Just for This Year

Chapter Thirteen

Bit of a long chapter! Please remember to comment and vote, this took me forever to write because of the football. Hope you guys enjoy!

I'm posting Chapters Twelve and Thirteen at the same time so go read the previous chapter if you missed it!

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

September 12
Friday

49 Days Before

Game day.

Lila held her jersey in her hands. She hated this stupid tradition of wearing your football jersey to school on game days. It never jumped out to her as strange that they did this until now. She spent the entirety of the morning deciding that it was borderline cult-like to wear your jersey to school. But in reality, she just wanted to get through the day without the typical snarky comments or weird looks.

Everyone knew she was on the team. It wasn't a secret by any means... but was she ready to parade that around? She couldn't handle any more talk about her than she already had. However, she knew it wouldn't go unnoticed by a certain quarterback if she wasn't wearing her jersey. Not to mention, she wanted to feel like she was part of the team. So, she caved and wore it.

And for the record, she really did try to wear her jersey. But the second some underclassman asked which of the boys' jersey she was wearing, she ran into the bathroom to take it off.

As soon as she saw the bathroom was empty she ripped it off, leaving her in a tank top that was underneath it for the day. She huffed in the mirror, groaning in frustration as she ran her fingers through her curly hair. She shook her head, scolding herself for thinking she could have a normal day. She set herself up for this, she should've known.

"Just had to wear the stupid jersey," Lila muttered to herself ruefully as she tried to fix her appearance to be less disheveled.

And to make a bad day worse, the bathroom door just had to open, three girls on the soccer team walking in. She recognized them from tryouts, they were sophomores. She remembered that she didn't exactly root for them, they weren't at all kind to the incoming class of freshmen. She held back letting out a groan of frustration. She offered them a strained smile in the mirror, trying to gather her things and leave before they had the chance to speak. Naturally, she wasn't that lucky.

"Enjoy playing with all those balls?" one of the girls said, the other two giggling. Lila clenched her jaw, continuing to wash her hands.

She turned around towards the door but one of them blocked her off. The girl turned her nose up at her. "Well between soccer balls and footballs, looks like no one's are safe."

"Nicely done, this is sure to keep me up at night," Lila praised sarcastically. "Care to get out of my way now?"

The last of the girls snorted. "Becoming quite the ball buster aren't you?"

"I'm sorry," Lila spit out unapologetically as she whipped around to face them finally, "did you just learn the word 'balls' for the first time today or something? Or did you just take insult advice from middle schoolers?"

She didn't wait to hear their response before she walked away. She felt tears start to sting her eyes but she refused to let it go any further. Lila hated to admit that she was genuinely hurt. This team was her second family. But they have made it abundantly clear that they couldn't care less about her. Maybe they never did.

She didn't care so much about the underclassmen who she barely knew. But this was coming from people she cared about. She had tried to reach out to them a few times but none of them had even bothered to answer. Clenching her jaw, she forced herself through the crowds of students. Finally reaching her locker, she angrily put in her combination, trying to just focus on one moment at a time. Just get through the damn day, Lila told herself.