Higher, Faster, Stronger

I sat on my bed staring at my closet. The door was open fully to reveal all of its contents. Mind you, it looked like an alien was sucking out my brain through my eye sockets, most likely. Mom knocked and came in, a small smile on her face. She loved shopping.

I pointed wordlessly to my closet. It was separated. Half of my clothes were on the right, the new ones. The other half was on the left, the old ones. In the middle of the them all was my football uniform, hanging neatly in place. I was cross-legged on my bed.

To recap for all of you who haven't the foggiest idea why I'm staring at different sets of clothes: I completely freaked recently because some people think of me more of like boy than a girl which lead to a mini breakdown to Mom which consequentially lead to a shopping trip for slightly girlier clothes. Heh, she didn't push me into getting anything that I wouldn't go out in public with. Or anything Izzy's crew would wear. With all due respect, I'm not going for poster child for a rap video that has a name having do with teeth, breasts, bottoms or obscene hip gyrations. I know, and I'm the messed up one?

I felt dumb and empowered at the same time. I mean, what idiot would allow clothes to change them? And at the same time I wanted to see what everyone else would thing. I guess everyone has their moments of insecurity. Fall apart times, I guess. It's completely relative.

Mom leaned over to me and tapped me on the chest.

"Remember in here before up here." That being said, she tapped my head. I smiled as the phone rang. Mom rushed to answer it in the next room. I counted down in my head, 3,2,1.

"Sarah!" Houston, we have lift off. "It's Nate." I smiled and picked up my line. "And after that, do the dishes!"

"Hey Blondy, what's up?"

"I hate that nickname, you know that. Anyway, couple reasons why I called. Coach tried to call all of us, but your line was busy." I groaned. Mom was always on the phone because of her job.

"Blame that on Mom. We went out for a little while. So what'd Coach say?"

"I'm going to paraphrase. After Dumb and Dumberer tried to murder our opposing players, Coach is going to hold a seminar on Monday for a part of practice, going over rules. He said, after that, he's stepping up the practice schedule. And said difficulty will go up too because, even though we're undefeated, he's not taking any chances on the championships."

"Are you kidding me? Because we have Neanderthals on the team, we all get yelled at?" I asked.

"Yup. As far as I can tell, the lecture isn't just going to be about them. I have a feeling the coach is going to go over the sexual harassment laws with the boys."

I took a second to let it sink in.

"Oh, the bastard told me that part. He also mentioned something about being busy this upcoming Saturday…" he said sneakily.

"I completely doubt that he would tell you something like that. You were eavesdropping, weren't you?"

"How did you know?"

"I know you, moron. You're not the connections type."

"Sarah's got a date, Sarah's got a date…."

"Nate…if you don't stop within the next 3 seconds, you will be defenestrated and castrated. Not to mention, I'll tell Hannah that you like her."

I heard a sharp intake of breath on the other side of the phone.

"You wouldn't…"

"How long have you known me? Of course I would. And it's not a date anyway. We're going out for food most likely. How often do you and I do that?" I tried to let reason take over.

"True. Anyway, Coach said he's stepping up how hard practice is going to be. Do you think that'll work?"

"It's a tough call. If he works us smart not hard, we won't be exhausted and we'll be able to increase the percentage of plays we make. But on the other hand, some good hard days in the weight room and on the field wouldn't kill us either." I started to walk over to my calendar. "We have about 7 games left till the semi-finals and hopefully the championships."

"Ugh, you've no idea how much I want to make it to championships." I smiled over the phone, momentarily forgetting my problems with life and reminiscing about the time I spent with my girls, playing football.

"Actually I do. My team worked hard to make it to the championships where we were most years. We had so many good players, with so much good energy. They loved competing. Oh, we had this one girl, she was so like Hannah. So quiet! But you'd never know it on the field. She was a complete monster on the field."

He snorted. "I have a hard time believing someone like Hannah could play football."

"She wasn't the only one on our weird roster. There was one girl, 12th degree black belt. Her signature move was twisting the opponent over her shoulder flat onto the ground in front of her. She racked up the most personal fouls of anyone I've ever seen. One girl was the daughter of a yoga master. She was the most flexible person I'd ever seen in my life. We even had a former gymnast. She could take hits like you, Nate."

He laughed. "Some team; makes ours seem boring in comparison."

I rolled my eyes. "Our team is anything but boring. Weird, occasionally stupid, but else is to be expected of males?"

"I'm going to let that slide and let you think about what you're going to wear on your date." He pronounced the last syllables like he was about to eat the word.

"Not a date."

"Is so!"

"Not!"

"So! Trust me, this is the most contact he's had with a female since his mom died. This is big, even if you don't think so."

