Page 5 of Rock Bottom Girl

Iwiped my damp palms on my thrift-store-find Umbros. My mom insisted that if I was just going to sweat and roll around in the grass, I didn’t need to do it in full-price name brands. So I’d saved up birthday and Christmas money, squirreling it away until our annual end-of-summer outlet trip.

Yep, I was rocking the black-and-white-striped Adidas flip-flops that the varsity first string all had last year, Umbro shorts, and the same exact Nike t-shirt Mia Hamm, my soccer idol, had worn during the Summer Olympic Games. There wasn’t anything about my outfit that they could make fun of, I assured myself.

This year would be different.

I’d gotten rid of the headband they’d cracked jokes about. I’d even shaved the baby fine blonde hairs on my big toe that made Steffi Lynn Jerkface gag for ten minutes after she saw me getting taped up before a game last season. I grew out my bangs. And I’d spent the last two weeks practicing a new smile. Close-lipped, eyes wide. Friendly, mature.

“Ugh! Your eyes disappear when you smile. Never smile again. It’s creepy.” My memories of soccer were not fond ones.

The deep breath didn’t help settle my nerves. In fact, I felt a little bit like puking. This was the first day of preseason, and it was make or break. I wanted so badly to be one of the sophomores to make the varsity team. I’d practiced over the summer but wasn’t sure if it was enough.

The walk from home to the high school was five blocks. Close enough that my parents didn’t need to drive me. And in a few short months, I’d have my driver’s license. When I had that laminated gold key, I’d back down the driveway just to pick up the mail, I decided. Well, if Mom or Dad would let me use their cars.

The high school parking lot loomed in front of me. Pretty, loud juniors and seniors in their very own cars unloaded thermoses of water and tied high ponytails. They were so confident. So sure of their place in this world. Meanwhile, I was lurking near the entrance to the parking lot and waiting for an engraved invitation to orbit around them.

This would be the year. They would like me. There was nothing not to like, at least according to my annoyingly adoring parents. But they didn’t understand. Somehow I’d been gifted with an invisible bull’s-eye that marked me as a loser, an undesirable. Sure, I had friends on the junior varsity team. But the older girls? Those juniors and seniors with life all figured out? They hated me.

I wasn’t sure what was wrong with me, but I’d hoped I’d changed enough that I’d shed that bull’s-eye. I didn’t think my fragile teenage heart could stand another entire season of constant ass kicking.

A car horn beeped. “Hi, Marley!”

My best friend, Vicky—thank God she was on the team—and her mom waved at me. Vicky’s family lived outside of town, and her mom took turns carpooling with some of the other JV team moms. Three other girls piled out of Vicky’s mom’s back seat.

“Ugh, it’s soooo early,” Vicky complained, scraping her frizz of red curls back in a lumpy ponytail with a scrunchie. It had taken me twenty minutes and half a bottle of Aqua Net to smooth the lumps out of my own hair. “When I’m an adult, I’m never getting out of bed before ten,” she announced.

“Aren’t you just a little excited?” I asked. “New year? New start?” Every year, the idea of the first day of school ignited a hard, bright hope in me.

“Please,” Vicky scoffed. “Nothing is new. It’s the same old assholes doing the same old assholey things. Nothing will get better until we get out of here.”

Praying she was wrong, I climbed the hill to the practice field with her. The red brick prison of the high school building was to the left of the field and parking lot. The entire summer was behind me, and this—the patchy green grass of the soccer field and the glossy, industrial, chemical-scented linoleumed halls—were my foreseeable future.

I couldn’t suppress the shudder that rolled up my spine.

“It’s not that bad,” I said, mostly trying to convince myself. “We’re sophomores. This year we get driver’s licenses and hopefully boobs.”

“I’m going to take that license and my future boobs, and when I graduate, I’m going to drive out of this hell hole with both middle fingers flying out the car window.”

I laughed. “How will you steer?”

“With my knee,” Vicky decided.

“And where will you go?”

“Anywhere but here,” she said. “And I’ll have a cool job that gives me lots of money and lets me set my own hours. I’ll have a stable full of men at my beck and call.”

Linking my arm through hers, I thanked my lucky stars for Vicky Kerblanski.

The girls were slowly migrating toward the small set of steel bleachers at the closest end of the field. The coaches, Coach Norman and Coach Clancy, were wearing their standard uniform of seventies-style short shorts and too-tight polo shirts that emphasized their beer bellies. Coach Norman was barrel-shaped and grizzled. He smoked like a four-alarm fire. Clancy was short and mostly skinny with a Hitleresque mustache. Together they coached the varsity and junior varsity girls soccer teams. And by coached, I mean they yelled a lot and took smoke breaks.

But this season would be different. I’d practiced. Hell, I’d even run a couple of miles over the summer. I was also an inch taller than last year, and I hoped it was all leg.

None of the older girls had noticed me yet, and I breathed a sigh of relief. It was probably a bit much to expect them to part their circle and welcome the new bangless, hairless-toed me.

Vicky and I dumped our bags on the ground and sat to pull on our cleats.

“Cute socks,” Vicky said, nodding at my green striped knee socks covering my shin guards.

They’d been an impulse buy at an athletic store. I hadn’t seen anyone cool wearing them, but the emerald green had beckoned me.