You Don't Have a Shot by Racquel Marie

Author:Racquel Marie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

TWENTY-FOUR

APPROACHING THE HALFWAY POINT OF THE summer, we need to crank up our focus or we’ll lose momentum in whatever good we’ve managed thus far. Safe to say that waiting for a late Marley in the shivering Monday morning air while Leticia smacks her chicle isn’t a great start.

“Sorry, sorry!” Marley sings as she runs over to our field, long legs goose bumped in neon-pink running shorts. She drops her bag and adjusts the bow at the end of her braid. “I forgot about this last-minute practice.”

“Seeing as it was scheduled at nearly midnight last night, that’s not very surprising,” Leticia murmurs from the sideline.

“You need more practice defending penalty kicks,” I tell Marley, ignoring Leticia. “I know it was last minute, but this is important. I expect you to be on time.”

“Oh, calm your castle, Princesa,” Leticia says, sitting up. “She was ten minutes late.”

Finally I face Leticia. “She could’ve been on time if she ditched the makeup and glitter.”

Marley raises her pointer finger. “‘She’ is also right here. Look, I’m sorry for being late, it won’t happen again.” Her finger sags. “But as for how I choose to get ready in the morning, if never exfoliating your face or moisturizing your legs makes you happy, all the power to you, Vale, genuinely. But let’s not police how other girls get our gender euphoria, yeah?” With that, Marley spins away, her braid twirling behind her as she struts toward the goal and starts tugging on her gloves.

Leticia poorly holds back a laugh, then motions to my knees. “You really should do something about those.”

“Go put your gear on,” I snap. She rolls her eyes and goes to trade out her slides for cleats.

I approach Marley, swallowing hard. She’s focused on her gloves, but seeing as they’re fully strapped already, I’m guessing she’s just avoiding eye contact with me.

I don’t do apologies well, considering they’re rarely given or accepted in my house. I try anyway. “Hey, I’m really sorry.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”

“No, it’s not.” I bite the inside of my cheek to ground my breathing. “How you choose to dress or do your hair and makeup or whatever isn’t something I have a right to dictate. Especially when it looks this good.” I motion to her sparkling cheekbones and she stifles a smile. It fills my strained lungs with relief. “I’m sorry. Won’t happen again.”

“And I won’t be late again.” She wiggles her gloved hands. “Believe it or not, I actually do want to get good.”

“You’re already good,” I say, believing it and hoping she does too.

“It’s just that every year I’ve gone to camp here, I’ve been slotted into whatever spare position the team needed. Even that team I played on with Leticia a few years ago tossed me around.” Marley looks down at her cleats, mud caking their white and pink leather. “This is the first team I’ve ever been on where I feel like I’m actually being treated like a player and not a burden.”

“You can thank her for that.

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