Chapter Text
Her phone read exactly 4:37 AM when she picked it up. She had been woken, somewhat rudely, by the muffled crying of her roommate. Ashlyn Harris was not one to meddle in other people's business so instead of pretending to act sincere she rolled over and tried to fall asleep. After all, the second day of soccer try-outs were going to start in 2 hours and 23 minutes and she ached all over from the first day. She was confused and overwhelmed by the amount of information that she had to take in in such little time. Between freshman orientation, a large campus, a new team, and now a crying roommate, Ashlyn wasn't convinced that she was cut out to play for a school as highly regarded as Northfield Mount Hermon. She also wasn't sure if she could handle the pretentiousness that seemed to drip from every surface of the school. From their cafeteria being called "Alumni Hall" to an entire set of dorms set off specifically for freshmen, which was known as "cottage row" to the faculty and "the freshman village" to the students, Ashlyn couldn't help but feel out of place.
As she faded slowly back into sleep, Ashlyn couldn't help but wonder what her roommate was crying about. She, also, was trying out for the soccer team, and she was also trying out to be starting goalkeeper. When Ashlyn had heard this the first time she had not been overly concerned about the competition. The problem was that this lack of concern had come out on the field. Ashlyn had arrived to try-outs on time, which was late in everyone else's eyes, and had not tried hard at all to prove herself on the first day. She had thought that the full scholarship had cemented her place onto the team when, in reality, it was something that could be taken away just as easily as that position. Her roommate should have been thrilled: she had worked harder and possibly even played better than the most talked about recruit in their year. However, it was obvious to Ashlyn, and would have been obvious to anyone else who entered the room, that Noel Greenberg was not thrilled. It was also obvious to Ashlyn that there was absolutely nothing she could do about it, at least not at the present time, so she ignored it and went back to sleep.
When Ashlyn finally woke up the next morning Noel was still asleep. Ashlyn walked over to her and shook her shoulder, trying to be as gentle as she could in waking her up; the last thing she wanted to do was make enemies of the one person she had to deal with the entire year. Noel shuddered and rolled over; her eyes heavy with the sleep she had not been able to get. Upon noticing that Ashlyn was standing directly above her she jumped and squirmed her way to the opposite side of her narrow bed. The reaction seemed a little odd to Ashlyn but she decided not to think about it and continue getting ready. After she came back from brushing her teeth and washing her face, Ashlyn threw on the training outfit that the school had left in her closet: a light blue shirt and black shorts, both neatly marked with NMH Soccer lettering. She stepped into her slides and stuffed her shin guards, cleats, and gloves into a matching NMH soccer bag and headed for the door.
"Thanks for waking me up." Ashlyn nearly jumped at the sound of her voice. In the past couple of days Noel had not said much beyond "hello," and "I'm doing well, how about you."
She had been halfway out the door when she had heard her roommate so she turned around and responded in an unusually quiet voice herself, still taken aback by the acknowledgement of her existence by Noel. "I'll see you in a bit," she muttered as she jogged towards Alumni for breakfast with the optimistic feeling that something new might not be so bad.