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MARA
narrative
july 6th, 2023
Mara's body shivered with anticipation as she stepped off of the plane. She'd only just arrived in Virginia, but everything already felt different. A lot had changed for her over the past year. She lost her ACL, she lost her mom, and most recently, she lost her best friend.
Kate Martin had been nothing short of amazing to Mara since the first time the latter had stepped on campus. She welcomed her to the team, showed her around campus, and she'd even invited her over to dinner at her apartment when Mara ran out of meal swipes on her card. Kate had always been the big sister on the team, but this was different and everyone knew it. Saying goodbye to Kate had been the hardest by far. That was all Mara thought about as she went through the motions, picking her bags up from baggage claim and making her way through the airport. She stopped when she was met with a line of people, mostly men in suits, holding up signs with people's names on them. Her eyes scanned the crowd until she saw a short brunette, holding a piece of paper upside down.
Mara walked slowly towards her until she figured out that it was in fact her name scribbled on the paper. "Excuse me, I'm pretty sure that's my name you're holding upside down on that paper."
"Shit." The woman glanced over, glancing over and quickly fixing the paper. "Wait, I don't need this anymore." She chuckled at herself and put the paper in her pocket. "Hi, I'm Georgia Amoore."
"Mara Sheffield," She accepted the perky woman's handshake.
"I know who you are." Georgia paused momentarily. "That sounded stalkerish, sorry. What I meant is that I know who you are because Coach Kenny told me to come here to pick you up."
"Right." Mara responded hesitantly. Nothing was wrong with Georgia, but she was just...a lot to deal with after just getting off of a 3 hour flight.
"Well, my car's just outside. I'll take you over to campus."
XXX
Mara yawned as she and Georgia walked around campus. "How was your flight?" Truth be told, Mara was absolutely exhausted and wanted nothing more than to get to her dorm room and fall asleep.
"It was okay, a bit of turbulence, but not much else." She dragged her suitcase sluggishly behind her as her feet dragged against the pavement.
"Here, let me take this." Georgia muttered, taking the suitcase out of Mara's hands. "Not much stuff with you, huh?"
"No, uh..." Mara paused to yawn again. "My old team is shipping most of my stuff over later this week. This is just the essentials."
"Right." Georgia muttered, finally reading the expression on her new teammate's face. "I should probably let you go back to your dorm and get some sleep. You must be exhausted."
"Yeah." Mara nodded. "Which way is my dorm again?"
The brunette chuckled. "It's Pearson Hall West, a bit back that way." Georgia pointed back in the direction that the two had been walking.
It was going to take some getting used to for Mara.
