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Coach Delgado blew the whistle and gathered them at the center of the field, and that's when he said it.

“Bree Bowman is going to be out for the week. She's visiting family in Temecula. Grandmother, I think.” He was matter of fact about it. “Cat, I'm going to need you to adjust your positioning⁠—”

Kayla wasn't listening to the rest of it.

She was watching Mandy.

Mandy was standing two people to her left, her stick in both hands, her eyes on Coach Delgado. From the outside she looked fine. Slightly tired maybe, but it had been a long week.

Except her knuckles were white on the stick.

Kayla looked back at Coach Delgado and nodded at the right moments and then practice started and she ran the drills and did what she was supposed to do, but the whole time she watched Mandy out of the corner of her eye.

Mandy was playing. She screwed up on two easy passes, then during scrimmage she had an opportunity for the goal that she missed by a mile.

Mandy was too good for this.

At the water break Kayla fell into step beside her. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Mandy took a long drink from her water bottle.

“You okay?”

“I screwed up, is that what you wanted to hear?”

“I’m not talking about that. Everybody has off-days. I’m talking about Bree. You seemed upset. Did you know she was going to visit her grandma?”

“Yeah. She mentioned it.” She’d taken too long to answer. Way too long.

“She didn't say anything to me.”

Mandy shrugged. “Bree doesn’t tell you everything. You’re not the center of the world, Kayla.”

That stung. “It’s just that I’m worried. About her. About you.”

“Well stop it. We’re big girls.”

Kayla watched her. “Mandy.”

“I'm fine.” She turned and looked at her directly for the first time. Her eyes and voice were steady and Kayla almost believed her. Almost. “I'm tired and I have a lot going on at home and it's nothing. If you don’t let it go… Well I don’t know what I’m going to do. But it won’t be good. Got it?”

Kayla’s stomach dropped. “Okay,” she whispered.

Mandy's shoulders dropped half an inch. “Thank you.”

They went back to practice.

Kayla ran the next two drills and made herself focus and stop watching Mandy. She was doing fine at that until she heard Coach blow the whistle in a different pattern and she looked up to see Mandy's stick on the ground and Mandy walking fast toward the sideline, one hand over her mouth like she was going to throw up.

Kayla started after her.

“Leave her,” Cat said quietly, appearing at her elbow. “You’re going to make it worse.”

Kayla stopped. She watched Mandy disappear into the field house.

Cat was right, she should leave it. The idea of losing Mandy, it killed. But her gut told her this was something bigger than losing her friendship. But right now there was nothing she could do. She went back to the drills.