Chapter Text
Autumn had firmly settled over Wiskayok. The vibrant greens of summer were gone, replaced by a landscape of rust and gold. Outside the high school entrance, crisp orange leaves drifted through the air, settling quietly onto the patches of dying, brown grass.
The Yellowjackets, the school’s girls’ soccer team, had just finished their practice. It was easily the most hard session of the season so far.
The air was thick with the scent of damp earth and sweat, and the players’ exhaustion was visible from across the field. Their movements were heavy, burdened by hours of sprinting and drills.
One by one, the girls collapsed onto the wooden benches.
“I can’t feel my legs,” Taissa muttered after a
long silence. She leaned her head back against the locker, closing her eyes as if the mere act of keeping them open required too much energy.
In the locker room, a small group remained while the others headed for the showers.
The atmosphere was heavy. Several girls turned their attention toward Natalie. The blonde was leaning against one of the dented blue lockers, her gaze fixed on the floor. A faint, almost invisible smile played on her lips.
Nat had been holding her words back all day, biting her tongue through every drill. But now, the timing felt right. Only the inner circle was left: Jackie, Tai, Van, and Shauna.
“Did you notice how strange Lottie was today?” Natalie asked. Her voice carried her usual sharp, sarcastic edge.
Everyone knows that Natalie and Lottie didn’t get along. Their relationship was a constant cycle of friction and narrow-eyed glares. They argued over the smallest details, creating a jagged tension that usually fell on Jackie’s shoulders to fix.
Their personalities were fundamental opposites. Natalie was loud, rebellious, and raw. Lottie was quiet and distant, often seeming as though she were hiding a secret that Natalie was determined to uncover.
“I think she was the same as always. You know how she is,” Van replied casually. She grabbed her towel and started walking toward the shower stalls, unfazed by the gossip.
“I think she’s weird,” Natalie countered, her voice getting louder. “A complete psychotic freak.”
Tai let out a short, ironic laugh, but Jackie’s reaction was different. She looked at Natalie with clear disapproval. Shauna, feeling the discomfort in the room, quickly looked away, suddenly very interested in her gym bag.
“Nat, seriously, stop,” Jackie said, her tone firm as she tried to maintain some semblance of team unity. “Lottie is just… in her own world. Besides, she played very well today. Her passes were incredible.”
Natalie let out a dry, humorless laugh. She pushed herself away from the locker and crossed her arms over her chest, a single strand of platinum-blonde hair falling over her forehead.
“Oh, sure. She plays great. If by ‘great’ you mean staring at the woods for five minutes like a maniac,” Natalie snapped, her smile widening into a smirk. “Didn’t anyone else see that? She is completely gone.”
Shauna, who had been struggling with a knot in her laces, finally looked up. She exchanged a quick glance with Jackie, one of those silent conversations that only the two of them could truly understand.
“Maybe she is just under a lot of pressure, Nat,” Shauna said softly. “Her parents are… well, you know how they are. They have high expectations for everything she does.”
“It’s not pressure, Shauna. It’s something else,” Natalie insisted. She lowered her voice, making the accusation feel more personal.
Before anyone could respond, the atmosphere in the room shifted. Lottie stepped out from behind a row of lockers, where she had evidently been standing the whole time. A heavy, suffocating silence filled the room.
Lottie walked toward the locker right next to Natalie. She didn’t say a word. She grabbed her bag and then turned to Natalie with a stare so cold it felt like ice. She slammed her locker door shut with a violent bang that made the blonde jump.
Without breaking eye contact for even a second, Lottie walked away. Her slow, deliberate exit left Natalie feeling exposed and deeply uncomfortable.
“I think you messed up,” Tai whispered into the silence.
...
How dare she?
Back in her bedroom, Lottie was trembling. How dare that girl, that drug addict, make fun of her? What gave Natalie Scatorccio the right to judge anyone?
In a sudden burst of rage, Lottie grabbed the plush pillows from her pink bed and hurled them across the room. One hit her vanity, knocking over a picture frame.
The glass hit the floor and shattered into a hundred jagged pieces. Lottie stood frozen, watching as the photograph inside began to bend and tear under the weight of the shards.
Did she hate Natalie? The answer was immediate: Yes. She hated everything about her: the ridiculous bleached hair, the rebellious attitude, and that smug, annoying smile that seemed to mock everyone.
Lottie clenched her fists so hard her knuckles turned white. They wouldn't stop shaking. She wasn't sure if it was pure anger or something deeper and more frightening.
To stop herself from screaming, she pressed her face into a pillow.
She made a vow right then: she was never going to speak to Natalie again. If there had been a spark of dislike before, it had grown into a forest fire of hatred. Even if it was just a childish reaction from a bruised ego, it felt permanent in the heat of the moment.
A week passed. The tension between Scatorccio and Matthews didn't fade; it became the new normal. The team grew used to the long, awkward silences and the way the two girls moved around each other like magnets with the same polarity.
On the field, Lottie was a machine. She played with a level of focus the team had never seen befor, she seemed entirely locked into the game.
During one play, Natalie found herself with the ball. She saw Lottie wide open, in a perfect position to score.
For a split second, Natalie hesitated. That tiny moment of doubt was enough, a defender swooped in and stole the ball.
“Nat!” Tai shouted, frustrated.
Lottie didn't react. She didn't yell or roll her eyes. She simply turned and ran back to her defensive position.
That silence irritated Natalie more than a screaming match ever could.
Later in the game, Matthews got the ball in the midfield. Natalie took off, sprinting down the left side, completely unguarded.
