ACT I, CHAPTER ONE
❛ as seen in a dream, first blood ❜
content: underage drug use (alcohol&marijuana), ghosts/paranormal, violence, blood/gore.

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          Disturbed by sleep, Kay left for her morning run before the sun rose, when her breaths still clouded in the frozen morning air and she had to splash her way through puddles of last night's rainwater to keep a steady pace. She sprinted as fast as she could. Not to outrun her nightmares, but to feel something tangible and alive inside her for a fleeting hour. To not be inside her mind, slipping between haunted dreams. Most nights like this one, running was the only way Kay stayed sane. Peace was the rhythm of her footfalls against the sidewalk beneath her.

Ten miles later and her worn sneakers were much muddier, skin sheening with perspiration and lingering humidity, her blood hot as fire in her veins. Dread chased away by adrenaline. An hour after she had dashed through the front door into the night, Kay turned back down her uncle's street at an unrelenting pace. The rising sun beamed gold between the trees, birds chirruping in the leafy canopy above. For once, her body felt light. Better. Despite her tiredness, she smiled to herself. Sometimes better was all that mattered. It could make coming home bearable.

The path beneath her feet changed from asphalt to gravel as she veered off the main road, past the copse of maple trees surrounding her uncle's driveway then up the creaky porch steps. Under the shadow of the porch she finally stopped to catch her breath, hands on her head as she caught her breath. A newscaster's cheery voice filtered through the open kitchen window overtop the sound of eggs sizzling on a frying pan. Iseul must have set his alarm, a rare occurrence. Her breathing was still ragged when her uncle's voice called through the window:

"You gonna stand out there all day?"

He'd heard her panting. Kay tipped her head back in silent irritation, glaring at the warped roof. But she shook off her muddy sneakers before walking through the front door. Uncle Iseul was in the kitchen, dishing out a pan of eggs and bacon onto two plates. He slid her a full plate, sat with his own plate right across from her, and reached for the bottle of maple syrup.

"We didn't have pancake mix, and I tried making them from scratch, but. . ." He gestured to the sink, where a burnt, batter-stained griddle still steamed as it cooled. "Luckily, we had Eggos."

Kay took a big bite of a toaster waffle to show her uncle it was a perfectly acceptable substitute. 

If it had been up to her, this would be where conversation ended. Yet she didn't get two bites into her eggs when her uncle asked, "How was your run? You left earlier than usual."

She frowned. "You saw me leave?"

"I heard when you slammed the front door at 3 AM."

She winced. "Sorry."

"Just be mindful . . . Run as early as you want. It seems to make you happy."

It does, Kay mused. Not many things could make her smile nowadays.

They ate in blissful quiet for a minute before her uncle spoke again. "Still planning on staying with Jackie after practice tonight?"

Kay hid a grimace from her face, a piece of egg fell off her fork. For the past several months, she'd been using her teammate and fellow striker Jackie Taylor as an alibi for staying out late, confiding in Iseul that they were in a Physics study group together. Really, Kay had spent all those "study" nights sitting alone by Cicada Creek, listening to the running river and scribbling stanzas in her notebook by flashlight. But her uncle didn't need to know about her writing nor her lack of friends.

Besides, she will genuinely be with Jackie tonight, at least for a couple hours; the team captain had "urged strongly" that Kay come to her kegger tonight in celebration of their undefeated soccer season. And Kay didn't really have it in her to say no to something her team captain took so seriously.

So, Kay acted normal and answered, "Yeah."

"Well, I hope you two have fun. Just try to get some sleep before your flight tomorrow," he told her, shoveling another forkful of eggs and bacon into his mouth.

It's a six-hour flight, I can sleep on the plane, Kay thought, but stayed quiet.

They finished breakfast in silence, and Kay rushed upstairs to shower and get dressed. By the time she stomped back downstairs with her gym bag in tow, Uncle Iseul was in his office typing away at his computer. She slung her school bag over her shoulder, watching his back and listening to the clacking of his fingers on the keys. Wordlessly, she hoped his inspiration kept flowing so that he could soon finish his novel. And she left, shutting the front door quietly on her way out.

Her bike waited for her in a shed that smelled of mold and old dust. She hesitated outside the doorway and looked into the dark gloom filling the windowless shed. It was too easy to imagine a familiar voice whispering her name from the corner shrouded in pitch shadow. Shivering, Kay cursed her overactive imagination and rummaged her bike from within, being extra careful not to step out of the safety of light.

