wasn’t in the mood today. She liked all of them in a backwards kind of way, loved them, maybe, in whatever skewed and fucked up version of love she was capable of. But only the versions of them that lived between whistles. That was the version she knew how to safely exist beside.
It wasn’t like she was oblivious. She knew Van’s home life was tense in ways not unlike her own. She knew Taissa’s secret, which was one-sided knowledge of her, but knowledge of her nonetheless. She knew Jackie was cracking under the pressure of being team captain, and that Shauna resented her for never truly noticing her. She knew Laura Lee was trying to balance God and girlhood.
She knew… less about Lottie Matthews. Knew she came from money. Knew she dressed well. Knew she was polite. Kind, even. Knew Lottie would stand up for her, that she had before. That was something. Even if it irritated her like an irresistible itch to be treated like a charity case by her teammate.
A sharp whistle snapped her out of it. Coach Scott barked them toward the sidelines. They jogged off the field, tired, laughing, the kind of post-practice camaraderie that rarely ever lasted past the locker room when they weren’t at a tournament.
Inside, the air was thick with sweat and various teenage girl perfumes to process all at once. Lockers slammed. Someone stubbed their toe on the bench and howled a curse. Natalie peeled off her shin guards and let them fall with a soft thud, stretching her legs across the floor. Her thighs brutally ached, but in the right way. The earned kind. The deserved kind.
“All good?” Van asked, towel slung over one shoulder.
“Yeah.” Natalie gave a quick, tight smile, tugging off her socks. “You?”
“Always,” Van said, grinning, too fast to be believable.
Across the aisle, Jackie bounced between talking about a bio test and some party she and Jeff had been invited to this coming weekend. Shauna nodded along, not listening. Lottie sat quietly beside Laura Lee, listening like she meant it. Natalie noticed. She didn’t mean to, she just always did. Lottie was always listening. Observing. She always had, even when they were younger, back when Lottie used to always play in her own little world and somehow find a way to win follow-the-leader at recess.
The girls trickled into the showers, towels in hand. Steam clung to the mirrors and the air turned wet and sharp. Natalie kept her eyes on the tile. She’d seen these girls in their most exposed states, but that didn’t mean she wanted to really, truly look. Curiosity and comfort weren’t the same thing.
She reached for her shampoo blindly, fingers brushing cold plastic, and then warm skin.
Lottie’s hand was already there, reaching for the conditioner beside hers. Their knuckles grazed. Lottie met her eyes, smiling soft and unfazed. She turned back around slowly, fingers dragging lightly against the back of Natalie’s hand before pulling away.
Natalie blinked. Just once.
Then she shook it off, squeezed shampoo into her palm, and lathered up with the kind of cheap grocery store soap that didn’t smell like anything at all.
---
Piling into each other’s cars, regular drivers in their usual seats, the team made their way to the diner with wet hair, no makeup, and the loose, quiet ache of overused muscles.
The diner was fluorescent and half-empty, still stuck somewhere in their grandparents’ era: red vinyl booths, scratched-up laminate menus, a jukebox in the corner full of forgotten quartets and early Elvis.
The girls took up two tables pushed together in the back, cleats swapped out for socks and chunky sneakers, skin still cold from the post-practice showers. Natalie found herself squeezed in the booth between Shauna and Lottie.
She stared down the menu like it had personally insulted her. She hadn’t brought cash. Not that she had much anyway, what she did have was tucked away from the prying eyes of her mother to cover the phone and water bills next week. She hadn’t remembered they were even coming here tonight. One by one, the girls ordered.
“Bacon cheeseburger, fries, root beer,” Lottie said, tapping her nail against the table without looking up.
Fuck, Natalie thought. That sounded good. She knew hunger. Had known it long before the real spiral began. Even when things were just barely held together, early bedtimes had meant skipped dinners, skipped spending, skipped guilt. Hunger was a baseline — always there, always just underneath.
“I’m good,” Natalie said quickly when the waitress looked at her, eyes fixed on the photos of the burgers.
Fifteen minutes passed. Laughter, side conversations, overlapping gossip. Then the food came. Lottie frowned as the tray landed in front of her, then glanced sideways at Natalie.
“They messed up,” she said. “I got the wrong one.”
Before Natalie could say anything, Lottie slid the plate to the side, right before her.
“You should eat it.”
Natalie looked at her. “This is what you ordered.”
“Yeah,” Lottie said, casual. “But I panicked and totally said the wrong thing, then didn’t want to cause trouble. I’ll order something else, no biggie.”
She said it like it really was nothing. A shrug. A breath.
Natalie stared. Her gut screamed to refuse. Her gut screamed for the alternative. She glanced at Lottie again. Then back at the plate. Then, wordlessly, she started eating. Lottie flagged the waitress and ordered something else, something completely different, without even glancing at the plate she’d given up.
Natalie hunched over, devouring the food at a feral pace. Jackie’s voice rang out across the table. “Jesus, Nat, it’s not gonna run away from you– breathe between bites.” With a full mouth, Van snickered from down the booth at the comment.
Natalie flipped Van off, continuing to eat without looking up.