"Ah." What else could I say? Bloody existential crisis. Being female reeks. One moment you're sure of yourself and your surroundings and then next you feel like a banana has been planted underneath the carpet you'd been stepping on. Then that rug is yanked out from underneath you. So you lose your balance from the first rug and then you slip on the banana peel. Think many layers of both with a concrete floor underneath. Now add hormones, cramps and bikini lines and you've got what it takes to be female.

"Ok, I'm gonna go. Hasta la bye byes!"

"See ya."

We hung up and my head was spinning. No, I didn't hit it with a bar or anything, not like you could tell the difference, with the size of the headache I was developing. It was Sunday. I had Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and then a couple hours on Saturday. Then again, I didn't know where we were going. How was I going to ask him without seeming annoying? Oh bugger. Wednesday was a game for us and the rest of the time; Coach was going to murder us. Oh and tomorrow was the little seminar about how we couldn't kill each other.

Buckets of Joy.

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

"Don't bother getting changed. Just sit on the bleachers." Coach barked. Oh boy. He was in one of his moods. Each coach I've ever known goes through moods. Sometimes joking and sometimes he or she'll kill you if you so much as look at them wrong.

"Don't give me that look Woods!" See what I mean?

Nate sat next to me with Neil and Steve within reaching distance. Derek was a few yards from the coach, on the first bleacher. Everyone else had a frown on or some other look of distaste.

Coach cleared his throat. "As you boys and one girl know, I'm pretty relaxed with the rules. Usually I can overlook some small infractions. But behaviors over the past few weeks have lead me to reiterate the rules into your skulls." He glanced angrily at the Crash Brothers. I rolled my eyes.

"Part of the game is respect for your fellow players, and not just on your team but on the opposing team as well. I'm not asking you to shower them with cookies and rainbows, cause I know it's a tough sport. But there's a fine line between tough and cold hearted.

He ranted for the next few minutes about sportsmanship. I zoned out for a little while. It was hard to pay attention. I caught snippets of what he was saying.

"I don't train you to try to kill or knock other people out. And while we're on the subject of rules, I want to review the sexual harassment rules."

Simultaneously, almost every head turned to look at me.

"Don't look at me! I didn't complain about anything." I snapped. I knew this was going to turn out badly because he was singling me out of everyone. Nuts.

"Like I said before, I let you get away with a lot of things. But if I hear anything about bothering Hall on a level that's uncomfortable for her, heads are going to roll. But that also means that you can't threaten everyone with methods of torture, Sarah." I nodded in agreement.

"Ah, but Coach," one of them piped up. "Hall's not a girl, she's one of us."

Wordlessly, I swept off my spot on the bleachers and headed for my car. I was supposed to sound like a compliment, but with all that had been on my mind lately, that was sort of the last fuse to be blown.

The last thing I heard as I started the long walk to my car was, "What did I do?" and a pair or two of footsteps. It could have seemed like I was overreacting but it would be on par with comparing them all to little girls.

You just got to know when to walk away right?

Huh, so I was right. Nate and Derek were running after me.

10 yards in closing……7…4…2. Contact.

"Sarah! Are you ok? I'm sure he didn't mean to insult you or anything!" I just sat on the hood of my car and listened as he blathered on.

"Idiot, shut up. That's not why she's upset."

"Bastard, how do you know?"

I held up a hand to silence them.

"Do you think everyone perceives me as a guy?"

"What do you mean Sarah? You look like a girl to me."

"No, in personality. People mistake me for a boy all the time and I get so tired of the snickering in the hallway. I get labeled as butch. And no matter how I dress or act, I still get thought of as a boy, mainly cause I play football. I'm not quitting either but that was just kind of the cherry on top of the horror sundae that's been my social life. It's hard enough for some of the boys to except me, never mind the rest of the school."

Nate looked confused and Derek uncomfortable.

"Now, I'm making both of you uncomfortable with my identity crisis." I laid my head back onto the windshield of the car.

"Just a bit and I probably don't understand as well as I could because I'm not female," Derek said. " But you really shouldn't care about what others think."

"A part of my brain knows that. The other part is going hurrr hurrr overload."

"Whether you act like a girl or guy doesn't really matter as long as you're yourself." Stated Nate.

They continued to reassure me for the next 10 minutes. I did feel better, at least to know they cared.

I nodded and got off my car and squeezed them both into a odd group hug.

"If any guy gives you issues, I'll take care of it." Nate and Derek said simultaneously. I looked at them both and smiled.

"Now, I just wonder what I'm gonna do with the rest of my wardrobe."

"Huh?"

"Never mind."

"Oh, did you buy new clothes for your date?" Nate asked sneakily.

Derek and I just looked at each other and cracked our knuckles.

"I'll give you a 4 second head start. Go."

Nate paled and took off at a run towards the field.

"Shall we?" I asked.

"Why not."