“Great!” To Karey’s credit, she looks more excited than I would be if I found out I had to play on a team with someone like me. She reaches into her plastic bag and hands me a black bandana with purple polka dots. “You’re a beater. This is your headband. Put it on and stand over there and we’ll do some more explanation and drills in a minute, okay?”
I stand over there. I struggle to turn my square of black-and-purple cloth into a headband and pull the resulting lopsided circle onto my head, where it immediately soaks up a gross layer of sweat. Even with the sun starting to dip below the tree line, Houston is hot.
Karey sorts the rest of the newbies. Melissa decides to be a chaser, which means she gets a white bandana and stands slightly apart, but that doesn’t stop me from scrunching up my face and sticking out my tongue at her.
This had better not be awful, my telepathic mind beams warn her. Also, it’s hot.
Whine, whine, whine, her telepathic mind beams respond, moan, moan, moan. I’m Ellen, and I hate fun.
I know she’s saying this (telepathically) because she’s making The Face, which is what she says I look like when I’m cranky, and which is definitely not true, because I don’t do that dead-eyed mope.
Once we’re all divided, Karey calls the rest of the team over.
“We should probably do icebreakers,” she says. “But first I want to get everyone warmed up a little. Let’s do three laps, with brooms. New players, you’re going to need to get used to running like this, so you may as well start now.”
I’m not immediately sure what “like this” means, and I have not yet seen any brooms. Luckily, Chris pulls a couple of plain PVC pipes out of a bag and bounces over, handing one to me and one to Melissa. “Your broomsticks.” He grins when Melissa inspects the grimy duct-tape grip skeptically. “Trust me, you don’t want to play with the kind that has actual straw on the end—that stuff scratches. Good luck.”
“I think you mean ‘mount up,’” Melissa corrects him, eyes twinkling.
I shrug, check to make sure that other people really are sticking the three-foot poles between their legs, and then mount my “broom.”
I feel all kinds of ridiculous, but I’d be lying if I said that eleven-year-old me isn’t jumping up and down and giggling, at least a little. How long has it been since I’ve pretended to be a witch on a broomstick?
We start running laps. Karey sets the pace, jogging at a medium speed even though Chris and a few other kids bunch behind her like they wish they could pass. I have no such issues. I can’t figure out how to hold the broom so it doesn’t whack against my legs, and I feel lopsided with my left hand pinned down by my waist. Honestly, though, I can’t blame the broom for the way I’m struggling after two laps around the field. It’s a big field; I’m an unathletic kid.
I fall into the back quarter of the group but manage to push through and finish the third lap without dying. A couple of players gather around the tree for water, but I hang back with Melissa, focusing on oxygen before I worry about hydration. So much for choir lungs.
“Are we having fun yet?” I ask between gasps.
Melissa is about to answer, but one of the players by the tree is holding up my flimsy burnt-orange drawstring backpack (free from the UT admissions office). “Hey, who has a phone in here? It’s been going off for a while.”
I roll my eyes and jog closer to grab the bag. Of course Connie doesn’t understand the possibility that I might be too busy to answer the phone exactly when she wants me to. I dig past my wallet, water bottle, and house keys to pull out my phone. I scowl at the screen, half tempted to ignore my stepmom entirely.
But it isn’t Connie calling. It’s Dad.
“Hey,” I answer, “I’m just—”
“Ellen, where are you? We couldn’t get hold of you, and Connie didn’t know where you’d gone—said you just took off.”
“I didn’t! I’m at the park with Melissa.”
“We need you to answer your phone,” Dad says. “You can’t— I don’t really have time for this, Ellen, for your . . .” Dad takes the deep breath, the one that stops him from saying something bad.
I let his unfinished sentence hang without asking why it’s always my dot-dot-dot and never Connie’s.
“I need you to go home,” Dad says. “Now. We’ll talk when I get back from work. And . . . try not to start any more fights, please.”
He hangs up quickly, like he’s afraid I’m going to argue. But it’s hard to argue when my throat is so tight and my lungs are squeezed inside my rib cage that suddenly feels too small. I’ve always hated that my body’s default reaction to anger is tears. It makes me feel small and weak, which only makes me angrier and makes the tears well up faster.
I blink hard at the ground, my phone dark in my palm and my backpack still dangling off my wrist.
“Everything okay?” the kid who grabbed my backpack in the first place asks.
He’s definitely trying to be nice, but at this moment it’s the worst question anyone could ask me. I don’t want this person to know that I’m upset, frustrated, confused and tired and mad. I can’t look up, can’t answer without giving myself away. I hate that. I hate my stupid tear ducts and my stupid anger and my stupid stepmom.
Melissa rescues me.
“Hey.” She tugs at my arm, and I let her lead me away from the tree. “What’s up? Stepmom struggles? Anything terrible?”
“Just pissed,” I mutter, knowing that Melissa will politely ignore the sniffle I can’t hold back. “My dad called. He’s— I think he might be super mad.” My stomach twists in on itself as his voice echoes in my ears. Not even his words, just the way he sounded. Empty, tired, like he’s dealing with an especially demanding client.
“Mad about what?” Melissa asks. “I thought he always wants you to be more active and spend time outside.”
“Yeah, no, it’s because I sort of left the house without permission. Connie didn’t really want me to . . .” I shrug and sniff again, annoyed at my nose and everything. “And I kind of need to get home right now.”
Melissa nods. She walks away, talks to Chris and then to Karey, comes back, and puts her arm around me as she leads me out of the park. “You’re fine,” she tells me. “I mean, it’s crappy, but it’s fine. They practice again on Sunday. It’s fine.”
“I am fine,” I growl, caught somewhere between immense gratitude and annoyance. “It’s not—I’m just frustrated. Everyone’s going to think I’m a freak.”
“They’re not even paying attention,” Melissa tries to soothe me.