3

See? Fate Hates Me

Sam put a hand to his jaw, staring at Robert in disbelief.

Next to me, Maddy mumbled, "Oh God" as Robert groaned, shaking his hand from the terrible punch he had just landed.

Sam scoffed, his mouth hard as he glowered at Robert. "Are you kidding me?"

Robert's nostrils flared as he attempted to swing at Sam again. This time, Sam quickly got out of the way, pushing Robert back hard. Robert stumbled as Sam hissed at him, "You thought you were okay to drive?"

Robert adjusted himself, coming for Sam again, but Sam pushed him harder. Robert almost tripped on his feet before he recovered. It didn't matter; Sam was only getting angrier, his green eyes flashing. "And you were going to put her and everyone else around you at risk?"

He shoved Robert to the ground before Robert even thought to retaliate. I winced at Robert falling onto his back with a loud slam accompanied by a deep groan. The sound started to gain attraction from the group of people on the other side of the parking lot. Sam didn't notice as he glowered down at Robert. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

The crowd of people started to move over to our area. No, no, no. Sam didn't cause commotions; he didn't get into fights. He didn't do what he used to do anymore. If someone took a picture or a video of what was happening and it got back to his parents, it would erase all the positive changes he had made since he'd been in his dark place.

"Sam," I warned.

Sam glanced back at me, and I tilted my head in the direction of the group of people making their way over to us. They weren't far now. Sam looked at them but then set his focus back on Robert, glaring down at him. Robert wasn't amused now. In fact, he was breathing hard and fast, waiting, wincing as if Sam was going to shove him again.

"Now leave Maddy alone," Sam said, gesturing for us to follow him to the car. Maddy and I were quick to follow before the group of people reached us. I sighed in relief as Sam glanced over at our friend. "You okay?"

"Yeah." She squeezed my hand. "Thanks for coming. Both of you."

Sam unlocked the car and was about to enter, but not before I reached out to see where Robert had punched him. He'd barely caught him, but the skin near his cheekbone was bright red. "Are you okay?"

When he locked eyes with me, he knew that was a loaded question. Nevertheless, he nodded. "You?"

"Yeah," I whispered, glancing over at the scene in the distance. Robert was still on the ground, the people crowding him. But no one saw us.

"Mads, you staying over tonight?" he asked once we all settled in the car.

"If you don't mind?" Maddy's voice was mixed with the sudden buzzing of Sam's phone in his pocket. "I was going to sleep over at my friend's, but she's probably out right now."

Sam didn't seem bothered, but he did stare down at his phone for longer than I had expected. When he caught me looking, he shrugged. "Telemarketer."

When we entered the apartment moments later, Peter wasn't there. There was a note on the counter stating that his girlfriend wasn't sick of him after all, and he had left to visit her in Toronto a few hours earlier. Leaving Sam in his bedroom to do schoolwork, I joined Maddy in the guest room later that night. She was lying on the bed, scrolling through her phone with the laptop I had let her borrow next to her. "What are you doing?"

"Blocking that guy on everything and deleting his phone number. He can no longer look at my Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr—"

"Tumblr? He had your Tumblr?" I asked her, lying down on the bed next to her and opening my laptop.

"Don't judge me. Anyway, this place is big. Sam's really loaded." I nodded in agreement as she put her phone down. "Wait, don't you and Sam have your something-month anniversary coming up?"

"Our six-month. If Sam was here, he would tell you how many months, days, hours, minutes, and seconds it's been since we got together."

"I always knew the guy was a freak."

I let out a laugh at that before a video call request pinged on my screen, and I grinned, accepting it. Andrew was currently eating a sandwich in his single dorm room. His blond hair had grown out a bit, and his skin still held the tan he had gotten in the summer.

"Drew!"

He gave me a sandwich-filled smile. I was glad to know that, like me, his love of food would never change.

"Sorry, this is really good," he said, taking another bite.

"Guess what?"

"What?"

"You owe me fifty bucks."

His jaw dropped, and quickly he put a hand to his mouth to keep the food he had yet to swallow from falling out. "Chelsea won?"

"Send me the money," I demanded, grinning at him.

Andrew grumbled, taking out his phone. "Have you heard from Jasmine?" he suddenly asked.

"You haven't talked to your girlfriend?" I understood me not talking to her in a while since we were both busy, but they were dating. The Jasmine I'd known pre-university had been stuck to Andrew like glue. Whenever they were apart, she'd constantly text him.

