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Anya’s fourteen when the first collegiate scout comes to her lacrosse practice. The woman stands there quietly, all color-matched track suit, stopwatch, and clipboard, right next to her coach, who points her out early on and alternates between shouting drills and exchanging words with this strange woman. Anya’s not sure what to make of it, but just continues to play, sinking shot after shot in her daily routine.
That night, her parents receive a phone call from her coach, and they get up from the dinner table to go into her father’s office, leaving Anya and tiny Lexa to finish their meals. Anya wolfs hers down quickly, tiptoeing to press her ear to the door as her little sister pushes her Brussels sprouts around her plate. All she can hear are excited, hushed tones.
Twenty minutes later, as Anya’s sitting in her room doing her homework, her parents come up and sit on her bed. “Anya,” her mother begins, a barely contained smile on her face. “You saw a woman at your practice today, right?”
Anya closes her textbook and sits up perfectly straight as she always has. “Yeah. Was that Coach Tya on the phone?”
Her father places a hand on her shoulder, beaming. “Yes. Yes, it was,” he says. “That woman was a college scout, Anya. And your coach thinks there’s going to be a lot more of them there for you soon.”
Anya’s not 100% sure what this means, but she knows that it’s something good, and so she adopts a smile to match her parents’, and they spend the next hour excitedly attempting to explain college, scholarships, and athletic programs to a high school freshman who’s never wanted anything other than to make her parents proud.
She’s sixteen when she first truly realizes how good she is. Sitting for the Sports Illustrated “Young Athletes” cover shoot, she shifts uncomfortably in the unfamiliar jersey and adjusts her goggles as the photographer shouts instructions. Two weeks after scoring four solo goals in her travel team’s championship game, Anya had received a letter from the magazine, and was here a month later with other young up and coming athletes from across the nation.
At this point, she’s no longer a quiet, confused kid, and understands what an athletics scholarship means for her and her family. Her grades have always been good, but a full ride to a prestigious institution with game tickets for her parents and sister, combined with the possibility of some sort of career in sports, is just perfect. Her parents and Lexa are standing on the other side of the room, waving as Anya finishes her turn, Lexa fiddling with the braids that their mother had so painstakingly woven into her hair.
College reps are there too, and as Anya’s parents begin what is surely to be a long conversation with the coach from Syracuse, Anya joins a circle of her peers in some discussion about Katy Perry. It’s good and it’s fun, and Anya can quickly steer the conversation however she wants. She has them all laughing soon with an anecdote about streaking through a hotel at nationals and crashing into five members of the Cornell men’s lacrosse team, and she’s happy as she sees her parents exchange handshakes out of the corner of her eye.
She’s seventeen when the letter finally comes, in that fancy, blue-emblazoned envelope. Her parents scream and immediately call all of their friends to tell them that their daughter is going to Duke on a full athletic scholarship. Anya texts twelve of her closest friends and accepts a hug from her sister, awkward and gangly for her age, all wide green eyes, trusting and in awe of her big, famous sister.
Her coach calls her a moment later to congratulate her, and she’s on her way to one of the best schools that anyone from Three Rivers High has attended. She still has econ and calc tests to study for, and so she gives each of her parents a huge hug before heading up to her room and burying herself in her books for the rest of the night.
Her first semester passes in a blur, endless conditioning sessions, the occasional party, and the even more occasional boy in her life. She calls her parents three times a week to ensure them that she’s eating right, sleeping well, and, in her mom’s words, still managing to be a kid and have some fun. Lexa’s been given a phone of her own, and they strike up a relatively healthy texting relationship. Suddenly Anya is hearing more and more about some girl named Costia.
The second semester comes all too quickly, and Anya’s traveling every weekend and many of the weekdays, but her teammates are the best friends she’s ever had, and she’s even let a boy stick around for a couple months. She gets elected Senator for her dorm in Student Government, and she always has someone to walk to class with or to grab lunch with in the dining hall. She covers her face in blue paint and takes a night off to join the other Cameron Crazies in celebrating Duke’s success in March Madness, and is working to maintain her perfect 4.0 as she studies for her final exams on April 17th.
On April 17th at 7:32 PM, Anya’s phone rings.
The funeral is quick and simple, planned by people who didn’t even know her parents, figuring that a 19-year-old and a 12-year-old might not be the best resources in this time. Anya sits in the front pew of the church, Lexa grasping her left hand in a death grip and sobbing uncontrollably. Anya herself doesn’t shed a tear.
She doesn’t cry when she climbs up to the podium to deliver their eulogy from a crumpled piece of paper. She tells herself that it’s just another press conference to just another group of faceless reporters. It’s even easier this time, as there’s not the constant flashing lights of cameras or that particular sort of aching limbs after a game. She doesn’t cry as she walks by the two caskets, mercifully closed after the particularly nasty car wreck. She simply sits back down and places her arm around her sister’s shaking shoulders, her cousin Lincoln’s eyes briefly meeting hers as he sits to Lexa’s other side. Her mother’s sister Indra’s normally stony façade shows cracks as she tells some story about a double date gone awry.
