"Clémence, could you come here for a second?"
The words echo in my ears as I'm about to make my way to the gym lockers.
"Sure, coach Julia, what is it?" I ask, joining her on the football field as my teammates make their way to the showers.
"You seemed off your game today. Is everything okay?"
"Yeah, sure," I tentatively answer, even though I know she won't take it.
"You know you're going to have to do a lot better than this if you want to make it to college with a scholarship, right?"
"Yes, I know, I've just been tired lately," I lie.
That's not exactly a lie: I HAVE been tired. Tired of hearing about college, tired of my folks putting pressure on me about how we won't be able to afford it without the scholarship. Tired of my boyfriend turning his head to every girl that crosses his path.
Or should I say ex-boyfriend? I don't know what we are anymore, but what I do know is that just a few hours ago, I caught him kissing that girl from the cheerleading squad, the one who's got a body so perfect, I heard Victoria's Secret asked her to model for them.
So much for going to college together! I was so shocked when I saw them; I didn't even say anything. I did manage to react and kick him in the balls, though, so he'll remember that one for a while, but for some reason that doesn't even make me feel better.
I could tell my friends about it and hear how they think he's a bastard who doesn't deserve me, but to be honest, I'm not sure I care enough about him or that prospect of going to college together. Like everything else in my life lately, it just all seems so... dull, and pointless?
Like who goes to college with their high school sweetheart, anyway? And besides, he fits into the whole "dating the cheerleading team captain" cliché better than anyone else: he is the quarterback, after all.
So am I, except on the girl's football team. When you think about it, it's kind of weird it even lasted that long between us: I am anything but the sexy type that I know he likes, and even though I'd say my body is pretty okay, the scars and bruises all over it don't quite fit with what he seems to enjoy.
Still, I liked the idea of us dating, showing the world that you don't have to be a "girly girl" to have the guy of your dreams.
The coach is still talking and I realize I've completely lost track of what she's saying.
"... and given your record and your average in other classes, you can't afford to..."
It's not that I don't like coach Julia, she's known me for a while and I know she has my interests at heart it's just that...
A loud bang in the back interrupts her, along with my thoughts, and I thank whatever it is that stopped her broken record from playing yet another song about my future.
"Those kids are going to kill me one day," she says as she hands me the keys for the changing rooms. "I have to take care of this and run home afterwards. Would you close up after me?". I nod, relieved that her monolog has ended prematurely.
"Take care of yourself, Clémence. You know I have faith in you."
"Yes coach," I let out, as she's already running towards the other end of the field.
As I make my way to the showers, I see that new girl, Alex, running on the track around the field. What kind of person goes running at 9 PM?
You're the one to talk, I think. It is true that given the recent breakup, my plans for the night have pretty much vanished, so I don't have anything planned either.
Yeah, but it's not the same, right?
It's not that I don't like her or anything - I don't even know her, we have one class in common and she just arrived a few months ago - but the prospect of being that friendless and lonely on a Friday night just scares me.
As I walk on the track, she runs just past through me, leaving a distinct scent in the air. Could it be... peonies? How could that even be? She's been running for like an hour, at least. The only thing she must smell like is sweat. Perfect, now I have hallucinations as well !
I enter the building and make my way to the showers, only to see that none of my teammates thought of cleaning up the football gear in the room next to the showers that we use as storage. Helmets, knee-pads and gloves are scattered around the floor, enough to accommodate a whole team.
Guys ! Really?
For a moment, I consider leaving the room this way and letting someone else take care of the mess. But within seconds, I bend down and start tossing everything in its place while cursing out loud.
The storage room is small, so I have to close the door to access the storage bins that are behind it, only to realize the bins are missing. "You've got to be kidding me," I think, then it hits me: we used those bins for practice today, so they must still be outside.
I come out and there they are, at the other end of the field, as if someone had put them as far away from me as possible. I walk along the now empty track and finally retrieve them. Going back inside, I hang the bins where they belong and proceed to store all the equipment.
Coach Julia must already be having dinner by now, while I'm stuck here organizing this stuff in her place ! Then again, I guess she probably does it every week, I think, suddenly feeling guilty about my friends who constantly leave their stuff on the floor - not me of course, my mum would kill me if I ever did something like that, but my friends' mums don't seem to mind, as I've seen them do the same in their own rooms.
After what feels like an eternity - ok, twenty minutes or so - I'm finally done and I leave the storage room and make my way to the showers. As I pass by the lockers and take out my clothes, I hear water in the background. Who could still be there at that time? It's probably that old shower head that sometimes misbehaves. Last week I was all dry, clothed and ready to go when it started spraying water all over me for no reason !
I enter the room and sure enough, the shower head is spraying what seems to be all of the city's water supplies on the floor, as if an invisible person was taking a shower. As I make my way to the back of the room - it is L-shaped so I like to go all the way to the back where people can't see me when they open the door. Counting the white tiles on the floor - or actually, playing that game where you have to skip one out of two, I'm almost there when I suddenly see someone's painted toes on the floor.
I look up and there she is, Alex, just a few meters away from me, at the very end of the room, where I was planning to go... Except she cannot see me because her eyes are closed and her hand is between her legs. I feel the heat in my cheeks as I stand there: she must think she's alone, and with the other shower, it's easy not to hear someone, especially when you're... busy, like she is right now.
I know I should leave or say something, but I just stay there, frozen and dumbfounded. It's not that I've never seen another girl naked. We all shower together after practice every week, but never so close, and never while she's masturbating! Even thinking the word makes me blush, and even though my friends all seem to do it, there's something about it that I just find... gross?
As I stand there, I look at her: the water looks warm - it is warm, actually. I can feel a few droplets landing on my arms - but I still notice the goosebumps on her skin.
Yeah, that's not from the cold, I realize, suddenly blushing again. Her hand is still between her legs and my eyes follow her arm all the way to her mound. Where I expected to see a neat, little strip of hair like everyone of my friends seems to have these days, I see a trimmed but still large patch of hair. Her finger is still doing whatever it is doing, and judging by the slight moans that she makes from time to time, it's doing it well.
My eyes go back up to her chest - I kind of expected her aureola to be darker, given her skin tone - and I can see that her nipples are hard, like little buds begging for attention. One of them is, at least, as her other hand is grabbing her boob and massaging it - it doesn't seem to quite fit though - and her fingers are pinching the nipple from time to time.
Under my towel, I can feel my own nipples starting to harden, as if they were trying to join the fun. I feel some heat in my belly, the kind that I get when watching a movie and seeing a sex scene, right before my parents change the channel and try to look as if nothing happened. While still looking at her, I wonder if her breast would fit into my hands. I'm not sure it would, though.