With her headphones and cassette player secured, Kay biked down the green-yellow front lawn with no regard for the grass, hopping both wheels onto the street, and pedaled madly for Wiskayok High School.

Her watch showed 7:13 AM. She'd make it. With very little time to spare. But she'd make it.

Kay picked up as much speed as she could on the hills, speeding past bumper-to-bumper traffic on Mulberry Street, past tired-eyed pedestrians that shot her frazzled looks, past two-story houses and mom-and-pop storefronts and parking lots and drive-through restaurants. Going this fast, she couldn't help being reminded of another bike ride, another time wind ran like fingers through her hair.

We're faster than life, Kay! her sister had yelled.

If only that were true, Kay reflected now.

She pedaled till the thought was behind her, lost to the rush of blood in her ears.

Kay heard Wiskayok High School before she saw it: chatter and laughter and music from car radios leaking through picket fences. She slowed as she approached, using her shoulder to push her headphones off one ear. People still gave her unkind looks as she breezed past them. Thankfully, she was well-practiced in the art of ignoring everyone, and her eyes stayed forward.

Soon as Kay hopped off her bike at the rack, Taissa Turner was standing right beside her, stern-faced and agitated as always. Kay ignored her in favor of securing her bike lock into place. Taissa clearly didn't like being ignored, and she gestured irritably for Kay to take off her headphones. Finally, Kay spared the Yellowjackets' mid-fielder a look.

"Not gonna take off your headphones?" Taissa asked hotly.

"An Ode to No One" by the Smashing Pumpkins blared from Kay's headphones and she made no move to turn it off.

Taissa scoffed, swallowed some of her pride, and got on with it. "Look, just meet me, Lottie, and Nat in the courtyard during lunch. We need to talk strategy."

"'Strategy,'" Kay repeated impassively.

"As in, 'we're dropping the dead weight dragging our team down before Nationals.'" Taissa snapped as if it were obvious. "Just be there, striker."

With that, Taissa disappeared into the crowd of people. Kay was left alone once more, still holding to the handlebars of her bike, thinking. The first bell rang abruptly, and she was finally able to walk away, sighing out her frustration with Taissa. Normally, Kay wouldn't even bother showing up to some special meeting if it were just Taissa, but the fact that the rest of the Yellowjackets' midfielders would also be there had captured Kay's attention. What are they plotting now? There was no way to tell exactly what Taissa was up to, but Kay sensed trouble.

I'll have to show up so I can know more. And stop them from doing something stupid. Still, Kay hated the idea of obeying Taissa's command.

Fighting to keep a scowl from her face, Kay adjusted her headphones to cover both her ears and climbed up the stairs to the front doors of Wiskayok High School, moving silently through the crowd, looking at no one.

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          Evie Caulfield stepped out of Noah Schaefer's car with a lit reefer still pinched between her fingers, and turned back to slant him a smoky glare. "I don't care. I got shit to do, pipsqueak. I know you don't know the feeling." She threw the reefer on the pavement and ground it in with her toe, slammed his car door so hard it shook, and walked away without sparing him a second glance.

"Oh, don't throw a tantrum!" Noah called out his open window. "I drove you to school. I let you smoke my weed!"

"Your weed is shit! No wonder your head's so filled with air!" she tossed back over her shoulder. "Suck your own inchworm dick, Schaefer. How about that?"

Scattered laughter sounded from the handful of people lingering in the school parking lot during lunch, and luckily Noah took the hint and shut his trap for once. Evie smoothed a hand down the wrinkles in her blue soccer jersey as she stormed toward the school's front entrance. Noah's low-quality weed did nothing to ease the anger coiled like a hot iron in her chest.

It seemed every boy she had ever met only really wanted one thing from her, and it was never as romantic as they thought it was. Noah Schaefer was just the latest name on a long list of guys who thought Evie owed them a sexual favor if they did something nice for her. She'd been hanging with Noah for weeks now and just started to think that he might be different. But today, after he invited her to ditch Spanish class and lunch to smoke in his car, he'd gotten that glazed-over, pensive look in his eye that all boys did when they were about to kiss you, and Evie just barely got her hand up in time to push him away from her.

"What's the matter?" Noah had said angrily. "You were smiling at me."

Evie said in the steeliest tone she could summon, "Maybe because I wasn't expecting you'd try to shove your garlic-stinking tongue down my throat!"