Anya doesn’t cry as the last pile of dirt is dropped onto her father’s grave, blinking in the light of the awfully sunny day. She accepts Indra’s hug and Lincoln’s mumbled condolences, his hand mostly covered by his too-large suit, likely a thrift-store purchase for a boy who’s growing far too quickly for his own good. Lexa’s friend Costia is there, and holds Lexa as she cries, until her parents insist that it’s time to go.
Anya and Lexa don’t speak as they drive home, and their footsteps echo through the empty house. Lexa turns to her sister as she closes the door, those same wide green eyes filled with more pain than Anya knew was possible. She opens her mouth as if to speak, but simply gulps instead and makes her way up the stairs.
It’s two hours and a bottle of wine later that Anya cries, in the basement of the house that her parents had worked so hard to buy, muffled sobs into an old blanket that she’d bought them for their fifteenth anniversary.
Anya’s belongings arrive in several boxes a couple of weeks later. Slipped into the box with her bedding is a note from her roommate, expressing how truly sorry she is for Anya’s loss and promising to stay in touch. She places it on her bookcase and doesn’t even bother to unpack the rest of the boxes. She and Lexa will be moving out within the next few weeks into a small apartment a couple of streets down from Indra and Lincoln. With a job or possibly two, Anya can afford it, and she figures she might even be able to keep up with her coursework online at the same time.
Indra’s been a saint throughout the whole process, even offering to take Lexa in so Anya can return to school. Anya knows that Indra can’t afford it though, having just completed a messy divorce with a cheating, drug-dealing husband. Lincoln’s also growing so quickly that Indra can barely keep up with keeping him clothed, and he’s showing enough athletic promise that it’s valuable to involve him in town leagues and the like. As Indra points out, it paid off for Anya. She smiles ruefully at the thought as she pushes aside a long box that could only contain her stick.
Although she’s been able to figure out taxes, insurance, and even already scored a job as a personal trainer at the local gym, Anya can’t really get a hold on cooking. Lexa’s growing, and thankfully her endless appetite isn’t too picky, but even a thirteen-year-old can tell the difference between burnt and properly cooked macaroni. Anya’s tired, and wants nothing more than to simply collapse on the couch and order a pizza, but the bills are piling up, and so she returns to the pasta alfredo recipe in front of her as Lexa enters the room.
The two have not spent much time together over the years, as Anya had constantly been involved in some sport, some academic honor society, or out with friends, and Lexa had grown up quietly and surprisingly without much jealousy in Anya’s shadow. Anya was getting to know her younger sister very quickly. Her favorite food was buttered noodles and she loved science fiction movies and shows. She was definitely going to need braces in a few years, with a huge gap between her two front teeth, and her curly hair was constantly flying wild behind her like a mane. She spent all of her waking time either at school or with her friend Costia, whose calm nature had made her something of a godsend to Anya during the first few weeks. Most importantly, she’s absolutely brilliant, so Anya doesn’t hesitate to make sure that Lexa finishes her homework, stands up straight, and speaks clearly.
She’s still quiet around most, but dear god if it isn’t impossible to get the girl to shut up once she feels comfortable with you. And so Anya is currently being treated to a long story about making flower crowns with Lincoln and Costia, eventually ending with Costia tackling Lincoln into a mud puddle for breaking Lexa’s favorite crown. Anya laughs, stirring the pasta as her sister happily prattles on.
She quickly learns that continuing with online classes at Duke is impossible, and takes a bartending shift at Grounders, the closest bar to their apartment. Although Lexa is pretty much fully grown at fifteen, Anya was right in her assessment of her orthodontic situation, and her continuous encouragement of extracurricular involvement has led to Lexa joining clubs and teams that require costly traveling.
She drives Lincoln, Lexa, and sometimes Costia to school every day, and it’s pretty evident that the latter two are far more than friends. Anya’s not too concerned; she’d had her first boyfriend at fourteen, and Costia is about the best influence that Lexa could have around her. Lincoln’s becoming a bit of a star at Three Rivers himself, making the varsity football team as a freshman. However, Indra’s loving but old-fashioned and somewhat draconian upbringing has left him completely oblivious to the effect that he has on the cadre of adoring girls that he’s seemed to collect.
It’s almost easy, and Anya can see that Lexa’s genuinely happy.
And it’s all the more unbelievable when it happens again, and Lexa’s bawling on the floor, unable to move to the point where Anya is genuinely concerned that she’ll get dehydrated and have to go to the hospital. She’s holding Costia’s favorite sweater as if it’s an extension of her body, and they sit there for three hours until Lexa seems to be out of tears.
This time, they sit in the front pew again, and this time, it’s Lexa who’s unnervingly quiet. The death grip on Anya’s hand is the same, but the green eyes are hard and set. Costia’s parents had asked Lexa to speak, but the words had never come on paper, and Anya doubts that she trusts herself to come up with anything spontaneously. So they sit, and they stand at the graveside, and they drive home, and Lexa walks in the door and meets her sister’s eyes once again. And Anya understands, because she’d shut herself off the same way when their parents died. And so she wordlessly sits Lexa down on the couch, makes a bowl of popcorn, and braids her hair the same way that their mother always had.
Lexa comes back from the Conference that day, hair slightly frazzled, but with a look in her eyes that Anya hadn’t seen in years. And maybe, just maybe, one of them can be all right again.