“It’s not a big deal. I can improve my grades while still playing. Please don’t bench me.”
“I don’t want you at games until your scholarship is out of jeopardy.”
“This isn’t fair,” I complain. “You know you don’t have any other forwards that can do what I do. Do you really want to lose your best striker?”
“It’s moot, Jamie,” Coach says, unmoved by my sass. “You won’t be on the team if you’re kicked out of school. Improve your grades so I can keep my best striker.”
“So, what now? Am I still allowed at practice?”
“Will you let it distract you from your more important goal?”
I frown, crossing my arms. “You know I want to stay in school. I’ll try harder, I promise. Just don’t exclude me from practice. Please?”
“I believe in you, Jamie,” Coach says, holding my gaze. “You’ll be back on the team in no time. But I don’t want you rusty, so yes, you can train with the team. Under one condition.”
My eyes widen. “What is it?”
“You can only practice with the team. I don’t want you messing about with a soccer ball on your own time.”
I screw up my face. “What kind of rule is that?”
“Any time you think about kicking a ball around, I want you to study instead.”
“That’s crazy. I’ll be studying around the clock.”
Coach points a finger gun at me and winks. “Bingo.”
I click my tongue. “Ugh. Lame.”
“Go on, now. Get yourself to the locker room. I want you to improve your attitude toward schoolwork.”
I kick the grass as I turn away from him. “Fine.”
I scuff away from Coach. This is a living nightmare. Studying is a challenge, but also having no soccer? Unbearable.
Once I’ve changed into my restrictive school uniform including a blazer, blouse with irritating neckerchief, tartan skirt, knee-high socks, and shiny black shoes, I move into the main school building. I have zero energy to get to my locker. I just want to be done with the day already and it’s not even 9 a.m.
My backpack slings over one shoulder and it’s wearing me down. I fling it behind me, aiming for the other arm stretched behind my back.
Someone yelps behind me. “Ugh. Watch it!”
I look over my shoulder and see the hard edges of Camila Garcia’s reddening face as she grits her teeth and scrunches her fists. “Oh, ahh, sorry.”
Camila smooths down her blazer and fixes her sleek black hair. “Sorry? You’d better be. You just whacked me in the head.”
Before I can yammer a feeble response, Camila looks up and into my eyes. Her lips crook into a sinister smile, realizing it’s me who has wronged her.
“Well, well,” she says in a throaty voice. “If it isn’t the little harlot’s daughter.”
I jerk backwards, running into a student behind me. “Excuse me?”
“You almost sound as sickened as I was when I found that dirty, dirty picture,” Camila says in a menacingly mocking tone.
“What,” I stammer. “What picture?”
Camila pulls out her phone and taps on a photo. “Here’s dearest Mommy, looking her absolute finest.”
Air constricts in my chest as I look at the under-lit and awkwardly framed photo. But it doesn’t matter how bad Camila is at photography. What matters is why she found a deteriorating flyer of my mother in a silver bikini, posing against a metal pole.