"Garlic-stinking?" He'd said it in such a devastated voice that a laugh fell from Evie's mouth at his woe. And she'd left him there to stew in it.

God, boys can be so pig-headed. Evie hopped onto the curb beside the parking lot, swearing silently to stop hanging out with stoner boys. She'd already sworn against jocks, band geeks, and theatre kids. Maybe I should just stop associating with any boy from Wiskayok, period. She hoped the boys at New York University would be less . . . clueless. Evie couldn't wait to tell her friend Lottie about what she'd said to Noah.

At the front doors of the school, the campus security guard Larry (who always seemed to have a stick rammed up his ass) ran out from his office to intercept Evie at the doors, smug in the face like he'd just done something important.

"Now where did you just run off to, Caulfield?" he said behind a bristly mustache.

"Guatemala," Evie deadpanned. When Larry just stared at her, frowning, she said, "Christ, I was going to get my jersey from my car! Look, I know your job is to watch the tapes from the security cameras all day, and I know you know I was gone for literally five minutes, so could you just cut me some slack for once and let me get something to eat for lunch?"

"Five minutes outside is plenty of time to do a crime. Sneak some liquor into your bag, say?" He smiled and gestured for her to take off her backpack.

Evie fought really strong not to kick her foot as hard as she could between his legs and run for the hills. She worked to stifle her anger, refusing to let her irritation show on her face, refusing to give him a reason to write her up . . . again. She was already on thin ice with Principal Berzonsky. Very stiffly, she removed her bag from her shoulders and tossed it to the ground at his feet. "This goes against my fourth amendment rights, you know."

Larry unzipped the bag excitedly, "Not if I have probable cause. And I do. Here it is: all Caulfields are trouble."

She rolled her eyes, crossed her arms over her chest defiantly. After digging through each of the bag's pockets, Larry came up empty-handed, exactly like Evie had said he would. As a reward for his efforts, Larry took a piece of gum from her bag and popped it in his mouth before giving the bag to Evie.

Evie was in a terrible mood as she pushed through the doors, down the stairs and into the cafeteria. Larry and every other staff member at Wiskayok High always liked making it clear just how little they thought of her. She'd been told countless times that she'd never amount to something, that she'd never escape from the dark shadow of her last name. Well, more fool them. In ten years, I'll be the richest woman to ever make it out of this shitty backwater town, and I'll return here just to laugh in their faces. This thought made her feel somewhat better.

By the time Evie reached the cafeteria, most of the good food had already been taken. This left her with only a carton of burnt fries to eat, which she didn't mind all that much because at least they were crispy. At the condiments table she filled a sauce cup with ketchup, yanked a fistful of napkins from the dispenser, and made a beeline for the door to the courtyard.

The late-spring sun was warm against her face. She brought a hand up to shade her eyes as she scanned the courtyard for Lottie Matthews. People were scattered all about the picnic tables and the grass, soaking up sunlight and catching up with their friends, laughter echoing off the school's high walls around them. She spotted Lottie's pigtails and blue soccer jersey across the courtyard, standing with half of their varsity team. Raising an eyebrow, Evie started walking toward them. She recognized Natalie Scatorccio's bleach-blonde hair, Shauna Shipman's brown ponytail and tense posture, Kay Jang's curly bob and stubborn set jaw. None of them looked particularly happy.

"Hey, Evie!" called a boy from a table she passed. "Wanna play a game of cards?"

"I'll have to go find my card-playing dress," she said, not stopping. Another girl called her name, but Evie didn't even turn to look her way.

Evie finally got near enough to hear Nat's deadpan voice as she told Taissa Turner, "Yeah. 'Cause I'm not a fucking asshole."

"That's certainly debatable," Evie teased, sliding in between Lottie and Shauna. She smiled at the dirty look Nat gave her and faced Taissa. "So, what's the drama?"

"Allie," Lottie sighed and rubbed the back of her neck.

The freshman. Evie nodded in understanding and popped a ketchup-covered fry into her mouth. Allie wasn't very popular amongst the upperclassmen on the team, mostly because she could never stop boasting about how she was the only freshman on the girl's varsity soccer team, and how Coach Martinez was preparing her to be team captain next year once Jackie Taylor, the current team captain, left for college. Evie never liked listening to delusional arrogance, especially coming from Allie, a girl who could barely pass a ball without fumbling.

"What about her?" Shauna was saying.

