Monster

My cheeks burned as I tugged my shorts down to cover more of my pale legs. My eyes flickered around the place seeing that all the girls were in different groups talking and gossiping until the coached showed. “Shiori, buck up. They are only shorts” Ronnie said.

“They are short shorts Ronnie. They barely cover my butt” I exclaimed clearly embarrassed by the situation.

My blond friend saw me changing into my yellow shirt and black pants once she saw the pants her eyes bugged out saying that it wouldn’t be appropriate to wear pants for volley ball try-outs. Instead she threw me a pair of her own short shorts that she would wear for practice while she wore her co-captain shorts.

Call me crazy but I couldn’t believe that they would have the labels on the shorts for the co-captain and captain as well as the shirts they wear. Now here I am standing here clearly going out of my mind wearing these absurd shorts that I absolutely detest.

“Can’t I just switch back to my pants? I like those better and probably play better too”

“No way. The coach would be very impressed with you if you practiced in shorts and it’s easier to maneuver in. Trust me” she turned her head before patting my back when she saw the coach walking our way. The woman walked up to the huge group of girls with a smile as she introduced herself.

“Hello ladies. I’m Ms. Bailey and I’m the varsity coach of the volleyball team. We are going to have a three day try out so I can get to know you and see what you are capable of. Today we are going to volley the ball over the net.” Ms. Bailey looked over the group “Since we have a huge group this year I’m going to have my captain and co-captain help me with evaluation.”

Ronnie and another girl walked to the front as they introduced themselves as well to the young group of girls that desperately wanted to be on varsity. For some reason they were expanding the opportunity of varsity this year by having try outs instead of bumping some of the junior varsity up since most of those players quit or got suspended for foul behavior and conduct.

“Hi. I’m Robin the captain of the varsity team and this is our co-captain Ronnie.” Robin said with a chirpy voice. It sent chills down my spine how friendly she was. Her dark brown hair flowed nicely down her light brown skin as her white teeth sparkled in the rare sunny day.

Like I said I felt like an outcast since all the girls around me including Ms. Bailey and Robin were dark skinned Native Americans while I was the pale one in the group. Scratch that, I have Ronnie since she stands out even more with her blond hair and biker chick look.

It was nice to see Ronnie with no make-up on and finally saw the natural face. I always told her that she should be more natural looking more often but she scoffed and said she wouldn’t get laid if she was natural looking. Ms. Bailey broke me out of my trance as she separated us in three groups handing each group off to either Ronnie or Robin as she got the last group.

Sadly, I wasn’t in Ronnie’s group and got stuck with the coach’s group. It was better than Robin’s since she was one of the popular kids that might start picking on me for no apparent reason. “Alright let’s see what you got. I’m not going to teach you how to hit the ball over the net. I want to see your technique” passing balls to half of her group

Then telling the other half to be on the other side to catch the ball that is being hit over before that girl will go at the end of the line to wait her turn; Ms. Bailey stood in the middle to evaluate how we were doing. She started to give pointers to the girls as she wrote the names and some notes down for each girl.

As soon as I stood there with the ball in my hands, I bit my lip not knowing how I should hit the ball over the net. Hearing the snickering from the girls I lowered my gaze before hearing, “Let’s go Song. Just show me what you got”

Taking a deep breath I tossed the ball in the air and smacked the ball in which it resulted by hitting the middle of the net. “Next time Shiori hit the ball with more force upward than trying to smack it down with your open palm” the coach suggested before writing down more notes.

Walking to the end of the line I heard people snicker again at my failure. I knew I sucked and I hated the fact that this day wouldn’t go by any faster. Luckily, it went by a lot faster after my group switched to Robin’s and then Ronnie’s group.

Robin didn’t give me any pointers when I hit the ball over the net, no tried to and told me to get in the back of the line as I heard her giving pointers to the other girls. Thankfully, Ronnie made up for it as she showed me how to hit the ball over the net and after the third time around I got the ball over the net successfully

“Great job Shy!” my best friend complimented as I walked to the back of the line.

Then Ms. Bailey blew the whistle making the girls run towards her as she spoke up, “That was great girls! We will evaluate each of you and call you by your number. See you in a few minutes” with that Ronnie and Robin joined Ms. Bailey as they compared notes.

I walked to where I left my water bottle near the bench with all the other girls left theirs. Picking it up I felt that something was off, twisting the lid open I sniffed it and the smell made me retract a bit from the strong smell. Was that alcohol? The giggles confirmed that they wanted to mess with me as I rolled my eyes and threw the water bottle away before walking to the water fountain to take a sip of the metal tasting drink.

Wiping my mouth with the excess water that seeped out of my mouth I blew my bangs out of the way as I walked into the gym again where the other girls were sitting and chatting away like usual. Taking a seat not near or too far away from them Ms. Bailey and the girls took a few extra minutes before she spoke up again.

