Offside Read Free Page B

under a few copies of Goal magazine. I rolled over, switched off my overhead lamp, and dropped onto the pillow.
    In my head, the day replayed—every single moment from the time I woke up, through my classes, to warm-ups, to game time—in extreme fast-forward. Every single motion, every image, every sound. I remembered my morning piss had taken twelve seconds longer than the day before and realized I had drunk one extra glass of water with dinner’s spicy salsa. There was the book in my locker with the crushed edge that wouldn’t line up correctly with the others. I remembered the forward player—clearly offside—as his leg swung. I could have stopped it if I had tried. I remembered the angle of the ref’s eyebrow as he wrote me into the book. I remembered the feeling of terry cloth as I slammed into a girl in a hoodie and the slight indentation of her teeth in her lower lip as she stared up at me.
    I shoved the palms of my hands into my eye sockets and rubbed. My head hurt. I rolled over onto my stomach and wrapped my arms around my pillow, burying my face into the Egyptian linen case.

    I downed my homemade lunch with a big bottle of Gatorade before heading out to the practice field to kick the ball around a bit. There wasn’t anyone else out there, so I focused on juggling and ran a couple of laps before hitting the shower. I shook out my hair, yanked my jeans up over my damp legs, and threw on a muscle shirt. The second bell had already rung when I walked out of the locker room, but I didn’t rush. I sauntered into AP Biology and ignored the glare from Mister Bucher as I turned down the aisle to go to my seat.
    The empty seat in front of me where I usually placed my feet was strangely occupied.
    Long, light brown hair covered most of her back and shoulders. She had smooth, porcelain skin, an athletic build, and deep blue eyes. She looked up at me, her teeth sunk into her bottom lip, and I knew immediately who she was. It was the girl I slammed into after I was kicked out of the game on Friday, and she was sitting right in front of my seat.
    I dropped down behind her and leaned forward and to one side so I could look at her better. She tilted her head down, which made her hair drop over her shoulder and hide her face. It kind of pissed me off, actually, though I wasn’t sure why. I reached over and pushed her hair away from her face and back over her shoulder. She looked up at me, eyes wide and sapphire blue.
    “Hey,” I said as I smiled at her.
    “Um…hi,” she replied. She pulled back a little, and her hair dropped away from my fingers. At least it wasn’t hiding her from me anymore.
    “I’m Thomas,” I told her.
    “So I’ve heard,” she said. Her eyes flashed up to Mister Bucher, who was beginning his lecture on blue-green algae.
    “Have you now?” I smirked. I wondered just what she had heard and from whom. “You got a name?”
    “Yes.” She turned to look toward the front of the classroom and narrowed her eyes. She crossed her arms over her chest and stiffened her shoulders.
    I had to laugh.
    “Want to tell me what it is,” I asked, “or do we get to play Rumplestiltskin?”
    A few other games I could play with her flashed through my mind.
    “Malone?” Mister Bucher snapped. I looked up at him. “You care to answer my question?”
    The fucker thought he could trip me up. I blinked a couple of times, hit the mental rewind button in my head, and glanced up at the whiteboard.
    “Oxygen production,” I said with a smile. He huffed and growled something about keeping my eyes up front.
    Whatever.
    I glanced back to the girl in front of me and saw the corners of her mouth turn up a little as if she was holding in a laugh. I shifted my desk forward with a scrape, moving a little closer to her and extending one of my legs so it was right next to her. She looked back at me and then quickly looked away.
    I didn’t reach out to touch her again though it was a little tempting. I kept my leg just