"Did you black out at States?" Taissa snapped. "She totally choked."

"She's a freshman, Tai," Nat replied, just as rude.

"She's a liability."

I had a dream like this, Evie recalled suddenly. She struggled momentarily to recall more details. We fought, and it ended with blood. Someone's blood drying sticky on my hands.

"So what do you wanna do about it?" Shauna was asking Taissa.

Taissa glanced at every face in the circle of six girls, gauging their reactions as she said, "She can't screw up if she doesn't get the ball."

Evie furrowed her brows. So, sabotage. Somehow she wasn't even surprised by Taissa's ruthlessness.

Across from Evie, Kay Jang let out a rough exhale, visibly displeased. Even Lottie had a frown on her face. But it was Shauna who said, "You want to freeze her out?" her tone critical.

"At least we'd know what we're working with." Taissa was not backing down.

"She kind of sucks, but . . ." started Lottie hesitantly. "I don't know."

"That's because it's bullshit!" Nat yelled.

"Oh, yeah?" Taissa turned her full attention on Nat. "What's your plan, then?"

Nat threw up her hands in exasperation. "I don't know, play like a fucking team and win? It's worked so far."

Kay jabbed her thumb in Nat's direction to show she agreed.

"Everything works until it doesn't. And for the record, you smell like a wino," Taissa told Nat, giving her best impression of a scolding parent, "get your shit together."

"Alright, Lady Temperance, can you step off your soapbox for just a minute?" Evie held up her hand before Taissa could retort. "Allie's a shitty shot, sure, but this won't help anything. It'll just make her hate us more, and we can't win Nationals if we're divided."

"Exactly," said Kay. Everyone looked at her, startled by the rare sound of her voice. But Kay kept her eyes on Taissa.

"We're already divided," Taissa said, gesturing at the group. "I mean, nobody on the team thinks Allie is a good player."

"You sound like a bully, Tai," Nat snapped, tightening her grip on her backpack strap. "So fuck this."

And just like that, Nat walked away. Kay gave Taissa one last dirty look before she, too, walked off. Taissa was left standing there with a scowl, hands on her hips. "Wow. Ok," she turned to her remaining teammates for their reactions.

"It doesn't feel right." Lottie slung her gym bag over her shoulder and left.

Evie faced Taissa. "I'm staying out of it," she declared. Putting another fry in her mouth, she sped to catch up with Lottie, who was standing by an empty table waiting for her.

"You were late to lunch," Lottie observed when Evie came to a stop before her. "Were you ditching again?"

For some reason, Evie smiled. "Only third period. Noah Schaefer tried to seduce me out of Spanish class with a reefer."

Lottie's brown eyes went wide. "Dope-Head Noah Schaefer? Eves, I told you he's bad news."

"I know he's a gasbag!" Evie said, mostly joking. "But he was occasionally funny, and he had smokes! And he didn't even try to kiss me the first day we met. Can't a girl dream of finding her prince charming?" She said wistfully, a teasing smile pulling on her lips.

Lottie was all too happy to reply, "Not if you keep kissing frogs in hopes they somehow magically turn into princes."

Evie laughed hard at this, and Lottie smiled at the sound. "You think all my boy friends are animals," Evie said once she'd caught her breath.

"Because they are," Lottie said, then her brows furrowed. "Hey, did you mean it when you said you'd stay out of Taissa's fight with Allie?"

Confused by the sudden change in topic, Evie answered "yeah" but inflected it like a question.

Lottie scanned Evie's face quickly, then shook her head. "I just have a bad feeling," she said.

Evie would be lying if she said she didn't feel it, too. Again, she thought of her dream last night. Someone else's blood on my hands, someone screaming. She usually only ever dreamt of things that had already happened, things that other people had dreamt. Still, she couldn't shake the eerie feeling that something horrible was waiting for her just around the corner, moonlight glinting off sharp teeth yearning to tear her open.

"Yeah," Evie managed, "Taissa's plan'll probably end badly." She shrugged. "But who cares when tonight we'll have a whole kegger to drown it away?"

It wasn't a lot of reassurance, to be sure. Neither Lottie nor Evie seemed less tense at the thought of Jackie Taylor's party. Evie herself had already almost forgotten about her fight with Noah, now more worried about Taissa's determination to teach Allie a lesson. That and her dreams. Always her bloody dreams.

The bell rang, and Evie and Lottie stopped voicing their shared worries, finding different topics to chat about instead. Though the thought still lingered in Evie's mind as they re-entered the school together: Something terrible is going to happen.

