Don't Complain If You Can't Win

For the passed two days, anticipation seemed to get the best of her. Her mind raced with all of the possibilities both good and bad, and her body didn't seem to want to keep still. Even sleep was scarce; all Leighton could think about was the softball team. She wanted more than anything to make it, and she was going crazy from the wait.

Her leg bounced up and down violently as she watched the hands on the clock barely move. It seemed to her that the clock read two-sixteen for the last hour, but even Leighton knew that was completely false. Time slowly passed because after school, the list of girls who made the team would be posted on the door of the athletics office. And the anxiety that was building up in Leigh's body on made it go that way.

As the bell rang for dismissal four minutes later, Leighton was the first to stand and dart out of the classroom completely ignoring her teacher about a test the class would be having that Monday coming up after the weekend. Students filed into the hallways and Leighton weaved in between, not even bothering to stop at her locker but instantly going to check the list.

Because she was speed walking, Leighton quickly became short of breath, ultimately having to slow her pace down to regain composure. A crowd of familiar faces came into view when she rounded the corner, noticing the girls from the tryouts waiting impatiently for the list since it had yet to be put up.

Trying to ignore the girls whine about how the coach was taking so long was hard for Leigh to do in her unfocused state of mind. She ran her hand through her long brown hair and bit her lip over her previous cut from biting too hard, quickly getting the mint flavor of her lip gloss she put on a mere twenty minutes ago.

The girls immediately started to rush the door as soon as the coach walked out with the list in one hand and scotch tape in the other. It took him a minute to post it and to get out of the way because of the rush and once he was completely out of the way, Leighton's heart began to race. She decided to wait until it cleared up to check but hearing some of the girls yelp with excitement made her nervous and made her stomach churn.

"Hey Leigh," Courtney greeted as she walked up. "Have you looked yet?"

Leighton silently shook her head and bit her lip once more. "I'm debating now if it's even worth checking. I mean, I want this more than any one of those girls and I'll be devastated if my name isn't on either one of the two teams," she explained.

"What are you talking about? You know you made the team; I don't know why you're freaking out about it," Courtney told her. "You did so good the other day; they'd be fools not to put you on either JV or Varsity."

"I don't know, Court. I couldn't keep up with any of them so why would they want me? Let's just go."

"No, not until you go find your name."Courtney stomped her foot down and placed her hands on her hips after hoisting her bag on her shoulder and blew strands of blonde hair that fell out of her messy bun right into her face.

"I'm bracing myself for a huge disappointment," she mumbled and stepped forward.

By this time, all of the girls had cleared out, half of them bursting with excitement and the rest feeling quite the opposite. Leighton closed her eyes tightly and breathed in deep, letting it out slowly while she opened her eyes. Starting with the Junior Varsity team, she realized names were listed alphabetically according to last names, Leigh quickly looked at the bottom where the "w's" would be.

She saw Williams and a Wingate, but there was no sign of a Warner on the JV team. Her eyes flicked to the next list and scrolled down, not noticing any last names that started with that letter. A wave of such a horrible feeling washed over her and she nodded her head knowing that she should have just left instead.

Courtney noticed the wave of disappointment that had crossed over her best friend's face. A frown appeared on hers and she sighed heavily, walking the few feet to Leighton's side, draping her arm over her shoulder. "C'mon, let's go get out stuff from our lockers," Courtney suggested, pulling her along.

With a nod of her head, Leigh carried herself back down the hallway she came from. Her brown bangs slipped in front of her eyes and she didn't even bother to tuck the strands back behind her ear for the purpose of covering her teary eyes. Not making the team was the worst possible news she could have heard, and for once, it was something worse than getting made fun of.

"Do you want to come over to my house?" Courtney asked softly when they both reached their lockers and opened them up. Leighton only shrugged her shoulders without saying a word. "You know the coach made a huge mistake, right? You would've been a great asset to the te-"

"Courtney, please. I really don't want to talk about this right now," Leighton said with her face inside her locker as she wiped a tear without Courtney seeing.

She nodded in understanding, closing the door when she had everything and leaned against it to wait. It took a moment for Leighton to finish up and realized now she was avoiding eye contact. Putting her hand on Leighton's shoulder, Courtney turned her towards herself.

"Oh Leigh," she said sadly, pulling her into a hug.

"I wanted this more than anything," she cried. "I know there's always next year and the year after, but I wanted this now!"

"Don't let this upset you, hun. You can't let not getting on the team ruin your entire day."

"Blondie has a point," a boy said and immediately the two girls pulled away to see Vinny, Matt, and Zack walking towards them. "We knew from the start you weren't going to make it, porker," Vinny told her meanly.

"You should have just stayed home eating cookies or brownies, or whatever the fuck you eat to make you how you are," Matt added.

