Monster

“You’re going to be fine. I’ve seen you play and you freaking dominate on the court” Jake shined his signature smile on the young Asian girl.

Shiori’s gut was twisting in ways that was unimaginable; it has been two week since the incident between her and Paul. She stayed away from him like what Jacob as told her and consumed her time with Ronnie, Jacob, Quil, and Embry.

They have become some type of group slowly over time and even though Ronnie does go on her own sometimes Shiori has spent her majority of her time with them if not in volleyball practice or driving to Port Angeles for violin lessons.

It has been pretty hectic in her house as well since her mother is due within the next few weeks and they have been a bit more strict with her now than ever. Her parents wanted her to be available just in case if Isshin couldn’t be there to drive Yuki to the hospital.

Licking her lips she loomed over Jacob and towards the rest of the group feeling slightly sick to her stomach at her first game in the season. With tons of practice it still didn’t comfort her that they assigned her in the starting line. Shiori rather be a substitute more than anything but that wasn’t a choice at the moment.

“Why the long face, Ori?” Quil pouted playfully to get a smile out of the girl.

Shiori did smile getting the end result that Quil wanted as he smirked as Embry looped his arm around hers, “Now why is our lovely little dumpling nervous? You shouldn’t be, the opponent team should. Didn’t you know you are our secret weapon?”

Shiori blinked confusingly, “Secret weapon?”

“Yeah, with you being so innocent and small no one can except you to be a beast on the court which leads you to be the secret weapon” Quil explained as Embry nodded in confirmation.

“You guys are pathetic trying to cheer her up that way. See? You made her even more nervous” Jacob pointed out.

Shiori did feel a little green when the two started to explain that she was the secret weapon. That meant she had the whole school counting on her not to mess up and help the team win. That meant that so many people thought she was that good to send the other team packing.

The young teenage girl didn’t feel better at all; she felt frightened, scared that so many people who teased her have the potential or liking her or hating her even more if they lose.

No pressure there, right?

Wrong

“Maybe I should call in sick” Shiori averted everyone as she tried to zoom out of the almost empty school and out to the parking lot.

“Ori! Wait!”

“Where are you going?”

“Ori! The gym is that way! Turn around woman!”

Shiori ignored every single one of those comments as she tried to snag the keys from her volleyball game. She almost cursed in her native language as she fumbled to look for her key.

“Looking for this?” the light brunette froze as she slowly turned around seeing Ronnie with a devious smirk on her face with her car keys dangling in the sunlight.

Grimacing she thrusted her hand out, “Can I have my keys back?”

“No way, Shi! I knew you would do something like this so I stole your keys beforehand when you weren’t looking”

“How come we didn’t think of that?” Embry muttered to the other two

Jacob and Quil shrugged, “Maybe because Ronnie knows her better than we do”

“I just can’t do it, Ronnie! This whole thing was a mistake! I’ll just take gym-”

“You hate gym, Shi.” Ronnie stepped closer to her best friend “Why are you so nervous? You shouldn’t care about what others think of you, who cares if the whole school thinks your some kind of high expectation. Just do your best out there”

Shiori blushed at Ronnie getting every single of those right, she pointed out all her worries in one swoop, “Do you really want to let your team down? Running away never solves anything” and there it was, Ronnie went in for the kill.

Stabilizing Shiori with her faults before finishing her off with the only thing she hates doing in the whole wide world. Disappointing and abandoning people; she couldn’t stand it when she sees others do it and now she was doing the same thing.

Sighing, she let go of the car handle and walked slumped beside the captain as they sauntered off to the court where they were going to play. Walking into the lockers they changed quickly so they could start warming up.

“Give them hell kid” Shiori blinked in shock when she saw senior teammate Manna give her an encouraging smile “Dominate out there” the young girl felt special that this senior even spoke to her; it was the first girl or person other than her group of friends that acknowledged her and didn’t beat her down with words.

Manna was one of the star players as well so her heart swelled as she nodded her nod throwing her hair into pigtails as she walked out with Manna seeing that Ronnie has to be out there since she was co-captain of the team.