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          Kay didn't stop thinking about Taissa's plan for the rest of the school day, up until the final bell rang and soccer practice began. Once she got on the field, she sped through all the warm-up drills too hastily, her mind preoccupied with anxiety. Her fingers still felt numb and the beginnings of a headache knotted behind her eyes; both aftereffects of using her gift. The images of the memories she'd stolen from Taissa still flashed through her head like scenes from a nightmare . . .

An eyeless man standing in the reflection of a mirror, a frightened scream torn from the throat of a woman who knows she's about to die, a fear so potent it seizes your whole body with cold terror.

Kay hadn't been searching for that when she'd held the combination lock to Taissa's locker in her hand. She'd only wanted to know if Taissa was really going to try kicking Allie out before Nationals. Kay had thought that, if she focused, she could use her gift to find only that information. But, for some reason, when the familiar warmth spread through her fingers wrapped around Taissa's lock, the lock yielded too much too quickly.

In all the years Kay had used her gift to read secrets from objects, she'd never been so overwhelmed as she had been in that empty locker room.

The memories Kay saw had been haunting, filled with never-ending forests and smells of woodsmoke and the howling of wolves. Kay had seen Taissa sitting in the high branches of a tree, her bloody nails gouging jagged lines in the bark. And she couldn't forget the eyeless man, either . . .

His somber face was the one that stayed burned into Kay's mind, even after she jerked herself out of her trance, dropping Taissa's lock as if it had burned her hand. Even as she raced out of the empty gym's exit to run laps on the track till practice started. Even now as she dribbled her ball between orange cones, passed it mindlessly to her teammates. All she could see was a pair of empty sockets leaking red-wine blood down pale dead cheeks. Empty sockets that Kay knew still saw, still watched her somehow.

And somehow Taissa hides all those ghosts. Kay never would've guessed the Yellowjackets' decisive midfielder was just as haunted as herself (and maybe even more so). Overtop all her dislike of Taissa's stubbornness, Kay couldn't help but sympathize a little. She knew what it was like to see faces of the dead every time she closed her eyes, and to hear their voices when she thought too hard about them. I definitely still dislike her, though, Kay assures herself. And I'm definitely never digging into her things again.

Kay was so zoned out she didn't hear Coach Scott call out for everybody to bring it in. She only noticed when she glanced up to pass her ball to someone and found no one standing around her. She turned to see the team already mostly gathered in front of Coach. Shit. Kay hurried over, slammed one knee down on the grass, gritted her teeth against the jarring motion. Only Nat Scatorccio acknowledged her arrival with a curt glance.

Coach Scott was explaining that they were going to play a scrimmage against the junior varsity team. Kay glanced at the group of smiling girls standing just off the field, watching their meeting from afar. Just as Coach ordered the Yellowjackets to break up, though, Laura Lee piped up.

"Shouldn't we say a prayer first?" she asked with a coy smile.

In front of her, Kay heard Evie Caulfield mutter darkly to Lottie: "Only Allie should be praying." Kay set her jaw.

Coach Scott gave Laura Lee the green light, and she proceeded to recite the same pious speech she always did before a game, "Heavenly Father" and all. Kay wasn't listening. She was watching Taissa. The Turner girl's expression was guarded, as always; but Kay saw fire in her eyes, some hard determination. Allie Stevens was smiling, oblivious to what was about unfold. Kay shivered as the group all said "Amen."

Once the JV team took their pinnies from the coach's helper Misty, everyone got in their position on the field, and Coach Scott blew his whistle to start the match. Kay kept her eyes on Taissa and Allie, heart pounding in her chest despite standing still.

She watched Taissa take off with the ball down the field toward her position near JV's goal, easily spinning out of the way of blockers, making a crooked path through their defense. Taissa passed to Nat further downfield, and two JV girls moved in to block Nat's way. Nat had to kick the ball to Allie.

Allie attempted to receive it with her foot, but only ended up bouncing the ball into the air and away, right to a JV fullback's waiting cleat.

Coach blew his whistle. "C'mon, Allie, that should've been yours!"

Kay shook her head disapprovingly as Taissa ran to Coach and said something. Coach nodded, and suddenly Taissa was tugging a JV girl's pinny on over her jersey. "Let's go, varsity!" yelled Coach Scott. "Taissa wants to see you step it up. And quite frankly, that makes two of us. Let's see some hustle!" He blew on his whistle once more.