"I haven't heard from her since Tuesday. Do you think something is wrong?"

"I spoke to Drake on Thursday," I said, referring to Jasmine's brother. "He said she's fine, just busy. She joined some extracurriculars and got a job as a part-time lifeguard."

"I know." He rubbed the back of his neck. "It's not like her to take days to respond, though, you know?"

I know. But I was here to assure my friend, not feed him more doubts.

"Andrew, wait it out," Maddy said, moving over to show herself on the screen. "Jasmine will respond soon."

"Hey, Maddy," Andrew said, finishing his sandwich as my phone lit up with the notification of the money he'd sent. The two quickly engaged in a conversation about how her night had gone. While I still felt anger toward the guy who had attempted to take her on a joyride, another thought was also on my mind: What was happening with Jasmine?

~

"Let's go, go, go!" Coach Fields pressured us on Monday morning. It was going to be a week filled with lectures, labs, exams, assignments, and intense practices like this one. "Let's go. Practices should be harder than the real game. You'll get used to this in no time."

He'd been saying that since August.

By the looks of it, no one was getting used to his methods of torture.

Along with the team, I sprinted down the field and back to the other side. When he yelled, "Again!" we repeated the action. Every single one of us was panting as Coach shook his head. "Shame. You didn't make it," he said dryly, as we'd fallen short of his expected time.

That's when everyone groaned loudly in unison, and I put my hands on my head like the others to get more oxygen through my body. "I have an idea. You are going to go down the field and back in pairs. That way I can see who makes it and who doesn't each time. I can guarantee that each and every one of you will make it down and back before my timer runs out. Is that clear?"

A grumpy "Yes sir" came out of my teammates' mouths while I said, "Crystal" under my breath.

As members of my team ran up and down the field in pairs, I shuffled, trying to figure out who I'd be up against. Not that it mattered, but to some it was going to matter more than to others.

"Okay, Nesmith, Anderson, you're up next."

Tanya.

See? Fate hates me.

I dragged myself to the starting line while Tanya did the same a small distance away from me. If she beat me, she wouldn't let me live it down. If I beat her, she'd find a way to keep annoying me or call it a fluke. I wanted to make it down and back before the time was up.

"Go! "

I pushed off the second he said it and forced my legs to make their way speedily down the field. The grass tore up wherever my cleats dug into the dirt. Tanya was merely a hand's length away from me. When I reached the end of the field, I almost slid, reaching my right arm out to touch the line end before pushing off and turning around.

Adrenaline pumped through my veins as Tanya gained the tiniest lead. Not on my watch. I hadn't planned on making this a competition—but now I was. I forced my legs to go faster, gaining momentum as I ended up passing her. When I reached the end, I didn't slow until I breezed past Coach.

Tanya followed, scowling at me as she crossed the line a moment behind me. Coach looked pleased. "Anderson, good one. You both made it. Kaur! Gold! You're up!"

Tanya's dirty looks didn't stop for the rest of practice that morning. By the time we were in the change room, she was complaining loudly to her little clique on the team. I didn't care much for the rest of them, but they didn't seem to care for what she said that much either. "I think he might come to the party."

"Sam Cahill is so not coming," said one girl, a midfielder in the same year as us. "Tanya, I saw the whole thing go down."

I almost laughed. Good, there were witnesses.

Tanya rolled her eyes. "He would, you know?" Sure. I needed the evil shrew to back off and simmer down.

Her friends exchanged a look before one of them, a right wing, murmured, "You know Macy's right there, yeah?"

The three of them glanced at me. Thank God for the earphones that contributed to the illusion that I wasn't listening. They had been blasting music from one of my favorite bands until I had turned down the volume when I saw Tanya's mouth moving.

I was putting on a T-shirt, avoiding their eyes and looking back at my locker, but I didn't miss when Tanya got sour now that I had been brought up. "He calls her Hazel. Like the color. Clearly she isn't even worthy enough for him to call her by her actual name."

Okay.

"Shut up, Tanya."

My eyebrows shot up as I swiveled around the room to see who had said something.

Anmol.

Defender. Wingback. She was really good on the field. She was South Asian, with medium-brown skin and wavy black hair that she was currently running a brush through as she rolled her brown eyes at Tanya.

