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One thing at a time. First things first. Phrases like that have kept me on track for years: little reminders that there’s always a next step, and I always have what it takes to get there.
“Okay, okay. Don’t have a candlegasm.”
That’s all Becca is: a little obsession. A fun, forbidden fantasy. Emphasis on the forbidden.
“I think we might be trapped in this position forever.”
I do my best to keep from doing a totally obvious full body scan, but I can’t help noticing her black leggings and dark green plaid button-down. It has to be made by a company with a name like ‘Lesbians R Us’ or ‘Wear These Clothes to Bang All the Women Ever.’
“I’ll put that in my Tinder bio: shoulders like tense little rocks. Need massages.”
“Do not try dating your teammates. Do not think about dating your teammates. Don’t even say the word dating in front of your teammates. In fact, follow my example and take this rule to such an extreme that you will never date anybody who has stepped onto a sports field of any kind even once in their life.”
Becca’s eyes on mine when I jumped up into a burpee, neither of us glancing away for a second as she watched me pant and strain for her.
“HEY HOES! YOU WANT AN OMELETTE?” I hear the floor creak, and Paulina’s door opens upstairs. Her shout booms through the house. “YEAH, BITCH!”
Half an hour until Becca time. My brain has very unhelpfully decided to start referring to training as ‘Becca time.’ It’s getting pathetic.
“But if it is what you feel, it is the right time to feel it.”
“Thank you, Becca.” The way my name sounds coming out of her mouth has me digging my nails into the back of my hand. Even that’s barely enough to keep me from pinning her to the lockers and finding out if her lips taste as good as they look when she says it.
“I have the camel toe of the century. I’m going to lose circulation to my clit.”
“Maybe it will help restore some feeling to my labia,” Paulina grumbles before taking a sip.
My role as captain comes first. It has to. It’s who I am.
She actually makes me tingle
She’s a whole universe slowly unfolding itself in front of me, and there’s something humbling and precious about that.
“First I’m a troll. Now I’m a star player.” “You’ve always been a star player.” “Oh really? In first year, I didn’t even think you knew my name.” “I always knew your name.”
I’ve always noticed her. I’ve always felt her like a change in seasons, like a shift of scents and colours, of sounds in the air and wind on my skin. Sometimes she’s the first crackle of dried leaves in the fall and sometimes she’s the mud and melting of spring, but she’s always a change. She’s always a collection of warning signs there to remind me I spend every day of my life pulled around the sun by a force I can’t feel or see.
The top of her chest has the slightest tinge of a pink flush to it, and for a second, all I want to do is lick her collarbones and see how deep I can make her blush.
Becca and I’s Pita Pit Experience—as I’ve started calling it in my head—and
“You mean the story about that time the smoke detector went off and we all had to run out of the house in the middle of the night because Jane and her boyfriend set her curtains on fire, and Jane wouldn’t give us any details besides blaming it on a butt plug?” I deadpan. “I blamed it on a butt plug and my Cherry Nights scented candle.” Jane glares while the three of us scream with laughter. I forgot about the candle part. “I c-can’t believe you have a-a-a candle called c-cherry nights,” Iz stammers. They’re laughing so hard they’re wiping tears off their face. “It sounds like a-a-like a...” I
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being a friend means: believing in the people you love so much that they always find their way back to believing in themselves.
You were like the ball whisperer today.” I gawk at her. She stares at me blankly for a second and then claps her hands over her mouth as I start laughing so hard I lose my breath. “Did you really just use the phrase ball whisperer?” I choke out after a moment. “Really, Becca?” “Lacrosse balls!” she insists as she doubles over with laughter too. “I’ve been called a stick master before. Now I’m the ball whisperer. I’m just working all the equipment.” “I mean...” She pauses to suck in a breath. “I could have said you were really great at penetrating the crease.”
She’s directly across from me, and we keep locking eyes, smiling and looking away, then locking eyes again. It’s very gay.
“Guys, seriously?” Jane asks. “A security camera? For herbs? Are we running a grow-op?” “Good idea!” Iz chimes in. “The Babe Cave could use a little extra income.” “You mean our gnome brothel isn’t pulling its weight?” I ask.
My backs of my eyelids are streaked with gold. Everything is gold when I’m kissing her. She makes the whole world melt down into nothing but precious metals.
Is it the most important thing in your life, or the only thing in your life?
I’ve been out as a lesbian since I was seventeen, but I’ve never loved out loud.
I want to choose more wonder. I want to stop holding onto one way of being so tightly I forget the beauty of change. There’s fear in change, of course—even terror, and I feel that with every step away from the path I’ve protected for so long, but I was built to handle change. I am the latest link in a chain that stretches back millennia, just one incarnation in an eternal process of adaptation. I can do this. I can do anything.
“Turtle, waaaaait!” he calls as I yank the front door open. “Turtle byeeeeee!” I sing-song.
Life changes. It’s always moving and shifting, just like the sea or the sky. The world grows and evolves, and we have to grow and evolve right along with it. Counting on people isn’t about asking them not to change; it’s about trusting them to keep being there for you even when they do change.
She’s the beginning.
I will admit that accidentally showing up to practice in a shirt with Becca’s name on the back instead of mine was asking for it.