“I still can’t believe you’ve done this to me.” I said in a low voice that was filled with heartache and betrayal.

“Same.” Mira echoed from beside me.

“Oi, you two can stop being such little drama queens. Besides, I never asked or made you join the volleyball team Mira.” Beth replied snipely.

“True.” Mira said while giving me a not so subtle look. “But, your actions did lead to this outcome.”

“Hey, I never said you had to join, exactly.” I insisted earnestly, while looking around the gym for any other people listening in. “I just suggested that, you know, it might be a good chance for us to spend more time together. Instead of uh, you know, setting aside time for hiking and uh, jogging.”

“Exactly.” Beth announced smugly. “It’s a perfect opportunity for all of us to spend quality time together.”

“Yay.” Mira and I both said at the same time and in the exact same deadpan and emotionless tone.

“Oh come on.” Beth protested. “It’s not like I held a gun to your head Jenni. I’m not exactly physically restraining you right now.”

“Yeah, I know. But after your whole thing about us not spending time together, how could I say no?” I asked her sincerely.

This point seemed to make Beth pause for a moment in thought. While that was happening though, more and more girls had started pouring into the school’s gymnasium that we had been waiting in. Including a trio of familiar faces.

“Of course, you three would be here as well.” The practically venomous voice of Jackie called out to us. “Here I thought, we’d get a break from seeing you three when I signed us up for the volleyball team.”

“Us three?” Beth irritably pointed out before looking in Mira’s direction who was absent-mindedly looking around the room and doing her best to ignore the budding conflict. “Whatever, it’s not like we knew you three would be here either.”

As Beth and Jackie started getting into their usual back and forth with each other, my attention was pulled to one of the cohorts Jackie had at her side. On the one side was Niki, who was a key player in our last big dodgeball matchup. On Jackie’s other side was Letitia, the girl who had been severely injured at that fateful party weeks ago.

Now, she was standing there seemingly perfectly healthy and fine, but all I could think about when looking at her was seeing her covered in her own blood as Jackie knelt down beside her, crying.

“Can we not this time.” I said loudly enough to interrupt whatever veiled insults or back and forth was going on at the moment between Beth and Jackie. They did stop them and both of them looked at me with a bit of surprise in their expressions. “Let’s not do all this right now, please.”

Letitia’s eyes and mine were locked, and it looked like she wanted to say something, but we were interrupted by the loud voice of Coach Philip entering the gymnasium.

“Alright then you little squirming maggots, line up and form some kind of orderly row instead of this writhing mass of teenage bickering and hormones.” Coach Philip cried out across the entirety of the gym.

“Little squirming maggots?” Beth questioned quietly.

“That is a strange and colorful description.” Mira observed. “So is calling us a writhing mass of teenage bickering and hormones.”

“Is he on something, or what? Because Coach Philip used to be way more chill and laid back last year.” Beth observed.

“He has been acting pretty weird lately.” Letitia whispered from not too far away from us. Her voice and comment caused both Beth and I to look over at her in mild surprise.

“Yeah, he-” I started to say before Coach Philip spoke up again.

“Okay, cut the chatter.” He loudly demanded. “So, as you can hopefully tell, I’m not your usual coach for the girl’s volleyball team, Mrs. Armstrong. She unfortunately came down with a sudden illness that prevented her from being here today. Being the kind and charitable man that I am, I offered to take her place until such time as she manages to overcome her illness.”

This announcement and explanation sent off a wave of whispering and chatter among the gathered girls in the gymnasium.

“Quiet! All of you, quiet down.” Coach Philip yelled out, causing many of the girls around me to jump a little. “So, for now, as it’s our first practice together, we’re going to forego the usual drills and repetitive exercise and start with a friendly practice game. It’ll give me a good idea of where everyone is at skillswise, and who does better at what role.”

His eyes seemed to scan across the gathered line of students here, and take in each of us, one at a time. Once he got to me, he seemed to stop and linger for awhile, before quirking a small smile and moving on.

What was that about?

“Form yourselves up into two teams, quickly now.” He barked out, causing us all to start frantically moving and talking with one another to form teams.

Eventually, after way too much jostling and arguing, two similarly sized teams did form. Strangely, or perhaps not, the two teams that did form were fairly similar to the ones that had developed last time Jackie and I faced off. The only exception was the lack of boys that had been present back then.

“Hmm.” Coach Philip mused as he observed both sides. “Hmmm.”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

“God, what is he going to do now.” Beth complained in a hushed voice from nearby.

“No.” He said simply. “Let’s switch things up.”

“What? Why?” Beth spoke up in challenge.

“Because, I’m the coach here, young lady, that's why.” He shot back, while glaring at Beth in warning. “You should keep that in mind.”

“Ugh.” Beth not so subtly grunted in complaint.

“I see, well that makes this next part simpler.” He announced. “You, you, you, and you go over to that side, and you, you, you, and you go over there.”

The girls that had been dragged from my side included both Beth and Mira to both of their obvious displeasure. Perhaps even worse was that one of the girls being sent over to my team was Jackie herself, leaving her two friends alone without her.

“Yeah, that looks muuuch better now.” Coach Philip said with a broad smile on his face. “Form up on your sides of the net. Jenni’s team gets first serve, and don’t even think of asking why. The answer will always be because I said so.”

“What an asshole.” Jackie muttered from nearby.

