Page 53 of Anatomy of Us

Minute sixty-eight, we win a corner.

Zoe sets the ball. Everyone crowds the box, the usual shoves and jersey tugs, bodies stacked like a traffic jam.

Zoe strikes with the inside of her cleat. Perfect flight. A poisoned little arc that drops right where the keeper hesitates—come out or trust her defenders. Chaos. Bodies jump. Elbows. A clearance finally comes, but the ball falls to Jamie at the top of the box.

She doesn’t think. She doesn’t try to build something pretty. She just hits it back toward goal.

And there’s Iris.

She appears like she spawns out of thin air, breaks free with a move that feels illegal. She leaps. One header.The ball snaps into the upper left corner and the keeper can’t touch it.

Goal.

Our fans erupt. Three thousand people screaming like thirty thousand. Iris sprints toward them, yanks off her jersey, and spins it over her head.

Yellow card.

Hades grabs her own hair and stares at the sky like she’s asking the universe why it gives her talent and chaos in the same body.

Twenty minutes left.

“That girl is half insane,” Sara says beside me.

“Fully,” I answer, “but nobody has more goals than her.”

Zoe isn’t the same player she was a year ago.

She doesn’t win fifty-fifties as easily. Her sprints come shorter, measured, conserving energy.

But she plays smarter now.

She owns the midfield like it belongs to her. She points teammates into positions. She reads plays before they happen. She doesn’t chase the ball; she moves to where the ball will be.

She slows the tempo, but makes it deadlier.

Minute eighty-five.

Zoe wins the ball at midfield. Nothing flashy. She just cuts out a sloppy pass. She lifts her head.

I see what she sees: Jade peeling wide right, dragging a defender. Iris running the line toward the box. The pass is almost impossible. A long ball, forty yards in the air, dropped into the seam between center back and fullback. Iris doesn’t even have to break stride. The ball lands right into her run. No offside.

She brings it down off her chest. One touch. She opens onto her stronger foot.

She shoots.

The ball stays low, hunting the bottom corner.

The keeper dives.

Too late.

Goal.

1–2.

Our fans blow up again, and Iris starts to sprint toward them to celebrate.

“Don’t you dare take your jersey off, Vance!” Hades screams from the bench. “I swear I’ll trade you to another team!”