"Fuck you!" Leighton spat, a glare rising to her features.

"Hell no! That'll never happen," Zack announced with a disgusted tone.

"That's not what she meant, asshole!" Courtney defended.

"How the hell am I supposed to know? She wouldn't be the first person to want me who can't have me," he smirked and his conceited remark caused the other two to laugh.

"You're so disgusting! All of you! How can you even live with yourselves? What are you, five years old?" Leighton tried her hardest not to let any tears that were threatening to fall slip from her eyes.

"How are we disgusting?" Vinny asked. "Have you looked in a mirror? You're all fat and ugly, how can you live with yourself?" he leaned forward enough to where his face was inches from hers and they were eye level with his eyes staring directly into hers.

At that exact moment, a few tears leaked and Leighton quickly turned on her heel to walk away. She walked as fast as she could ignoring the quick paced footsteps of Courtney and the boys' hysteria. As soon as she was out of the school building with the sun's heat beating down on her light skin, all of the tears she was holding back spilled down her cheeks.

It was at that exact moment where she vowed to change. All the happiness she held for herself flew out the window and she now hated herself. Leighton was going to change. She didn't know how, but she promised herself she would.

--------------------

The day continued on as usual with nothing special headed their way. Everyday seemed to get worse and worse with more torment she constantly received from the juniors that wouldn't leave her alone. Leighton had a gut feeling that when she attempted to stick up for herself, it only fueled the boys to mess with her even more.

Everyday she would go out of her way just to avoid having to deal with their nonsense and ignorance. Going on a different route to class everyday had its advantages but on occasion, Leigh would see one of the boys. And because she didn't want anything to do with either one of them, she would turn around and go a different way. Doing so ultimately made her late to class.

But Leighton really didn't mind all of the extra walking she ended up doing and to be quite frank, she actually loved it. Since that day nearly a month ago, she really began to change herself. Her priorities altered slightly to the point where she mainly cared for herself. Everyday she devoted herself to losing weight after all the torture those guys put her through when she really didn't think she had a problem.

Being committed to a diet and work out regimen seemed to be helping her out. Leighton promised herself she was going to lose the weight right and not by doing dangerous or life threatening ways. She was above doing that to her body and so far her plan had been working for her.

"I can't believe you've already lost ten pounds!" Courtney smiled happily as they sat at their usual spot during lunch. "I'm so happy for you!"

"Thank you!" she told her friend then took a bite of her celery stick she brought from home. "I'm feeling really good and I have more energy now. I just can't wait until I shed of more pounds."

"You're gonna get there, I know you are," Courtney beamed but soon both of their smiles faded when Vivian and Brooke sat down with them.

"Get to where? McDonald's?" Vivian asked rudely.

Something Leighton didn't miss about time passing was Vivian and Brooke hanging out with them. Out of the blue, they stopped coming to Courtney and Leigh's table and now after a month, they were back.

"You know, Viv, you really need to get better comebacks," Leighton said. "You've got nothing I've never heard before."

She scoffed and rolled her eyes, examining her manicured nails before speaking again. "What were you girlies talking about? It's been so long; the four of us need to catch up."

"We were talking about none of your business," Courtney announced.

"Oh Courtney, just because Vivian and I have been a little M.I.A. from you doesn't mean anything."

"Brooke's right. We're still friends." Vivian added. "we should all hang out today. Let's go to the mall and try on dresses!" she clapped excitedly with a large smile showing off her perfectly white teeth.

"Actually, we've already got plans," Courtney told the girls just as the lunch bell rang signaling for students to start heading to class. "Sorry, maybe some other time."

Both Leighton and Courtney grabbed their trash to throw away leaving Vivian and Brooke at the lunch table with shocked expressions from having been rejected. The two girls started laughing to themselves as they walked away, letting it die down when they went inside the building their classes were in.

"I bet that was the first time those girls have been rejected," Leigh chuckled, running her hand through her hair.

"I bet! Usually they're the ones rejecting everyone else, it's about time they got a taste of their own medicine!" Courtney smirked. "But really, do you want to hang out at my house? My brother and parents won't be home."

"Ah, Court, I would but I'm going to the gym after school," Leighton told her apologetically.

"Don't worry about it! I know this is important to you." She smiled for reassurance.

And that was in fact the truth. Losing weight and getting in shape had become very important to Leighton, very much to the point where she seemed to be eating, drinking, and sleeping diet and exercise. Feeling confident with herself and her body image are now important to her when before, she was just happy with who she was, even if she was overweight. Now, Leighton not only wanted to feel happy and confident on the inside and out, but she wanted others to feel the same.

As much as she wouldn't want to admit it, Leighton also found it important to impress those boys. She wanted them to hate what they did to her, and love to be around her.