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Zari carefully adjusts her umbrella until it’s covering both her and John. This was definitely the wrong place to wear a pair of her good boots to. The soccer field is soaked with rain and the dark clouds above them promise that it won’t be stopping soon.
No one else seems to notice the clouds or the rain, or even the cold. The teams of teenage girls run back and forth across the field, their cleats churning up the mud. Zari can pick Lita out easily. Her red hair is tied back in a ponytail and she’s the fastest on the field, slipping around the other players with an ease that makes Zari wonder if she’s ever thought of taking dance lessons. Maybe she already does. Zari has barely had two conversations with Lita that the girl remembers.
If Ali thinks that their little group is strange, she hasn’t let on about it. She’s passed a couple of thermoses around a couple of times. One has coffee and the other hot chocolate. She’s currently on the edge of her seat. She still has a thermos in one hand but it’s been getting rain in it for the last five minutes.
The rest of the team, bundled up against the cold weather, huddle together on the bleachers, keeping a careful distance from the other families and friends here to watch people play. Mick’s sitting on the bottom level with Ali, Nate, and Ava. Ava and Nate have spent the game shouting louder than anyone else. Mick waves or shakes them off whenever they shout or grab at him—which is any time that Lita or a member of her team scores. Behrad is trying to explain the rules to Astra. Astra is either listening or envying the girls on the field.
Ava has an umbrella but she’s holding it more over the empty space behind her than herself. Astra has her hood pulled up and keeps casting wary looks at the clouds overhead as the rain threatens to get heavier.
Everything’s a little bit too much today. Like Nate and Ava think that if they scream loudly enough, they’ll be able to forget the spaces on the bench where the people they love should sit. If Zari plays along with this family thing, she’ll be able to forget the other version of herself that’s in that totem. If Behrad teaches Astra about this game, he’ll be able to forget that he’s died twice. If Astra focuses on the game, she’ll be able to forget Hell.
The reality hangs over them all. It’s darker than any cloud.
“And it’s Reed-Rory in possession,” John says dramatically, just loud enough for Zari to hear him, “to seven and twelve and back to Reed-Rory. She—”
Zari elbows him in the ribs, lightly enough that it doesn’t hurt, but enough to shut him up for a few seconds while he tries not to laugh too loudly. It’s long enough for Lita to score a goal and for her team’s supporters to erupt in shouts just as the final whistle blows.
“Did you see that?” Ava screams, hitting Mick’s arm hard enough that he edges a little closer to Behrad. “Did you see that? That was awesome!”
“I saw it,” Mick barely manages to shake Ava off before Lita’s beside him, throwing her arms around him and then her mom. “Nice game,” he says. It’s barely audible over the patter of the rain on the wood and the mud and the grass.
Lita’s covered in mud from her cleats – which were red at one point – to a smudge of it across her forehead, but she’s grinning. She doesn’t seem to feel the cold or notice the rain at all.
“Oh, really?” Zari asks when Lita gets to her after hugging Ava, high-fiving Nate and Behrad and Astra, and almost knocking John over with the force of her high-five for him. But she lets the girl hug her, wincing at the mud that she can almost feel smearing on to her clothes.
Lita pulls away and jumps down the bleachers, her smile still wide. “You guys are coming for pizza with us, right?”
“Only if we all pay. I’m not feeding everyone,” Ali says as she pours the (now cold and half rain) hot chocolate out between the gaps in bleachers.