They started again. Somehow Allie got the ball and started trying to dribble down the entire field, but Taissa put an end to it only ten yards in. Kay hissed air in through her teeth as Taissa shoved Allie roughly off the field, allowing a JV player to snatch the ball. Allie's face was furious, and Taissa said something that made the freshman's face flush even redder. Kay only realized she was running toward them when Taissa broke away from Allie, nearly bumping right into Kay.

"Drop it, Taissa," Kay said at Taissa's startled expression.

"No, Kay. I don't think I will." Taissa gave Kay the dirtiest look she could as she ran off, back on her pursuit of Allie.

Kay could do nothing but watch. The scrimmage went on despite Kay's anxiety. Shauna was passing the ball to Allie. Allie received the ball much better than last time, and took off toward JV's goal. Kay ran to meet her, shouting for a pass. But Allie was too ambitious. She just kept running, eager to score the point herself.

Allie was so focused on scoring that she didn't spot Taissa's slide tackle from the right in time. Taissa's cleats aimed a little too high, and Kay heard a deep CRACK! sound from Allie's leg.

Kay was sprinting before Allie hit the ground. As she neared, her mouth went dry at the sight. Allie's shinbone had broken jagged and bloody through her sock, Kay could see white bone smiling through all the red. She slowed to a stop, shocked speechless. Allie screamed.

Everybody else seemed as horrified into stillness as Kay felt. She'd never seen a compound fracture before, and the image made her feel sick. Even Coach Scott, usually a voice of reason, let out a shocked "Holy shit!"

Allie cried out for help, and Kay somehow spurred herself out of her trance, dropping down to hold her teammate's arm in what she hoped was a reassuring manner.

Coach's helper Misty Quigley ran up with an extra pinny clutched in her fist, yelling, "We need to apply pressure!" She reached down and pressed the pinny hard onto the bone protruding from Allie's leg before Kay could protest.

The bone shifted under Misty's force with another painful crack! and Allie screamed louder than when she'd broken it. "Get the hell away!" shouted Evie's voice. Kay shoved Misty back and gave her a look so cold that it made Coach's helper shrink away slightly.

Lottie and Shauna joined Kay in comforting a sobbing Allie. Kay's fingers were still numb around Allie's arm. She felt light-headed, horrified and ridden with guilt at the same time. She refused to look at the jagged bone again, eyes trained instead on the blood-covered pinny Misty let drop on the grass.

Faintly, Kay heard Coach tell Misty to call an ambulance from the phone in Coach Martinez's office, and Misty ran off. Coach then yelled something about keeping Allie calm, and suddenly he was gone, too.

As the other varsity girls moved in to soothe Allie's cries of pain with soft reassurances, Kay found herself standing up. Her mind felt blank. She turned and walked right up to Taissa. Taissa was unusually pale, barely moving when Kay blocked her view of Allie.

"Are you happy?" Kay growled. "This is what you wanted, isn't it?"

Taissa met Kay's eyes, and for once, Kay could see past her tough-girl mask. There was real terror and guilt in her dark brown eyes, and Kay could've sworn Taissa had winced at her words.

Good, Kay thought, I hope she feels guilty every time she thinks about this. She left Taissa standing there. Kay ran a hand down her face as she walked to the curb of the parking lot by the field, waiting to wave down the ambulance when it showed up.

Alone, Kay let a tear race warm down her cheek, beading on her chin. She remembered the crack! of bone breaking and blood seeping through Allie's fingers, like blood running from eyeless sockets down pale cheeks.

Her whole body shivers. Damn my fucking imagination.

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a/n . . . i missed my disaster gays so bad, hope y'all enjoyed the kay & evie return!! their "gifts"/powers will be explored a lot more i swearrr. & i know evie was a pretty minor character in this chapter, but she will be a bigger narrator in chapter 2, y'all will get sick of her :D

!! also, i am not a taissa turner hater & none of this chapter was me hating. this was written in kay & evie's povs, and they initially have trouble making friends with tai bc she is pretty stubborn/outwardly cold about soccer (and other things). i promise their relationships will develop more, and maybe one day they'll all be friends?? who knows ?? (👀😶)

p.s. the song linked above this chapter is the one kay's listening to at school. the lyrics fit kay & this whole story very well (& it's by the smashing pumpkins), so i recommend giving a listen!!

word count . . . 5,078