Just Be You

"I cut my finger obviously." Hannah answered John in her sarcastic way. "Oh! Well I got to get back to Geography; you sure you can't go out to lunch today Liz?" he asked me pouting. "Yes John, I'm a hundred percent sure. We got to go get a Band-Aid or something. Bye." I replied as quickly as possible and pulled Hannah away from him. "Are you sure a Band-Aid will stop the bleeding? It's getting everywhere; maybe I could use a pad or something. They should invent a "mini-pad" for cuts and stuff." Hannah rambled on and on about non-important things while I tried to get her to the school's office.

"Liz! Liz! Hello? Liz?" Hannah said annoyed as she realized I wasn't listening to her nonsensical babbling. “Yeah, sorry I was out of it.” I blushed. “It’s okay.” Hannah laughed as she grabbed two Band-Aids from one of our four school secretaries, Mrs. Kanerio. “You realize I’m not stupid right?” asked Hannah as we walked out of the office and towards the girls’ bathroom. “You know I know that you’re scared about taking it to ‘the next level’ with Jonny. That’s why you’ve been acting so weird lately.” Uhm, wow?“Yeah, that’s exactly it.” I said dazzled. “I knew it! It’s okay, I was like that with Kyle when we first started dating too.” she began rambling again. I just nodded my head, laughed, and smiled when needed. I thought maybe she finally realized… But I guess I thought wrong. No one would ever guess I didn’t like Jonny, I guess I was a good actor.
*******************************************
I had the round, bright yellow ball at my feet as I jogged down the miniature field. I kept my head up as I held the ball within my grasp and saw movement to my right. As I realized I was getting nowhere near the net because the defense was ready on their toes, I decided to pass the ball to the roughly 6 foot tall, dark-haired, hazel-eyed boy who was playing in the middle. He was expecting my pass and received it in one touch and was effortlessly moving it forward and closer to the net as I saw it. He saw it too, I realized as his eyes sparked up. An opening. I went for it and ran forward in behind the old man with thinning black and grey hair who was the defender in the middle. Just as I turned my back towards the net and my face towards the boy I saw the size five ball rolling towards me at a quick pace. I received the ball smoothly, turned my body bringing the ball with it and put all my power and will into my shot. The older man with blonde hair who was the goalie attempted to get the ball by stretching himself out; but he couldn't get to it as it curved right around his hand and into the back of the top-right corner of the net.

"Whoa." I whispered to myself in amazement. "That was a beauty! Great shot!" the blonde haired man said as he got up off his knees. "Thanks." I mumbled quickly as I turned away to get set to play some more. "Good work Liz!" my dad shouted from where he was playing defense on our side of the field. "That was an amazing shot, nice finish." I heard someone say deeply. I looked up as I responded, "Tha-". I looked up and saw that it was the boy who had made the excellent pass to me. He looked around my age, maybe a year older. He was smiling at me. Oh gosh, I'm supposed to say something right? "Thanks, but I couldn't have shot if you didn't give me that perfect pass." I finally responded blushing profoundly. "We're a good team I guess." he said smoothly, still smiling. "I guess so." I said as I ran back to my position to play the rest of the game. I guess this wasn’t a horrible day after all, I kept thinking over and over on the ride home as my father talked about the game, and still yet thinking as I slowly slipped into a deep dreamy sleep.