“Yeah, I know right.” I replied back with a small smirk that she then copied.

“So, I guess we're on the same team this time.” Jackie said, pointing out the obvious. “Any specific strategy in mind, or are we just winging it.”

I shrugged.

“I’m in no way an expert at volleyball. I’m open to suggestions.” I answered.

“I think you both did amazing last time. I’m sure whatever plan the two of you come up with will work great.” Said another girl from nearby, Naomi. She was the other fairly athletic girl on my team from last time. After the game back then she had gone out of her way to compliment me as well. “Buuut, I’m not sure how much of a challenge the other team is going to actually be.

I turned to look over to where Naomi was indicating and saw that the other team had already descended in utter pandemonium. Even from over here on the other side of the net and court, I could hear loud and angry yelling going back and forth between various people and groups.

Not too unsurprisingly, Beth’s voice was one of the loudest. The other loudest voice belonged to Jackie’s friend Niki, who was practically nose to nose with Beth as they were arguing with each other.

Mira was off to the side looking both bored and uncomfortable, she was, strangely enough, joined by Letitia as the two of them observed Beth, Niki, and the others going at it.

“Wow.” I said in both horror and shock at the sight and speed with which the other side had fallen apart.

Jackie let out a long and dramatic sigh from beside me.

“I wish I could say this was all Beth’s and the other’s fault, and not Niki, but that would just be ignorant of me.” She said with a mixture of annoyance and sadness. “I just wish she would stop trying to drag Letitia into it.”

Looking at what Jackie had pointed out, Niki did seem to keep trying to prompt Letitia to back her up, but she kept refusing and was growing more and more uncomfortable by the second.

“We both seem to have some troublesome friends, huh.” I offered after watching the scene unfold.

“We do. But, they are still…” Jackie started, but left her sentence unfinished for me to complete.

“Our friends.” I replied, knowing what Jackie seemed to be thinking at that moment.

“Exactly.” She said to me with what looked like a sincere smile. “So, let’s make this quick one and crush them ruthlessly”

‘Ah right, this side of her was also Jackie…’

“Uh, right.” I answered instead.

And so we did, Jackie and I both worked together to organize the others on our team and formed a quick, but coherent strategy to quickly and meticulously destroy the other side.

Beth’s side, however, never really got over their initial infighting. Despite the few precious minutes Coach Philip gave us before we started, they seemed to have spent all of it arguing and not coming to any real agreement on anything as a team.

As bad as Jackie felt for Letitia, I also felt bad for Mira for having to endure all that. At least in Letitia’s case, she had a Niki over there supposedly as her friend, but Mira and Beth were still pretty far away from considering each other friends.

As both teams finally got themselves set up into their respective positions, the atmosphere between the two teams was tense and on edge. Not from any expected contest between two evenly matched opponents, but from the fear and anxiety a wholly unprepared team felt when facing a well-organized and prepared one.

The other team wasn’t stupid, despite how they had acted. They must have seen how we quickly started working together and strategizing while they did the exact opposite. Both sides already knew the outcome before any ball even went into the air.

“Alright, as I side, Jenni, your serve.” Coach Philip said before tossing me a ball.

I got into my position, ball in one hand, my other empty, but also tensed and waiting for the expected sound of Coach Philips's metallic whistle.

*Fwheeeet*

I launched the ball effortlessly up into the air, causing the game to officially start.

And, as expected, it was a quick and brutal match between our two sides. While Coach Philip hadn’t set a point limit, once our team had reached the double digits, and the other side had only barely managed to get one, he only let the game go on for a few more serves before declaring our side the winner.

Some of the girls on our team were cheering and happy to have won, most though, including Jackie and myself, were far more subdued and unexcited about the win. It wasn’t a real challenge, it was a slaughter.

So much so that, I at least, felt bad for Beth and the others. They looked so downcast and almost embarrassed by how they had done. Even Mira, who did her utmost to carry the team with her seemingly natural athleticism, couldn’t shoulder it all by herself.

“Well.” Coach Philip said with a wicked smile on his face. “I had hoped that match would highlight your strengths and weaknesses, but I don’t think you all would go that far to prove me right. Still, I hope you all learned something from that match, however you did.”

“Yeah.” Said a smattering of mumbled voices, Beth included.

“That’s all for practice today, make sure each of you fills out the paperwork I have here for you. You’ll want to get it done now so we can get you all the proper uniforms before any official matches take place.” He said while leaning down to pick up a stack of papers that he began to hand out. Once he had got to me again, he seemed linger for a bit. “Well done today Jennifer.”

“Uh, thanks.” I said uncertainly. One, I didn’t really feel I did anything all that special today. And two, no one calls me Jennifer except my mom sometimes, not even the teachers. It’s either Ms. Morrow, or Jenni.

Maybe it was a small trivial thing, but I’ve known and interacted with Coach Philip since the beginning of freshman year, and he’s never referred to me by my full first name. It was probably unimportant ultimately, but it was still weird.

After all the papers had been handed out and Coach Philip had hurried out of the gym, I made my way over to where Beth and Mira were standing.

One looked annoyed and bored once again, Mira. The other looked profoundly sad and kind of embarrassed, Beth.

“Hey guys.” I offered in greeting, careful to keep my tone both friendly and polite.

“I’m sorry, Jenni.” Beth started without any prompting. Her eyes drifted down to the paper she was holding. “I really shouldn’t have forced you into doing all this.”