"No one's talking to you," Tanya snapped back. How was she on the team with this behavior? Jeez.

"That's because you're taking up space by running your mouth," Anmol retorted. "Do us all a favor and be quiet."

Tanya pursed her lips. Then she took Anmol's advice, grabbing her duffel bag and walking out of the room. The room filled with chatter once again and my shoulders relaxed at how positive the atmosphere seemed to get the second she left. I was here to play soccer, not give in to high school antics. Tanya thought she could say whatever she wanted behind my back, and I didn't care for it, but it was nice to see her put in her place.

In fact, Anmol moved over, sitting down on the bench in front of my locker. I pulled my earphones out. "Thanks."

"You know you could totally take her, right?"

Anmol looked up at me. Sure, with my height, everyone made that assumption. And although it was likely I could, I also didn't want to be expelled from HDF two months in. Or ever. "She's not worth it."

Anmol's smile made me grin back. "Don't let her get to you. She's also probably jealous because you beat her in the duo thing today." I scoffed. "And you're a great soccer player. No wonder she's jealous of you."

"Stop," I said, knowing she was trying to cheer me up by feeding my ego. It completely worked. I definitely still planned to train more, hoping to get starter as a rookie. Hoping to get noticed.

As Anmol and I left the building, I learned that she was originally from Toronto and ethnically she was Indian. She had one sister, and she wanted a new gym buddy if I was up for it. We already had a schedule for soccer set for the year, but I was willing to find someone to partner with at the gym. Plus, it was a good chance to get to know someone on the team better.

In high school, all of my team members were my friends. The guys were like my family. Here, the dynamic was very different even though everyone worked well together. But it wasn't the same. There was no let's hang out after school. There was no staying on the field and joking around together. Everything about soccer at HDF was professional and mature. It was what I'd asked for, but it made me miss everything I hadn't thought I'd miss that much.

Anmol and I parted ways with a plan to meet up the next day, and I was walking toward my dorm building when I received a phone call from my dad.

I answered the call with a large smile. "Hi, Mr. Krabs."

He chuckled. "Hi, Sandy."

That never got old.

"How's Patrick?" I asked.

"Your brother is the same as he always was," Dad grumbled. "He keeps on about wanting to move to Redmond."

"Again?" Justin was relentless. When we had gone to Redmond during spring break to visit our maternal grandmother, Justin had met Emma, and soon he was over the moon for her. We had made two more visits to Redmond since then, more than we had in years, to see our Nonna. But for Justin, he was there mostly for Emma. "Dad, you should send him to live with Nonna if he keeps saying that over and over again."

"I'm not sending my fifteen-year-old son off to Redmond," Dad said. "It's bad enough my favorite daughter isn't home."

I laughed under my breath. "I'm your only daughter. He really loves Emma."

"I can tell, but he's going to see her next month at the wedding. It's all he can talk about."

"I know, he told me yesterday, like, five times over the phone." I loved Emma, but the only downside to seeing her was that I was guaranteed to see her older sister, Alexis. Alexis, as in Sam's friend Alexis. She was a million times worse than Tanya when it came to Sam.

You know, considering they'd slept together two years ago.

I bristled, knowing that I might be seeing and hearing more of Alexis than only at the wedding. Turned out Alexis had been modeling on the side when she was in high school and was in talks with Sam's aunt Liz. I needed to brace myself for her name coming up more often now.

There was nothing to brace myself for or worry over. Alexis was nothing to me.

Yeah, nothing. I shook my head as my dad asked, "How's soccer?"

"I'm tired," I admitted. "The games, practices, school, it's a lot sometimes."

"You still want to go to pro?"

"I do." I paused. "Not sure if I want to finish up my degree if I do, but I'm still hopeful."

There was a moment of silence before he spoke up again. "You know . . . in case soccer doesn't work out, you do have a gift with that camera."

I perked up. I could go to my dad for anything. He understood that for years, soccer had been the one thing that had been on the forefront of my mind. Suggesting something else seemed unlike him, but he wasn't wrong. Everyone had a backup plan. However, I'd always assumed mine would involve science if soccer didn't work out—not photography. "Dad."

"You do," he said.

"I don't know about that," I confessed. "I just want to survive first year."

"You'll make it through," he promised when my phone buzzed with a message from a study group for one of my chemistry courses.

"Let's hope."

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