“Okay, if I call your number you sit to my left and if I don’t you stay where you are. Understand?” everyone nodded as she started calling off the numbers one by one. My heart started to drop every single time I didn’t get my name called, it brought a sick feeling to my stomach that I wouldn’t get my number called.

Lots of girls grinned at me and some even stuck their tongue out as they sauntered over to the left side where the other girls are. Whispering that they have made it to the next day and was that much closer to being on varsity; I didn’t see the big deal of being on varsity but seeing the girls faces light up I guess it was.

“Alright that will be all of them” Ms. Bailey smiled as my heart dropped again since my number wasn’t called. The coach stepped closer to my group with a blank expression, “All of you in this group. Congrats. See you tomorrow”

My mouths hung open at the comment, did she just say see you tomorrow? Did that mean that I made it or close to making it on the team? The girls from the other group screamed and yelled that it wasn’t fair, Ms. Bailey spun around and explained to them, “The reason why you aren’t on the team is that none of you are team players and last time I checked volleyball is all about teamwork”

“But we all deserve to be on the team. That girl doesn’t! She barely hit the ball over the net!” the unknown girl pointed a manicure nail at me.
“She does need work but she showed teamwork and that’s what I am looking for not a girl who runs around the court like a chicken with its head cut off” she pointed out making the girl blush and sit down in shame.

Ronnie snickered before she gave me thumbs up and I smiled back weakly. The next two days were just the same, the girls would complain when they get cut or quit seeing that volleyball involved a lot of more running that they have hoped. To say that I wasn’t struggling was an understatement, I was lagging most of the time but I never quit. I made sure that I tried extra hard and put all of my effort into it.

What impressed the coach were my spikes; she said that even though I was average with everything else my spikes were more than dynamite and is glad to have me on the team. Only me and a handful of girls were selected on varsity as some of the younger girls were put on junior varsity. More than half were cut by the third day and having Ms. Bailey give me my jersey and clothes for the team made me smile.

It felt great to finally be on a team.

“I’m so happy that you are on the team with me. I knew you could do it. You and your badass spikes will help us dominate!” Ronnie said with her fist curled up in passion.

I shook my head, “I’m okay. It’s weird carrying around an extra bag though” glancing down at my new volleyball duffel bag that had my name, jersey number and school in red just like the other girls in varsity.

Ronnie rolled her eyes, “You may be rough around the edges but we can polish those up and when we do. Woo. You are going to be a lean, mean, fight machine”

Stepping into the cafeteria we walked around the area until we found Jacob and the gang around the center of the room. Yes, I did take Jacob’s advice and joined them for lunch with Ronnie. It was a bit awkward but with Ronnie’s forwardness she broke the ice and everyone got along well.

“We heard about you joining the volleyball team. Congrats Shy” Jacob said as I sat down with a shy smile on my face.

I mumbled a thanks as Quil and Embry had goofy faces, “Does this mean that we get to see you in little shorts while you practice?”

“And see the sweat glistening off your hot toned bodies” Embry added.

“That’s just wrong” Jacob mumbled as my face turned even a darker shade of red.

Ronnie took a munch out of her apple as she retorted, “And you’re wondering why you haven’t gotten laid yet. You guys are fucking pathetic”

“So you won’t sleep with us now? I thought we had a deal Moore” Quil replied as Embry nodded his head agreeing with one of this best friends. Out of the three boys, Jacob was the only decent one that would keep his perverted jokes to himself. He was more of the nice, sweet, optimistic kind of boy that I could never imagine getting perverted even though all boys get that way.

“Not when you paint me a picture like that. I rather fuck a girl than sleep with either of you” before taking another bite out of her apple. It was always like this, Embry and Quil would make a snarky comment and Ronnie would threatened them by not sleeping with them and break the deal.

I have no idea where the deal came from but Ronnie bluntly answered one of their questions by saying she had multiple partners and knows her way around to pleasure a guy. Usually Jacob and I would tune her out since they start to get pretty vulgar.

Jacob and I talked to talk just like usual since Embry, Quil, and Ronnie were getting a bit racy. “Do you want to go to this bonfire this weekend with my friends and I? It’s gonna be fun” Jacob tried to talk me into going to this bonfire for the last ten minutes and I keep telling him that my parents wouldn’t approve of it.

“But we share cool legendary stories and all” he tried to convince me. He knew that I had a week spot of history and legends that are created around each city and culture. Biting my lip I started to think of all the possibilities I could take or do so I can go.

“I’ll ask my parents if I could go”

“Nah. I can ask for you.”

“What? No way. Then they won’t let me go”

“Trust me. I have my way with parents”

Mr. Sunshine convinced me that he can talk to my parents about it as the bell rang for our last couple of classes. “I will see you after school then? We’ll head over to your place?”

I nodded with a small smile, “Sure”

Getting up and throwing my trash away my eyes peered up for a quick moment to see that Paul was staring at me this whole time making me shutter.