Joining their little run she saw her three friends all smiles cheering her on even though they haven’t started yet. Shiori felt nervous throughout the whole warm up and seeing the other team made her head spin.

Letting out a shaky breath, she saw Manna hit the ball over the net gentle enough where it would stay inside the lines. And let it begin, she thought.

So far, Shiori has not spiked the ball once and just volleyed the ball over when necessary; her body was on lockdown whenever the ball was near her. Her mouth would yell out, ‘I got it’ and she felt everyone expecting her to smash the ball down at the opponent and was let down when she only bounced it off her arms.

Jacob, Embry, and Quil still cheered and even made a banner for Ronnie and Shiori as they waved it around whenever they had the ball. Shiori’s body was sweating, feeling it trickle down her back and face as she eyed the players of the opponent team.

Licking her lips she glanced at the scoreboard, 3-3, and the time was around 20 seconds left. It was enough time to either of them to score of postpones enough time to end in a tie.

The other team bounced the ball in the air, as sweat trickled down the slim figure of the pale girl. She grunted as the ball was released and soared into the air, Ronnie lightly bounced the ball over to Robin who bounced it accidently over to Shiori’s direction.

“Hit the ball Shiori!”

“Spike the ball Song!” she heard her coach scream at her.

Her heart was pounding in her ears as she jumped with her fist going forward as it connected with the ball. Shiori smiled feeling the force that she added to the white ball was transitioned into the shot but frowned to see that the girl in front of her stepped aside letting the ball hit outside of the line.

Shiori was mortified when the declaration of the tie buzzed as the other team threw their hands in victory finally getting a tie with the best team in the district. Most of the girls from her team glared at her as she glowered over to Ronnie who patted her back in reassurance.

“You gave it your all. It was your first game; you’ll warm up soon enough”

“But it wasn’t good enough. Everyone will hate me now, what if I’m like this when we play Forks high?” Ronnie was taken away from me before she could answer as Manna tried to comfort me saying that she was the same when she played her first game.

“Everyone gets scared their first time around. Nice work kid, you did better than most” the dark skinned girl smiled at her before walking away squirting water from her water bottle into her mouth as she patted down her sweaty neck towards the locker room.

Shiori didn’t want to hear what anyone had to say as she quickly walked into the locker room that was filled with yelling and screaming. Hiding behind the other half of the locker room she heard the girls’ anger.

“We should have won Ronnie! La Serna should have been an easy win for us!”

“Yeah! And Shiori didn’t even spike like she was supposed to! What kind of weapon is she if she can’t even do what she does best?”

“What a waste of space”

“She’s not a waste of space Annie! You were sitting on the bench, get your head out of your ass for once!”

“I would have helped us win if I wasn’t on the bench but nooo, you had to put in a great word for Song and persuaded the coach to make me a bench warmer instead of that Jap”

That venom struck Shiori hard, she wasn’t even Japanese but it still stung hearing them yell at Ronnie who was probably cornered. Even Robin joined in when she confessed that the young varsity player was a waste of space.

“SHUT UP!” she heard someone yell over the players “What the hell is the matter with you? It’s all our faults that we lost; we got too cocky and underestimated La Serna. We shouldn’t depend on one person to win; last time I checked it takes team effort to win. Robin you did a half ass job out there, only passing the ball to your kiss ass friends instead of passing it to the people who would have scored plenty”

“And you, Sherri, instead of whining that you were put on the bench maybe it should give you the motivation to practice a little harder so you would be able to play again. There’s a reason why Coach Bailey made her a starter and not you. Just all of you shut your fucking traps, don’t being whiny bitches and take this a lot more seriously and maybe, just maybe we would win a game.”

There was silence as the footsteps were tracked towards the door, “Besides, it’s only the first game; a friendly game at that. So fucking chill and get over it. Stop blaming it on Shiori because it’s not her fault. It’s our fault”

With that Manna left feeling a bit better that she finally said something for the young girl. Seeing her grow on the team and being picked on even though anyone could see that she had power that no one on the team had was evident. Manna was sick of only Ronnie sticking up for her and it was about time someone did the same.

Shiori couldn’t help but smile as tears fogged up her vision glad that she made another new friend. Maybe this year won’t be such a bad year after all.