“Here!” Nat screamed, waving her arms.
For a heartbeat, their eyes met across the grass. Lottie looked right at her.
Then, deliberately, Lottie turned her body away. She looked for Gen on the far side of the field and attempted a difficult pass.
The pass was intercepted. The play died.
The referee’s whistle blew, signaling the end of the game.
Natalie stayed where she was, chest heaving, breathing hard. It wasn't just a tactical error. It was intentional, and Natalie felt the sting of it in her gut.
After they had packed up, Natalie caught up to Lottie in the school yard.
“What the hell was that?” Natalie yelled, stepping into Lottie’s path.
Lottie didn't even slow down. She reached down, picked up her jacket from the grass, and kept moving.
“Are you going to keep ignoring me?” Natalie asked, her voice rising.
“Not everything is about you, you know?" Lottie said. She didn't turn her head, only glancing at Natalie from the corner of her eye with total indifference.
Natalie wanted to scream. The frustration was bubbling up inside her, and she couldn't explain why it bothered her so much.
The fact that Lottie wouldn't even give her a real look burned. It was a ridiculous feeling, but it was there, hot and heavy in her chest.
She needed an escape. Fast.
Friday night arrived, cold and quiet. Natalie sat on the edge of her roof, a cigarette pressed between her lips.
She stared out into the darkness, watching the silhouettes of the trees against the dim light of the town.
Maybe she was being too dramatic. But she knew herself, she was far too proud to admit that Lottie was getting under her skin.
Natalie exhaled, watching the smoke rise and vanish into the low, grey clouds. Natalie flicked the ash away and leaned her head back against the cold tiles of the roof. The wind caught her messy, bleached hair, blowing it across her face
She closed her eyes, but there was no peace. Natalie felt empty. There was a hollow sensation in her chest, and the nightmares, the ones she tried so hard to forget, were starting to return.
And she couldn't stop thinking about Lottie.
She kept replaying the moment in the locker room. Lottie's refusal to speak to her made Natalie feel like a ghost, a stranger in her own life. Maybe she had truly hurt Lottie’s pride. Or maybe Lottie was dealing with her own demons, and that was why she was so distant.
“Whatever…” she muttered. But the word lacked its usual bite.
Natalie carefully climbed back down from the roof, sliding through her bedroom window with practiced ease. She landed silently on the carpet, sitting there for a moment with her back against the wall. The house was deathly quiet.
It was too quiet.
She stood up and moved through the shadows of her room. She pulled a black shirt from her desk drawer and changed quickly. She avoided the mirror; she didn't want to see the exhaustion in her eyes. What she felt internally was already more than she could handle.
She thought about the plan for the night: Randy’s party.
She could already hear it in her mind: the thumping music, the mindless laughter, the red plastic cups filled with cheap alcohol. She needed the noise. She needed something loud enough to drown out the echo of Lottie slamming that locker door.
“Damn it,” she hissed, tugging her clothes into place.
She walked to her vanity and picked up a black eyeliner pencil. She drew thick, messy lines around her eyes, using the makeup like armor to hide the dark circles from her lack of sleep.
Why did she care? Lottie had always been “the weird one,” the rich girl who didn't fit in. But this week, Lottie’s silence felt like a heavy weight, like a silent judgment she couldn't escape.
Natalie crept down the stairs, stepping over the boards she knew would creak. She had the path memorized to avoid waking her mother.
At the front door, she paused. The air sneaking through the frame was freezing. The street outside was a graveyard of orange leaves. She grabbed her keys and headed to her car an old, beat up vehicle that had seen better days. It took a few tries, the engine coughing and sputtering, before it finally roared to life, scattering dry leaves across the driveway.
As she sat in the idling car, a memory surfaced.
The tension hadn't started with a comment in the locker room. The first real clash between them had been about soccer.
It was during tryouts for the starting midfielder position. There was only one spot left on the roster. The coach had been blunt: “The best one gets it.”
Natalie had assumed the spot was hers. She was fast, she was aggressive, and she had the attitude of a winner. She didn't think anyone else was even close to her level.
Until Lottie Matthews stepped into the line next to her.
Lottie looked perfect: her uniform was spotless, her posture was straight, and she was completely silent.
“You’re going for it too?” Natalie had asked, tilting her head with a challenging smirk.
“Yes,” Lottie had answered. Simple. Short.
There was no smile, no return challenge. It was that lack of reaction that had first started to irritate Natalie.
During the drills, Natalie went first. She was a blur of motion, dribbling past two defenders with ease and sending a perfect long ball down the field. She heard the other girls whistle, she felt admiration.
Then it was Lottie’s turn.
Lottie didn't have Natalie’s explosive speed. she didn't shout directions or flash her skills. But she moved with a strange, quiet intelligence.
She saw an opening that no one else noticed, a tiny gap between three defenders. With a flick of her foot, she sent a precise through-pass. It led directly to a goal.
Natalie’s jaw tightened.
In the next play, they both went for a loose ball. It was a collision of bone and muscle. Neither girl backed down, shoulder slamming into shoulder until they both tumbled to the grass.
“Watch where you’re going,” Natalie had growled, wiping dirt from her face.
“I’m exactly where I need to be,” Lottie replied. She was already back on her feet, looking down at Natalie.
Sitting in her car now, the memory felt small and ridiculous. Natalie shook her head and put the car in gear. She needed to get to that party. She needed to drink enough to forget the grass, the ball, and the girl who wouldn't look at her.